Ron Rosenbaum ponders over Hiroshima in Slate:
My Amex itinerary listed my room in the Hotel Hiroshima this way: "1 KING BED SMOKING CITY." SMOKING CITY! Turns out "CITY" was shorthand for "city view." But do I need to spell out why I find the name Hotel Hiroshima so resonant? Sure, you hate the Eagles. It’s practically a cultural requirement that you do (sometimes I think everybody but me does, but then again, the Eagles seem to sell a lot of music). Still—admit it—there are some lines that will last. Like the one from "Hotel California": "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."
So it is with the Hotel Hiroshima. We checked in to a metaphoric Hotel Hiroshima—"we" as a culture—on Aug. 6, 1945, when the 16-kiloton atomic weapon detonated about 800 meters over a hospital here. (The hospital wasn’t the ostensible target; a nearby bridge was, but needless to say, the hospital and all those in it were vaporized.) Nearly 100,000 people died instantly or within hours from the original blast and the firestorms that followed (by the end of 1945, 140,000 were dead). Estimates of those who died over a longer period from radiation sicknesses, from radiation-induced cancers, and other disease sequela range far upward.
We checked in to the First Nuclear Age that day in 1945, and yes, sometimes we check out, in the sense of repressed memory, willed or unconscious denial, cultural amnesia. It’s happened for prolonged periods after the end of the Cold War. That all-too-brief "holiday from history" some called it.
So yes, we’ve checked out, but it doesn’t look like we’re ever going to leave: The nuclear weapons are still there—thousands of them under the badlands of the Dakotas and the trans-Ural steppes and the sands of the Middle East, all still armed and ready. As they say in "Hotel California," in a phrase that never made sense to me until now, "We are all just prisoners here/ of our own device."
(I left the following comment at 3 QD in a post that links to Rosenbaum’s essay)
This piece evoked kaleidoscopic memories of Hiroshima, of nuclear wars and hotels.
For some reason, I have visited Hiroshima several times – more than I have any other Japanese city. The very first time on a beautiful fall day, the visit to the Peace Memorial left me shaken. During subsequent visits I did note the clutter of memorials and tourist memorabilia that have sprouted. I see nothing wrong with that. The Peace Memorials in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Nagasaki got bombed under plan B because the skies over Fukuoka the original target, on August 9, 1945 were clouded) are beautiful, excruciatingly well chronicled and amazingly free of rancor. If these two cities choose to continue amidst their "normalcy," to remind the rest of the world what a nuclear powered war (with just two bombs lightheartedly named the "Little Boy" and the "Fat Man") can do to people’s lives and possessions, it is a heroic endeavor.
Hiroshima is a busy but strangely peaceful and yes, "normal" industrial city. It does have some unusual hotels. I remember one well appointed business hotel which was as soul-less as the "All Night Kinkos of Hiroshima." Another hotel, enigmatically named "The Hiroshima Intelligent Hotel" is designed with maximum ergonomics in mind but has the atmosphere of a cozy Mediterranean outfit in the south of France. The Hiroshima pancakes (Okonomi-yaki) are indeed delicious and the best ones are to be found in a cramped, smoky cafeteria at the city’s main railway station.
Coincidentally, we too have been pondering over hotels at our blog recently. Ron Rosenbaum says:
Sure, you hate the Eagles. It’s practically a cultural requirement that you do (sometimes I think everybody but me does, but then again, the Eagles seem to sell a lot of music). Still—admit it—there are some lines that will last. Like the one from "Hotel California": "You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."
So, everyone hates the Eagles? Well, everyone except Rosenbaum and Abbas Raza.
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Included here are a few photos from my trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Photo #1 and #3 show the Peace Memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively. In the second photo you can see the light bulb factory shown above in its current condition. The factory was Ground Zero when the Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. The original bombed out structure has been preserved to look like it did in August 1945. (click to enlarge)
Accidental Blogger 
4 responses to “Hotel Hiroshima”
Reading the comments on the Rosenbaum piece were an eye-opener too- reactions ranging from indignation at cultural relativism to rants over the ‘necessity’ of teaching the Japanese a lesson. It has become a deeply ingrained aspect of the internet culture, I think, to dash off these criticisms and rants as instant reactions to some reporter’s ‘mere musings’, which is the category into which I would place the Slate article. Not everyone is going to experience epiphanies at the sight of monuments- it will only hold as much significance for them as they can extract based on their own cultural and personal moorings.
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I agree that the mention of Hiroshima and Nagasaki always triggers knee jerk reactions from both sides – the ones who think that it was necessary to incinerate two whole cities to stop the war and others who consider it a naked show of military power.
For me though, the memorials are not about the past. There was plenty of aggression on all sides during WWII. I have no doubt that if Japan and Germany had laid their hands on the atom bomb first, one or both might have used it on their enemies without much compunction. Imperial Japan was a very militaristic nation. The Japanese themselves do not argue this point much. As I said, they are surprisingly non-rancorous about the events of August, 1945 and express their gratitude for the subsequent help that the US government extended toward the reconstruction of post WWII Japan.
The Peace Memorials at Hiroshima and Nagasaki are meant to serve more as warnings for the future rather than recriminations over the past. Which is why I am a bit impatient with the jingoistic reactions to them among many Americans who never want to be reminded of anything that might dent the halo of the “good guys” even a little bit. Okay, so the Japanese were the “bad guys” then. But do they have a right to mourn their parents, teachers, children and neighbors who died a horrible death and at the same time remind the rest of us not to wreak the same gruesome vengeance on anyone else, no matter what war we are fighting?
Most American presidents visit the Holocaust Museum in Israel, Gandhi’s Memorial in India and other war and peace memorials in foreign countries. If I am not mistaken, only Jimmy Carter has paid a visit to the Hiroshima Peace Museum.
Whether or not one believes that the terrible act was necessary in 1945, that event certainly should be on the minds of all world leaders in contemplating war and peace in the future. And as a reminder and cautionary tale, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Memorials are a service to the entire world.
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Absolutely, Ruchira.
By the way, who is the statue in the Nagasaki memorial supposed to represent?
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It is a large statue. Here is the explanation for everything that artist Seibu Kitamura wished to convey.
There are many more statues in both peace parks – local creations as well as gifts from all over the world.
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