At the end of World War Two, the world was left reeling by the damage left behind. Just as lives and property were destroyed, so too were the lives of survivors of the war; scared, maimed, or even irradiated, survivors had to carry on, heal, and rebuild their lives and homes. The “Hiroshima Maidens” was one such group that was affected by the war, as they were Japanese survivors from the atomic bombs dropped on their home.
David Serlin, in his book, Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, in Replaceable You- Engineering the Body in Postwar America, talks about how Japan attempts to heal by sending the Maidens to America to receive reconstructive plastic surgery, as each of them was badly disfigured by the radiation and hid themselves from society. He asserts, through another author, Sheldon Garon, that “neither the contradictions of the wartime campaigns nor the nations disastrous defeat in 1945 rent the alliance for daily life improvement in the postwar era (p. 70).” Serlin uses many quotes and borrows often from others’ works, giving credence to his arguments and article.
Norman Cousins tells the same story as Serlin, but offers it through a starkly different perspective. He tells the story of the Maidens’ path to wholeness through the eyes of a fictional American involved in assisting the Hiroshima Maidens’ recovery. Cousins’ article argues that the girls’ cosmetic rehabilitation allowed them to more fully accept themselves and love Japan. “Isn’t it wonderful? That art you are looking at is from my country. And I am Japanese (p. 22),” Cousins quotes from Hiroko Tasaka, one of the Maidens who received surgery in America.
While both of these articles tell the same story of a hand-full of deformed Japanese women are sent to America to receive plastic surgery, they also both paint a larger picture of Japanese rehabilitation after the war. “‘[the] Deeply engrained Japanese belief that what had been ‘proven’ abroad’ was preferable to anything domestic (Serlin, p. 62)” shows that Japan suffered an identity crisis after the war, one that, as seen by the Hiroshima Maidens’ use of American practices and doctors, forced it to become more westernized and less nationalistic.
David Serlin, “Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens,” Replaceable you: engineering the body in postwar America (2004).
Norman Cousins, “Hiroshima Maidens”
I completely agree with you that Japan is making an attempt to heal the Hiroshima Maidens by sending them to America to get treatment. They are being shunned in Japan and this is the only way that they could possibly lead more normal lives. I also read an article by Cousins and I thought that they were very similar but also told us different stories about these women and the horrors and the help that they received. I think they really tied together well and told a good story when put together.
I really like that how you pointed out that Japan was suffering through an identity crisis following World War II. I think a lot of people just assume that nations go back to their old lives after wars end, but that could not be farther from the truth, especially in this instance with the dropping of two atomic bombs. Japan certainly had many political mountains to climb in the later part of the 1940s and early part of the ’50s, and P.R. stunts made by the U.S. probably did not help their situation much.
I find the statement that Japan had an identity crisis after the war to be very interesting and I agree completely. Like Germany, this once military superpower that nearly conquered an entire continent on the basis of national supremacy now had to reinvent itself in terms of its national identity. Both nations had a long and relatively sorted history with militarism, but now they have both reinvented themselves into nations of peace and prosperity in their respective regions. And more importantly they have done so without having to completely abandon their culture and traditions, they have only reinterpreted what it means to be “Japanese” or “German”.