The Four Pigeons of Nagasaki

In Nagasaki’s ‘Hypocentre Park’, near the ground zero of the dropping of the second atomic bomb, is an austere black marble box containing the names of the more than 200,000 victims of the attack 80 years ago.

Standing next to the box, my guide Yuki Kato, a 38-year-old literature and languages graduate who has written two novels, had a story to tell me that epitomised everything that is wrong with contemporary tourism. 

It turns out the monument - essentially a mass shrine for hundreds of thousands of war dead - has become a favourite of the instagram generation (one that encompasses all ages, including my own), a place for people to literally sit on so they can tick another item off their global travel bucket-list. 

While I expressed horror on hearing of this uncivilized and disrespectful behaviour, the diplomatic and charitable Yuki was keen to add that many of these people would have been without guides and perhaps did not realise the significance of the monument - a black obelisk atop what looks like a large coffin at the precise place the bomb fell.

It seems hard to believe that tourists who religiously use Google Translate at Japanese restaurants could not read this.

Inscribed on the box in Japanese (and easily translatable using the Google Translate app) are the words ‘Names of the atomic bomb victims and the number of those enshrined - 201,942 people as of August 9, 2020’. That the selfie-generating hordes couldn’t work that meaning out left me feeling just a little incredulous.

Aside from my revulsion at this example of the grasping crudity of modern tourism, the anecdote symbolised how the word ‘story’ that forms part of the bigger word ‘history’ is being lost in a globalised culture that venerates surface and visuals above context and meaning.

The unfortunate fact is many tourists today just see the world as a backdrop for their own lives, a sort of social media movie set. There is little understanding, or indeed interest, in the circumstances that led to the monuments and memorials and landmarks they collect as selfies like former generations amassed stamps or of the real human stories behind the textbook history.

Throughout her four-hour tour, which she had organised and researched impeccably, Yuki supplied the sort context that connected the past with the present - not just about the historic horrors of the bombing, but the frustrations in today’s Nagasaki with degraded infrastructure, the loss of young people to other parts of Japan offering greater opportunity and the need to create something new and creative. 

In other words, this city of 400,000 should not be reduced to being just a mandatory stop on the Japan tourist itinerary - a kind of mausoleum Disney-world to mankind’s inhumanity. Nagasaki has many great stories to tell other than the awful destruction of one event at 11.02am on the morning of August 9, 1945.

Indeed, the great value of Yuki’s tour was in showing me the resilience and humour and hopefulness of today’s Nagasaki - the shy and brilliant chef at the Asajiro restaurant who gave us a free plate of sushi, the story of her boyfriend trying to find his way into politics to make positive change in the world, the story of her 75-year-old mother who just gets on with it despite being left in a wheelchair after being hit by a car nine years ago. And, of course, the story of Yuki herself - a writer, a researcher, local historian, linguist, craftswoman and a rare figure who is able to see how all the bits fit together.

The bomb 80 years ago demonstrated many things - the amorality of science, the cynicism of political leaders, the inhumanity of man - but it also revealed the resilience, patience and decency of the Japanese people, their deep love of their own culture and their wish for peace and justice in the wider world.

In one stop on our tour, Yuki connected the dots of history for me and left me with a story of hope as well as sadness.

Yuki Kato, my guide in Nagasaki, explains her theory behind Japan’s statue of two children with four pigeons.

A Japanese memorial statue in Peace Park shows two children surrounded by four pigeons. In Yuki’s telling, the first pigeon represents the past, the second the present and the third the future. But it is the fourth pigeon, the one feasting on a piece of bread, that is most important. That pigeon, in her view, represents the services that people need to exist with dignity - affordable housing, health, education and opportunity that makes life worth living.

Yes, we need peace. But we also need justice. And without the latter, the former will always be out of reach.

In the meantime, it’s back to ‘Your 10 Must-Sees in 48 Hours in Japan’.

You can book a private tour of Nagasaki with Yuki Kato on her website here.