Hiroshima: Love and memory

In World War II, Japan was the enemy. The United States led the war in liberating countries like China and the rest of Southeast Asia including the Philippines that resisted Japanese conquest.

This has changed. Today Japan is the friend. The United States, Japan and the Philippines are staunch allies against rising China’s hegemony in the region. Against this background there is something surreal about Japanese Ambassador Urabe apologizing for atrocities committed during that war. Or even stranger still is the possibility that China and Russia will close ranks with North Korea in its nuclear adventures in the region.

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But that is what life is about. It will not be life if there were no change. The question is how to deal with the casualties of change.

Lately I find myself watching Hiroshima Mon Amour not once but many times. It is a story about love and memory. A Japanese falls in love with a French woman who was in Hiroshima to do a film. The two fall in love and converse about Hiroshima. There are flashbacks about her love for a German soldier while she was young in Nevers, France. She was ostracized and made to suffer for having loved the “enemy.” The German was killed before they could run away and start a new life together.

She fears a personal Hiroshima was happening all over again to their affair. No matter how many innocent people suffered with the bombing of Hiroshima, the most horrific act of war is already forgotten. Forgetting is far more real than we think. That may be a tragedy but it is also a boon. The Hiroshima lovers were happily married and would go home to their own lives but they wanted to be together even for a few days. She says of what use was it when in a few days she would be gone and soon be thousands of miles away. What would be the point of loving each other so intensely only to forget?

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So much for Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour. It could be the allegory for the bigger political picture. The Japan that made so many Filipinos suffer has been the country’s top donor for decades. It could rightly be said its ODA is indispensable to the country’s development.

More recently, Japan sent emergency assistance of P14 million (Y25 million) for the victims of tropical storm Sendong even while still immersed in the throes of the worst earthquake and tsunami it has experienced in recent years and the tragedy of the Fukushima nuclear plant.

In a statement the Japanese embassy said this is “aimed at alleviating the difficulties of the victims, the assistance comes in the form of relief goods such as water tanks, generators, and other relief items.”

Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba sent his condolences and sympathy to those who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

Life and its essential duality move on. There may have been past hurts but there also was Japan’s kindnesses.

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Recently, my son brought his family to Kyoto and Osaka and he rhapsodized about its beauty.

“One of the most beautiful places I have ever been to,” he wrote on the lake view of Tenryuji Temple, Arashimaya, Japan. There were pictures of his wife and children in the bamboo forest. They experienced life in a ryokan in Kyoto, sleeping on tatami in bedrooms secured only by sliding doors but with high tech toilets you better know which button to press for what. 

Japanese culture is indeed unique in its capacity to retain its ancient traditions while leaping into modernity.

They were scheduled to go to Japan when the earthquake and tsunami struck and were forced to postpone their trip. Last week when they had finalized plans for the second attempt to go to Osaka and Kyoto, a typhoon struck causing deaths, havoc with air travel schedules and cancelled trains.

But my son refused to be intimidated by the news. Typhoon or no typhoon they were on their way. All the dire warnings proved wrong and thank you very much they had a very pleasant time.

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Now is the time to go to Japan, says Pico Iyer, an author living in Japan. As a long time resident in the country he wrote in the New York Times:

“The quiet amplitude that is one of the special graces of Japan has a new resonance this year.

On the surface, the country that greets someone arriving from San Francisco or New York tomorrow is startlingly similar to the place you would have seen two years ago, despite last year’s catastrophe. But deep down, Japan seems more vulnerable, and thus more wide open, than ever.”

Iyer can see this because he knows the Japanese more than a casual visitor. Still it is something to ponder — the immediate contradiction of a strong and resilient people who can be also vulnerable.

The tragedy that struck Japan also “highlighted the resilience, self-possession and community-mindedness that are so striking in Japan.”

“Suddenly, the country that had seemed to insist on its difference from the rest of the world could be seen in its more human, compassionate and brave dimensions. Japan has long been what the globally savvy magazine Monocle called, “The World’s Most Charming Nation”; now it is also one of those most grateful for visitors.

And for those who still fear Fukushima, it has special four- or six-day excursions to the places of beauty near the center of last year’s tragedy, among them the classic island-dotted bay around Matsushima and the World Heritage site temples of Hiraizumi.” (CNP: The Japanese Embassy decided to promote Yamagata, a part of Tohoku region, as a tourist destination, says Shinsuke Shimizu, head of the chancery. For the memorable Japan Night in Dusit, it invited Yamagata Maiko, instead of Kyoto Maiko).

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I am the lucky recipient of tickets from Consolidated Gold Fields and Embassy of South Africa for the world-renowned Cirque Mother Africa. It is the first time they will perform in Manila. We know so little of that part of the world in this country so the show will be a good first step to begin the journey.

“The heartbeat of Africa pulsates throughout the jaw-dropping show as the musicians and artistes articulate their passion and love for their homeland including Ethiopia, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Benin, Zimbabwe, and Guinea,” says a blurb.

The show is from April 19 to 22 at the Newport Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila.