Posts Tagged ‘peace’

Yukio Hatoyama sings “Take HEART”

Ever since I’d heard about Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s 1988 single “Take HEART – Fly, Dove of Peace,” I’ve been looking for a good copy of it. Here’s a YouTube video containing about a minute of the song:

“I never imagined that there would be a day when this tune would come into the spotlight,” said Teruaki Asanuma, a 65-year-old dentist in the Hokkaido city of Muroran who wrote the song at Hatoyama’s request.

Hatoyama had wanted Asanuma to write a tune featuring a Japanese-dance rhythm, but Asanuma said he recommended a more pop-oriented record reflective of the “urban atmosphere” Hatoyama had created.

Only a short recording session was required, Asanuma recalled, adding that he thought Hatoyama was “quite accustomed to singing.”

The title of the song plays on the similarity in sound between “hato” (dove), the first part of Hatoyama’s surname, and “heart,” according to Asanuma.

“Now I hope he will help to guide everyone to happiness as suggested in the lyrics of the song,” he said.

And here’s a video clip of it being played at a party held by Hatoyama supporters:

Does anybody know where one can find a longer and better quality copy of the song?

Because of its limited release, it’s become a rare collector’s item. One vinyl record recently sold for 35,000 yen in an online auction.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Pre-bombing Hiroshima recreated with computer graphics

A brief clip from this morning’s “Mezamashi TV” showing a CG recreation of what Hiroshima looked like before it was destroyed by an atomic bomb:

The interview the creator of the CG project (who lived near ground zero but was away from the city on the day of the bombing) via telephone and he repeats an opinion one frequently hears about the issue: it is important to teach younger people that nuclear weapons are horrible. By creating a representation of what was lost in the bombing, he hopes to remind people that such a thing should never be repeated.
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

White Light, Black Rain – The Destruction Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

Government efforts to expand the aid given to A-bomb victims is in the news today, which reminded me of a very good documentary I watched recently. White Light, Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a HBO documentary that focuses on the experiences of atomic bomb survivors:

On August 6th and 9th, 1945, two atomic bombs vaporized 210,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who survived are called “hibakusha”–people exposed to the bomb–and there are an estimated 200,000 living today. Today, with the threat of nuclear weapons of mass destruction frighteningly real- the world’s arsenal capable of repeating the destruction at Hiroshima 400,000 times over, Oscar® award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki revisits the bombings and shares the stories of the only people to have survived a nuclear attack.

The entire documentary happens to be viewable on Google Video, so I’ve embedded it in this post. If you’re interested in this topic, please watch it:

More information about the film, including a study guide for teachers who want to include the film in their classes, can be found on the film’s official website.

Haiku Poet’s Pacifist Story

The Japan Times has a very interesting article today telling the life story of haiku poet Tota Kaneko, who embraced pacifism after witnessing the horrors of war:

Kaneko, a graduate of the school of economics at the Imperial University of Tokyo, enlisted in the Imperial Japanese Navy. After he was sent to the front, he came to realize “war is just about mass killings.” He’s now a staunch believer in the war-renouncing postwar Constitution.

These days, when he is not busy spreading the joys of 17-syllable poems, he lectures about his war experience and the Constitution. “Japan must never use military force and engage in military operations abroad,” he said.

Read the full article here.

Korea-Japan Peace Tunnel

New developments in the campaign to get a tunnel build between Korea and Japan:

Japan and South Korea, long at odds over their wartime history, should be linked by a railway tunnel under the sea symbolising peaceful ties, a group of Japanese lawmakers was reported as saying on Friday.

The cross-party group of parliamentarians is proposing a 128 km tunnel that would be part of a rail link between Karatsu on Japan’s southwestern island of Kyushu and Pusan in South Korea via two Japanese islands, Kyodo news agency said.

The tunnel — which would be more than twice as long as the Channel Tunnel connecting Britain and France — could one day allow passengers to travel by rail from Tokyo to London, Kyodo quoted lawmakers as saying.

“This is a dream-inspiring project,” Kyodo quoted former defence chief Seishiro Eto as telling reporters after a meeting with other interested lawmakers from various parties. “We’d like to promote it as a symbol of peace-building.”

For some Korean views on the tunnel project, check out this Chosun Ilbo article we linked back in May 2007.