Tag Archives: japan

Voices from Japan

Laurie Says:

We recently received these texts from  Kawamoto Eriko and  Masaki Motoko who I photographed for Women of Japan. I wanted to share them on the blog.

Eriko Kawamoto and Motoko Masaki
Masaki Motoko and Kawamoto Eriko

From Kawamoto Eriko

When I fell in love with a woman in my student’s days, I felt desperate thinking that I would never be able to have a family. I knew I could not stand being alone and living by myself. The idea that I should not be lesbian was so strong in my mind. I met a man, got married, and gave birth to a daughter. When I got used to child bearing and had time to reflect on myself, I had to face the uncontrollable emotion that I was lesbian before everything. After the divorce, I met her at a feminist course where I was one of the organizers. I fell in love with her while discussing all sorts of things and began to realize that I would really like to live with her. I dreamed that we purchased a mirror together. We have got along for sixteen years now, laughing, quarrelling and living together in a very vivacious way.

When I was asked to be a model for Laurie, I thought I would really like to be part of the project. I posed for Laurie so as to make a visual image showing that a lesbian couple live and enjoy their own life here in Japan.

From Masaki Motoko

We were introduced to Laurie by Hagiwara Hiroko.

Laurie visited our home town, Mino city, Osaka, in September 2007. We first walked along the Takimichi, path running parallel to a mountain stream, looking for a location for shooting. We crossed the first bridge to see several old inns along a gentle slope. We decided to settle down in a place close to the rock, which is mythically called ‘Tojin Modori Iwa’ (rock a stranger cannot pass), so as to spend half a day on the dry rocky riverside surrounded by moss-covered trees. While Laurie’s shooting session went on, we ate a picnic snack Hagiwara had prepared.

Ten months have passed since then. Now you see decorative bamboo branches with ornaments for the Star Festival fluttering and rustling under the eaves of a local restaurant in a July breeze. A nightingale’s warble echoed around in the green forest and over the clear-blue water. Being photographed in a location close to the place I have lived with my friend for long, I felt myself very much encouraged. We are proud of our relationship as a lesbian couple who have made life together and loved each other.

I have had different agonies and sorrows while I have had moments of delights and pleasures. Now everything in the past seems to be merged into the beautiful notes from a music box. I look happier in Laurie’s photograph than I have ever been before.

Both Kawamoto Eriko and  Masaki Motoko are counselors at the Gender Sexuality Crisis Center, in Osaka.  The translations are by Hagiwara Hiroko.

Note: Names are in Japanese order, last name first.

Family Fun at the Atomic Testing Museum

Debbie says:

Thursday was the 64th anniversary of the United States’ atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan. Tomorrow is the 64th anniversary of the United States’ atomic bomb attack on Nagasaki, Japan. Sixty-four years later, these remain the only two times that nuclear weapons have been used in warfare.

To commemorate what should be a sad and pensive occasion, today is “Family Fun Day” at the National Atomic Testing Museum:

Families will have fun as they explore Japanese culture. There will be Japanese dancers, Sushi Rolling, and Origami folding. Take your picture in a kimono.

If I didn’t think it was necessary to blog about this, I would just be sitting here going “buh buh buh.” Even leaving out the whole issue of the anniversary, this kind of “family fun day” is actually the cheapest kind of reductionist cultural appropriation, taking a rich, complex, varied, and ancient culture and pulling out a few recognizable stereotypes for “family fun.” To appreciate a culture that produced everything from ukiyo-e paintings to Hello Kitty, sushi rolling and kimono photographs just don’t cut it.

Second, why do we have an Atomic Testing Museum anyway? I had a vague hope that it was private, but no. It’s a Smithsonian Institution Affiliate, and it works with the Department of Energy. And as near as I can tell, it doesn’t give a lot of attention to the human cost of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan. The “After the Bomb” “multigenerational narrative” that was held on Hiroshima Day may, in fact, treat with the experiences of Japanese victims, but you can’t tell that from the site.

The little slide show of the museum takes us through 14 galleries. None of the captions ever mention the attacks on Japan. Instead, the focus is on the Nevada test site, and other tests. There’s even a gallery devoted to the people who lived on the test site before it became a war zone. And the news article linked above mentions the people whose health was affected by the testing. But the Japanese, it appears, are only trotted out around Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days. Why would they be important to the history of atomic testing? After all, they weren’t harmed by tests.

Anyone who knows anything about Japan is likely to know just how big an actual and mythical role those two explosions play in the lives of contemporary Japanese people. Wikipedia estimates 220,000 deaths in the first year, and that was by no means everyone who died. If you’re Japanese, the odds are good that you (or your parents) know someone who died, or are just one remove away. Anger, fear, rage, resentment, confusion: all the things that people and nations feel after being attacked. These things are not “family fun.” They can, in fact, destroy (or strengthen) families.

Am I over-reacting? Well, here’s a thought experiment:

On September 11, 2065, the Islamic Museum of Air Warfare (perhaps in Abu Dhabi, or Karachi) holds a “Family Fun Day” in which you can eat a hamburger, ride on a hay wagon, and get your picture taken in a cowboy outfit. Does that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Or does it seem inappropriate, trivializing, and heartless?

Wry thanks to evwhore, who also included an interesting quotation from Dave Barry on a closely related topic.