(By the way, the photo is of Shinjuku and it appears the lights are definitely on.)
Every now and then I have one of those moments when I am struck
by revelation of a truth that is so obvious, that I wonder why it never
occurred to me before, and I get them a few times a year. I guess you just have to get to a point where
you are open to the possibility, however remote, of not knowing everything. I
spent MLK weekend in Tokyo for the second time in a month. I knew I couldn’t really afford it, and then
got a wicked flu on Thursday night (hotel and train already paid for and not
refundable). I know that sometimes stuff just happens and I have to go and look
for the lesson and the joy in it, despite the din created to distract me. So I
went with a change of underwear, plenty of medication, a box of tissues, and a
pocketful o cash for a couple of bowls of steaming hot soba. I gradually felt
better through the night and the next day, then on Sunday night, as Sumo
wrestlers strolled in the dusk, and as chanting and temple incense filled the
cool evening air, I found myself entering Edo-Tokyo Museum looking at artifacts
that have survived countless fires, earthquakes and wars, yet which contain substantial
history within a relatively small space. I meandered through dark corridors and
lighted models until I came to the corner of my epiphany. It was the ‘War with America’ section. I became suddenly very aware of my obvious
Americanness looking at filmstrips of the burning of Tokyo, the mountains of
bodies, the people in the smoldering streets and written and recorded accounts
of some of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, whose homes
and cities were targeted and destroyed by American bombers, in an effort to
crush the spirit of the Japanese people.
Looking at artifact after artifact I could not avoid the gaze of small
Japanese faces looking up at me from the behind a father’s leg or a mother’s
winter coat draped across her arm. I knew they were staring because I looked
different from their norm but I couldn’t help but feel a little as if I might
bear some guilt for looking like the enemy portrayed in the photographs. I approached the photos of the surrender of
the Empire of Japan to General MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri. The video of that moment is striking alone
but watching it among a crowd of people who look at this moment in history from
the opposite vantage point is a bit humbling.
My epiphany was this. No matter
which side you are on, the story is the same.
The enemy doesn’t value human life.
The enemy is ignorant. The enemy
is evil and capable of doing unspeakable things to our people. We can’t let
that happen to our people. I wonder why wise men have filled thousands of pages
trying to explain and understand war, yet never resolve the conflict. It is
never, never what it seems, regardless of how right we are.
