Lanterns for Peace

August 6th is the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. There is a Peace Day now set aside for August 6th. There are many ceremonies during the day, and the day ends with the lantern ceremony. I went to watch a documentary in English about the bomb being dropped before I went to the ceremony. The movie was called, "White Light, Black Rain." It premiered in the United States the next day. It's a very moving film, it shows a lot of things you might not want to see, but it's worth seeing. It interviews several surviving atomic bomb victims.

The film mentioned Hiroshima has many rivers, and when the bomb was dropped many people fled to the rivers to try to get cool. The river was full of dead bodies and many people died there. Every year you can make a lantern and write messages for peace and then the lanterns are set in the river and hopefully eventually make their way to the sea of Japan. They are to represent the spirits of those lives lost during this tragic event.
As you can see from the pictures, there were SO many people there. The line to put your lantern in the river was unreal! One of our friends did it, but I didn't want to go wait in that long line! These pictures are a view from the other side of the river.

Above on the right where the lights are there is music being performed. We sat and watched the lanterns float down the river for a couple hours. It was very beautiful. Some of the people got very emotional when they placed their lanterns in the water. I wondered if they, themselves, had been an atomic bomb victim or lost someone on that day. I found out later that one of my students parents is a bomb victim. It's surprising to me that anyone can survive that.


Once the crowd had died down we crossed the bridge to the other side and sat down at the river and watched the lanterns float by up close. It was an experience I will never forget.