An Uncomfortable Feeling

Nagasaki. It’s the place we’d all been waiting for. We did lots of sight-seeing in the area but it was the Atomic Bomb Museum, Ground Zero, and Peace Park that really brought us here. We traveled with a group of like-minded fellow travelers that have become friends over the past few weeks. We compared our thoughts at the end and were surprisingly in agreement.

It was a somber place but not like, let’s say, the Viet Nam Memorial in DC. or the 9-11 Memorial in NYC. It was noisy and had lots of smiling Japanese (I assume, Japanese) tourists in front of the monuments depicting war. The respect just wasn’t evident there. Then, the story told, from the history we Americans seem to share, is lacking. Perhaps the purpose of the museum is to vividly display the atrocities of the bomb in Nagasaki. That, it did. The museum would lead one to believe the bomb was dropped unprovoked. There was no mention, for example, of Pearl Harbor, no mention of the Japanese refusal to surrender after Hiroshima and inflated death toll numbers were posted. One plaque stated that the bomb may have brought an early end to WW II but another reason for the drop was to test the success of the expensive Manhattan Project. OK. That’s enough. I’ll stop. This was a dark time in History. It’s just that most peace memorials bring feelings of compassion, hope, and remembrance of lives lost. This did not.

Other sights of the day include a visit to Dejima, a 1600s Dutch village, a visit to the lantern festival and a great lunch in the downtown area. Once again, we had some authentic Japanese food including miso soup, rice, pork, tempura and some unusual vegetables.

This is a place I hope to return to and have more time to dig deeper!