On the 10th of June we visited the superintendent of the board of education in Omura. Juuso Eemeli Myller shared his experience with us.
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Meeting a Survivor of the Atomic Bomb
Day of activity: June, 11th, 2015
Today we got to meet an atomic bomb survivor.
Almost everyone (I hope) will, at some point, learn about the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki through school/books/articles. At school you learn when it happened, what made the bomb so deadly, and what the death toll was, but today we got a small glimpse into what the bomb meant for the actual victims.
In the morning, into a classroom of sorts, in came a nice looking old man wearing a smile on his face. He introduced himself and then he turned on the projector and showed us pictures that he had painted based on what he remembers about the bomb.
He just stated facts, he didn’t need to resort to theatrics to pull at our heartstrings. His story of loss and hardship made me and several others cry during the presentation.
Eventhough his story was sad, it was a really valuable piece of history that not many get to hear. How his life changed instantly and how it still affects the survivors. I will be forever grateful to him for sharing his story with us.
Later on the same day, we visited the Nagasaki atomic bomb memorial museum. There were many actual artefacts that had been affected by the bomb such as glass bottles that had melted into clumps due to the sheer heat of the blast. The museum itself had also many interactive components which made exploring even more interesting.
I think that this all left an ever-lasting impression on me.
Helmiina Suuronen (Finland)
Visit of Omura City’s superintendent of the board of education
Omura City, 10th of June, 2015
Today we visited Omura City’s superintendent of the board of education. The courtesy visit was the first “real” activity in our program, given that the previous day’s schedule was all orientation and preparing for the Arigato Event. Furthermore, the occasion was advertised as being quite formal, which made us quite nervous during the morning of our visit.
Despite our nerves, the courtesy visit was a success. After brief introductions we talked a lot about education in Omura, Japan and Japanese culture in general. The superintendent was very helpful and supportive when we talked about how we wanted to learn more, and more intimately, about Japanese culture. With his encouraging words we felt ready for the 12th of June and our first visit to a local elementary school.
After our conversation I gave the superintendent a present – a photo book – from Finland, where I’m from, as a token of our gratitude for how they had given us such a change to get to know more about the everyday life and culture in Japan. It was great to know how much people appreciated our desire to learn more about their culture and maybe share something from our own countries as well. As an added bonus, we also got cute Omuran-Chan stickers for each of us 🙂
Juuso Eemeli Myller
