The Occidental Tourists

Memorial to Air Raid Victims

Yesterday afternoon, as my son, his friend, my daughter, and I roamed the hills on the outskirts of Himeji, we came upon three Japanese twenty-somethings goofing around and taking videos. They stopped and smiled politely at us as we stumbled by, all of us nodding and bowing awkwardly. The four of us collapsed on stone benches, catching our breath after the long trek up. We remained acutely aware of the little group with the camera, glancing over occasionally only to see them peering at us as well.

There appears to be little reason for an American to fly halfway across the world to Himeji, Japan. Frankly, there is little reason for most Americans to have even heard of Himeji, Japan. That is, unless, one of your children happens to be living and working there.

Few people here speak English. There is little need for it. As little need as there is in my neighborhood, back home, for anyone to speak Japanese.  Since we arrived here five days ago, I have mastered two words (hello and thank-you) and the incredibly underrated art of pointing. We have gotten along fine with our limited communication skills, relying on my son and his mastery (even minimal comprehension constitutes mastery as far as I am concerned) of the language to negotiate more complicated transactions. Like explaining to the hotel clerk that we need to stay an extra night and then leave for a few nights and then come back again for two nights. Or explaining to waiters that his sister is a vegetarian and that no, she does not make an exception for fish (that she is indeed more likely to have a hot dog than eat any sort of sea creature, but try explaining that in any language to folks who can`t even wait to cook their fish they love it so much).

We have been using Himeji as more of a travel hub than a destination, our hotel -- like many here -- an easy walk to the train station. There is easy access from here to all the places worth getting to. We weren`t really expecting to have an interesting day in Himeji yesterday; we were just looking forward to a day`s break from long train rides to famous and far more interesting places, where we walk until we can no longer move, trying to cram everything in. Exciting, yes. Draining, oy.

When you lower your expectations, you avoid disappointment, and sometimes you even get a pleasant surprise. So yesterday morning, left to our own devices while my son slept in, my daughter and I did a little wandering of our own through the hills on the outskirts of town. We anticipated gardens, nice scenery, a big park. We found all of those things (including a playground where I gave myself a few souvenier butt burns going down a slide of metal rollers) and then some. Signs containing English translations directed us toward a huge monument high at the top of one hill. From afar, it had looked like a smokestack. Odd, since there are no factories here.

We made our way up the hill, and found a memorial to victims of World War II air raids and a museum documenting the carnage of war in the area during the 1940`s. Himeji, not far from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was devastated by air raids in June and July of 1945, a good month before the atomic bombs were dropped. Oddly, one of the few structures in the town that survived was its historioc castle which, as the local treasure, had been draped in black to prevent it from being a target.

Though it was midday during a week when many people here are on vacation, there was nobody else in sight. We spent a bit of time by the monument, gazing up at its soaring centerpiece. What looked like a smokestack was actually a representation of a sword stuck in the ground. The monument was constructed as a vow, by the people of Japan, to never make war, to cherish peace.

We toured the empty museum as well, which, similarly, offers little in the way of blame or justification, and is designed, instead, to demonstrate the atrocities of war, no matter who starts it. Though it has its share of gruesome images, the museum is aptly named the Himeji Historical Peace Center.

Like Nagasaki and Hiroshima -- and countless other locations before and since -- Himeji is a place where too many ordinary citizens just trying to live their lives had their lives and loved ones destroyed, destroyed in a most horrible way, in a blink of an eye. Like other Japanese towns, it has been rebuilt, the old, unassuming, unpretentious river town now stuffed with bland post war buildings that somehow do not manage to erase the flavor of the place it once was. It is still a town proud of its storied castle from the middle ages, filled with hard working people, content to let Osaka and Kyoto and Kobe hold onto the limelight.

Later that afternoon, when the four of us mustered up enough energy to head back down the steep hill, the three Japanese twenty-somethings stopped us, bowing and pointing wildly. Realizing my son could understand them, they explained, laughing, what they wanted from us. They were making a video for a friend`s wedding, and wanted us to be in it. We happily complied, forming an uncoordinated little dance line around their "star" as he sang some ridiculous sounding Japanese song. They thanked us profusely, bowed, shook our hands, and, finally, we departed,still smiling and giggling all the way down the hill. By now, my fear that we will actually be appearing on You Tube in a porn flick has abated.

Today, we are off to the train station, off to Tokyo -- a place worth going to, one where we will walk our legs off trying to cram it all in. We will, no doubt, encounter a fair share of pleasant surprises, and create a neat little pile of memories. I am looking forward to our Tokyo adventure (especially my nap on the bullet train).

But I will always treasure the memories of yesterday, our accidental tour of a small town, then and now,  called Himeji.