How did the A-bomb Experience in Nagasaki Educate People
By Chen Lijun
Abstract: To be honest, I didn’t think deeply about the A-bomb experience before I took the course, Thinking about Peace in Nagasaki, or let’s say before I came to Nagasaki for a one-year study. I’m grateful that I’ve learned a lot about the A-bomb experience and history of Nagasaki through this course in a way combining lecture with field trip. Why I chose this theme to do report on peace is because I think the most important is what we’ve learnt from history and how we apply what we’ve learnt to the future so that we can keep the history from repeating. I complete this report just by searching online and putting what I learned from this course into use. It’s regretful that I didn’t bring my previous idea into action, interviewing some young people both Japanese and foreigners about the A-bomb experience. After I look up a lot online, I draw my conclusion that the most important thing that this miserable experience educates us is that it proved the significance of peace and urged people all over the world to seek peace in different ways. Concerning the way this tragedy educate people, I connected to the peace movement in Japan, especially focusing on some organizations that pushed the peace movement in Japan forward, and to the peace education in Japan, especially for schools.
Key words: peace movement, peace education
Brief information about the A-bomb experience:
68 years have passed after the explosion of an atomic bomb devastating Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It happened at the end of WWⅡ and Japan announced its surrender not long after. Intensive heat rays, radiation and blast generated by the “fat man”, code-name of Nagasaki bomb, killed and injured over 70,000 citizens instantly. Altogether over 140,000 citizens, equaling 1/3 of the population, were killed or wounded because of the atomic bomb. About 36% of houses were destroyed and burned. For Hibakusha, victims who survived...