Posted in #3 Wages of Destruction, Starred Posts

1000 Paper Cranes

  Published Date: September 21, 2021  6 Comments on 1000 Paper Cranes
A young Japanese girl wearing all white standing in front of a hospital

Sadako Sasaki who developed leukemia after being exposed to radioactive black rain in Hiroshima.

Some may be familiar with the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, which is a story about a young girl who falls ill to atom bomb disease (leukemia). According to Japanese legend whoever folding 1000 paper cranes receives a wish from the gods. Although the book has a slightly different ending, in real life Sadako succeeds in folding 1000 cranes, but unfortunately succumbs to the disease.  She wanted to make the world a better and more peaceful place. After her death,  Sadako’s  classmates raised money for a memorial to Sadako and the other children who died because of the atomic bombings which is located in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The effects of the Atomic bombs not only included illness, but disfiguration as in the case of the Hiroshima Maidens. Revererand Kiyoshi Taniomto wanted to bring a group of young women to the U.S. for reconstructive surgery. These women had been burned and disfigured by the Atomic bombs, and had been hidden away by their families in shame. According to David Serlin, author of Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, their families, “understood their disfigurements as subjective reflections on their families’ statues rather than as the objective effects of atomic warfare” (Serlin, p. 59). These are two reminders to the Japanese about the horrors war can bring. In the case of the Hiroshima Maidens, rehabilitating them was key to the Japanese erasing the negative memories of the war. However, Saduko’s story has served as inspiration throughout the world with the story of her resilience and her paper cranes. While I was pondering these two stories, the difference between them was striking to me. Why hide away the Hiroshima maidens, but praise and memorialize Saduko? The answer must have something to do with the Japanese honor culture. Perhaps it was because Saduko died a brave and honorable death, while the Hiroshima Maidens lived with permanent reminders of shame? Bibliography: D Serlin, Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, in Replaceable You- Engineering the Body in Postwar America (2004).pdf https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-story-of-sadako-sasaki.htm

Author: ellena19

6 thoughts on “1000 Paper Cranes”

  1. You seem to touch on the answer pretty well in one of your follow-up questions. Death is far more desirable (for some reason) than living with scars. Saduko died because of the atrocities that happened, and therefore she would be memorialized. Her story would be a beacon of hope for what could come of war. The Hiroshima Maidens were a terrifying depiction of the same thing, only they had no way out. Likewise, it is easier to reconcile a death in the context of war than it is to reconcile the disfigurement that came out of the radiation.

  2. Hi,

    I love your title and also how you touch base on the devastating side effects of lingering radiation exposure. I think it is also great you focused on an illness that was not initially detected vs obvious disfigurement.

  3. I think the opening photo goes a long way to set the tone for the readings; it was a good choice to use for this blog post. I really like the story at the beginning as it brings a small sense of reality to the post right off the bat.

  4. I think your assessment about shame, honor, and death in Japanese culture is accurate. The visual reminder of a person with radiation burns in public would have been a direct reminder of failure in the war. However, as with Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, people who were dead could be cherished as memories and become symbolic of looking to the future instead of the past.

  5. I think that the questions you posed at the end of this entry are very interesting. I believe that you may be right in assuming that the difference between hiding something away versus memorializing it lies behind the border between what is an honorable way to die or survive, compared against a disfigurement that they may have seen as ugly.

  6. I enjoyed the background on the picture you provided, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastating but the devastation was truly unknown, similar to Chernobyl we never really understood the long term effects of high exposure to radiation back then.

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