Today I had a field trip to the Osaka Peace Museum (or “Peace Osaka”).  It was great; short but great (much like yours truly).  This was a field trip for my Pacific Rivalry class i’m studying at Kansai Gaidai.  A class dedicated to, you guessed it: Rivalry in the Pacific – think WWII.

So this morning I got up at 7am, snoozed till 7:45, showered, lazed around, and was on a bus to Hirakata station at 9:23.  There i met up with Annie for coffee, who is now a very special person to me: she was there when i lost my Starbucks virginity to a White Chocolate Mocha.  She made the experience as easy and as comfortable as possible – oh and so did the delicious White Chocolate Mocha. YUMMMMMMM!

After Coffee, Annie and I met up with the rest of our classmates waiting with our Professor on the train Platform.  We nabbed the express train to Kyobashi Station, all the way discussing whether or not President Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize or not.  (*cough*no*cough* … … well at least not yet anyway).  From there we jumped onto the Osaka Loop Line, clockwise, 2 stops to Morinomiya Station and walked about 5 minutes to Peace Osaka.

After paying the ridiculously overpriced entry fee of 200 yen ($2.50 Aussie) we proceeded in.

We need some background:
Ok so what IS Osaka Peace Museum? Well, in Australia, or the USA, or most likely YOU’RE country (wherever you’re from Mr./Ms. Blog Reader) such a museum would be called a “War Museum”.  But not Japan, it’s a “Peace Museum” here.

Japan used to be a warring nation.  They were brutal, wreaking all sorts of havoc on the Asian/Pacific region since around the mid 1800′s me thing…  However, come August 15, 1945, Japan lost in WWII.  On the day, the Japanese Emperor announced over the radio that the war was over, and that Japan had lost.

And since then, Japan actually no longer has a Military.  I *think* they have a dodgy defence force that wouldn’t hold out an attack on them.  Japan pretty much went all hippy on our asses and are now lovers, and not fighters.  They actually rely on the USA to defend them – really!  USA must defend Japan if they are under attack!

So yeah, enough of the lecture, i went to Peace Osaka.

In it were testimonials of victims of air raids (sheesh the American’s liked to use Napalm…), also artifacts that were retrieved from the war were on display.  Along with video’s and artwork depicting how horrible the war was.  It was quite gloomy, interesting and exciting all at the same time. Unfortunately I couldn’t take photo’s! Blaaah!

At 11:30am, Professor Scott asked us to come down to this big theatre room where a 20 minute video was going to be shown.  It was just us students in the room.  Eventually a lovely little anime cartoon began, with dodgy music and a cheerful family – all in Japanese so i couldn’t understand a word… ok I understood like 15 words in the entire video.

It started out with a family that had gone for a picnic thingy in a park in Osaka somewhere.  The mum (I think her name was Sachiko? It is now!) says something about the family being very “lucky” to be there, the kid asks why, and a flashback begins.  It’s Japan in 1945.  Sachiko is 6 years old, picking “edible weeds” with her mum.  All is fine and dandy, but then! The sirens sound, Planes fly by and Incendiary Bombs are dropped on everything.  The family try and escape, people are getting burnt alive, there’s death everywhere but the family manages to survive.  but wait! Another siren! More planes, more bombs, more people dieing, including Sachiko’s little brother/sister (can’t remember if it was a boy or a girl… or both, i’m not here to judge) who died whilst strapped to Sachiko’s mother’s back.  Sachiko ends up losing an arm. Hiroshima and Nagasaki get bombed.  Japan got smashed.

Oh btw, this clip was made for all the young school kids (like, 10 year olds) that come to the museum for field trips – our class (like, 20 year olds) pretty much sat there in shock at the gruesome-ness of the film.  Wasn’t that easy to stomach really.

Throughout the entire museum, not once, anywhere, were the USA, or anyone else named to be the enemies.  Even the video we watched had fighter planes dropping Incendiary bombs – but not once did they mention the enemy by name.  Because the enemy wasn’t a country, or person – it was War itself.  By the way, the VERY first sentence I read on a plaque thing upon entry was:

“Japanese People were responsible for having caused great hardships on the peoples of Asian and Pacific regions, the battlefields of the 15 year war which ended on August 15, 1945″

…Admitting it is always the first step.  Allow me to paraphrase:

Japan: “We did bad things”.

Ciao for Now!