Live in Hiroshima

People in Glasgow will have a unique opportunity to hear a survivor of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima in a live link with the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum on Tuesday 1 November.
From 10am till 11.30am the link will be open between Glasgow University’s Interfaith Chapel (entered off  The Square on campus) and the Hiroshima which was incinerated on August 6, 1945 when between 90,000 and 166,000 people died.
The live conversation is free and open to the public. It will launch the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bombs Photo Exhibition.  This exhibition will run till the January 31, 2012. The person who will be interviewed in the live link is Mr Keijiro Matsushima, a retired Head Teacher of a junior high school who was 16 when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
The exhibition is organised by Japan Desk Scotland, with financial support from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Earlier this year the Japan Desk Scotland held a highly successful exhibition in the Mitchell Library showing the story of Sadako A Girl from Hiroshima. During the course of that exhibition, people were invited to learn to make paper cranes using origami – the paper folding art form. Those cranes were sent to the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima which receives around a million a year from people around the world who reflect on the terrible time when that city and Nagasaki were destroyed by atomic bombs. That exhibition was visited by the Consul General of Japan in Edinburgh, Mr Masataka Tarahara.
The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum coordinates international public engagement on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For further information, please contact Japan Desk Scotland at japandeskscotland@googlemail.com

Hiroshima exhibition produces peace cranes

Simply folding paper to make a pretty bird shape, is a gentle therapy that has been enjoyed in the Mitchell Library every weekday lunchtime during August. But the Japanese art form, called origami, is the perfect introduction to the story of Hiroshima and the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped there on August 1945.

A clear poster board exhibition tells the story of Sadako, a girl who was two when the bomb was dropped on her city. She was diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of 11 and died a year later another victim of the atrocity.

Sadako folded paper cranes in her final days and knew the ancient Japanese legend that a wish will come true if a person folds 1000 paper cranes. First, her classmates, and then the wider world raised a monument to peace in her honour and to recognise all the children who died in Hiroshima. Today, the Children’s Peace monument in Hiroshima attracts 10 million paper cranes made by people around the world as they remember the horror of that holocaust and plead for peace. Some of them will come from the Glasgow Origami sessions in the Mitchell Library.

The Gareloch Horticulturalists – a women’s Peace Group – were some of the many people who learned on the wing and folded some origami cranes. Their instructor was Yushin Toda, who patiently showed what to do.

Recently honoured by his country for the work he and his wife Fumi Nakabachi have done in Scotland to promote the culture of Japan, he was visited by Mr Masataka Tarahara the Consul General of Japan in Edinburgh who viewed the exhibition.

Said Yushin: ‘ It is not the number of people who have visited that is important. It is the fact that people have met together to see the exhibition and make the paper cranes and think about the issues, that matters. People from all over the world have visited the exhibition. One man from Australia, whose mother is an Origami artist, was able to fold cranes without hesitation.’

A business development manager, Yushin was particularly appreciative that someone left a facsimile edition of the Edinburgh Evening Dispatch newspaper dated 8 August 1945 describing Hiroshima as ‘a disastrous ruin’ and how ‘all living things have been seared to death.’

More than 300,000 people were literally burned to a cinder in the seconds of the atomic blast. And over the years, as with little Sadako, many thousands of others suffered from the after effects.

In a book left for visitors at the exhibition to record their reactions, one person wrote:

‘How shaming it is that now we know all the horrific effects of nuclear weapons use, we still have Trident, the British nuclear weapon at Faslane Naval base near Glasgow. It is illegal under international law, as well as being unethical. The majority of Scottish people do not want it on our soil or anywhere else.’

Some people placed candle lanterns on the water at Faslane on 6 August this year to mark Hiroshima Day.

The exhibition, organised by Japan Desk Scotland,  ran at the North Door exhibition hall of the Mitchell Library till the end of August. It was supported financially by Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

Japan Desk Scotland will set up a ‘Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Photo Exhibition’ at Glasgow University Chapel from Tuesday 1 November 2011 till 31 January 2012.

 

Peaceful art of origami remembers Hiroshima

The art of Origami – paper folding – will be shared at the Mitchell Library in a poignant tribute to those who died from the outfall of the atomic bombs which hit Japan in 1945 and to the wish for global peace which followed.

Organised by Japan Desk Scotland in the Library’s main hall at North Street, Glasgow, G3 7DN, an exhibition about a little girl who was one of the victims will be shown. And at 12.30 week day from Saturday 30 July to Friday 26 August, visitors will be invited to learn how to make a paper crane. This highlights the theme of the exhibition ‘Sadako and the Paper Cranes – a girl from Hiroshima.

There is a Japanese legend ‘fold 1000 paper cranes and your wish will come true.’ This is what little Sadako was doing before she died in 1955 aged twelve from leukaemia. She had been two when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Her classmates campaigned to create a monument for her and other children who had died from the outfall from the atomic bomb. The Children’s Peace Monument was completed in 1958 in the city. Now, more than 10 million paper cranes are sent to the Monument every year from around the world. This year, thanks to the discreet work of two Japanese Glaswegians, Yushin Toda and Fumi Nakabachi, the Japan Desk Scotland aims to send cranes, folded in Glasgow at this exhibition, to the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima.

Supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Consulate General of Japan in Edinburgh, the event will display posters from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. For further information email: japandeskscotland@googlemail.com