Kimigayo

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
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beekay
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Kimigayo

Post by beekay » June 30th, 2017, 8:47 pm

I was born into war From my earliest memories of Pearl Harbor as a two-year old child to the Japanese surrender in 1945. During the four years in between, like every other American, child or adult, I was immersed in all of the media events and motion pictures that basically described the Japanese people as evil beings who were trying to kill my father and grandfather, both of who were fighting in the Pacific. It was a belief that was deeply ingrained for several years and faded only slightly afterwards.

Then, in 1950, the Korean War began and we had new targets for our anger, and my hatred of the Japanese began to fade away. But not entirely. In 1951, my father was rotated out of Korea to a new post - in Nagoya, Japan. He made arrangements for my mother and me to join him there.

I didn't know how to feel. It was difficult enough for a twelve-year old boy to consider the the stress of moving to a foreign country. But, Japan? I began feeling a resurgence of the old hatred.

That is how in the spring of 1952, I found myself standing on the second floor of a newly constructed administrative building, jointly used by both the US and Japanese governments. I'm not sure why I was there. I was in a second floor balcony overlooking a large auditoriuim which served both as a meeting house and movie theater. While I was watching, about a hundred former Japanese soldiers filed in, many still wearing time-worn uniforms. My blood began to run cold, but I resisted the urge to run.

Then, without introduction, these former enemies began, almost in perfect unison, to sing the Kimigayo, which is, technically, the national anthem of Japan but is, more accurately, a hymn to the Japanese emporer dating back several centuries.

And that's when it all changed. The hymn was not one of victory or pride, but full of pain, regret, humility, and sorrow. By the end of the hymn, every vestige of hatred that had lingered in me after the war, was gone.

A few weeks later, I was browsing around a small village near where the American dependents war quartered. One of the stalls was a small shooting gallery. The weapons were old single-shot pellet guns. The targes were dinner plates, saucers, and other kinds of crockery. The gallery was run by an old Japanese man, still wearing part of his army uniform..

I decided to try the gallery out. The old man spoke no English, and I spoke no Japanese. Somehow, he managed to show me how to load the pellet gun, aim and press the trigger.
On my first shot, the saucer shattered. The old man grinned, and I grinned back.

We were friends.

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sasha
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Re: Kimigayo

Post by sasha » July 17th, 2017, 1:16 pm

When we finally realize how much we have in common with our "enemies", it's hard not to think of them as friends. Laughter, food, music - we're all one people sharing a small blue marble...
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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mnaz
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Re: Kimigayo

Post by mnaz » July 23rd, 2017, 9:16 am

The dehumanizing of humanity. John Wayne movies notwithstanding. Not to say that WAR doesn't have its own class and art, because obviously it does.

I've met a couple of ww2 vets, and it wasn't hard for me to imagine at least one of them telling Hollywood to piss off...

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