"I will write 'peace' on your wings and you will fly all over the world"
~Sadako Sasaki

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[ journey through japan I ]

during the second of the two weeks i was in japan, we stayed at my girlfriend's parents' home in asahigaoka, hiroshima. so, naturally enough, we visited the atomic bomb peace museum and related monuments. one of these is the statue of sadako sasaki, a young girl who survived the initial devastation (which eventually claimed the lives of some 200,000 people), but was diagnosed with radiation-induced leukaemia a number of years later. in hospital she was told of a japanese myth, that anyone who was ill should make 1,000 paper cranes and the gods would grant them a wish. hoping that the gods would grant her wish to get well again, she set to folding origami cranes, continuing until she died at the age of 12, less than a year later...

sadako's friends were inspired by her courage, and published the letters she had written them in a book called 'kokeshi'. young japanese were moved by her story and raised money to build a monument to all of the children killed by the atom bomb. the chains of paper cranes in this photo are displayed adjacent to the statue itself, along with thousands of others -- people across the world continue to send cranes to the statue of sadako as a symbol of peace...

this year will be the 60th anniversary of the destruction of hiroshima in the world's first nuclear attack.

for more detail and background to the story of sadako, take a look at this page in the bbc's h2g2 section: [link]

more japan photos to follow...

~ayembee

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[ japan series ]
[link] Reflection
[link] Give Me Your Biscuit!
[link] You, Me and a World of Green
[link] Hiroshima
[link] Death Do Us Part
[link] In Memoriam