Pacific Overtures

A visit to Nagasaki, and reclaiming my irreverence

by Marcus

 

But we bring many recent invention!

Kerosene and cement

And a grain elevator

A machine you can rent

Called a train (Maybe later!)

Also cannon to shoot

Big loud salute

Like so– [explosion]

Say hello!

“Please Hello,” Pacific Overtures

 

The world is often cruel to those who come in second. K2, the world’s second tallest mountain. Alan Shepard, the second man in space. And so it is with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It doesn’t matter how many lives were lost in Nagasaki, or how much of the city was left in ruins. Hiroshima will always be the one that set the precedent and Nagasaki the follow-up. Even I’m not immune to this–I knew I wanted to visit Nagasaki the second I left Hiroshima, and actually doing it took me three more years. The simple truth is that Hiroshima occupies a privileged position in our collective imagination which Nagasaki doesn’t.

This is really a shame, because Nagasaki is arguably the more interesting city of the two. Before the atomic bombing, Nagasaki was well known as a port, the only Japanese city foreigners could set foot in under their two-century sakoku policy. That mostly meant Westerners, and one of the major landmarks in Nagasaki is indeed a rare Japanese Catholic church. But Chinese and Korean traders visited Nagasaki as well, and their influence is felt throughout the city. It’s mainly found in the local cuisine, in dishes like champon ramen and kakuni manju (a take on Chinese gua bao). Nagasaki’s history has so much more to offer than just the atom bomb, and I welcome that.

In contrast to Hiroshima, the first thing that hit me upon entering Nagasaki was physical: the rain. The weather in Nagasaki is aggressively wet and tropical, whereas Hiroshima is drier. The mountainous terrain is enveloped in thick clouds–a trait that almost thwarted the American attempt to bomb it on August 9, 1945, as the plane’s sights couldn’t get a clear target. Reconstruction efforts in the following decades have turned Nagasaki into a modern, lively city, welcoming of tourists and filled with interesting sights. Some of these, like the old vintage streetcars, are unexpectedly reminiscent of Hiroshima. I complained about tourists back in Hiroshima taking pictures on their phones, but if I was to document my trip here in writing, it seemed right to capture certain moments in visual form.

The cloudy skies over Nagasaki on the day I arrived.

Nagasaki-style fish cakes with a variety of fillings.

A delightful local specialty, kakuni manju (braised pork belly in a steamed bun)

Oura Cathedral, said to be the oldest Christian church in Japan

Of course, the most important symbol shared between Hiroshima and Nagasaki is the origami crane. Nagasaki’s Atomic Bomb Museum hosts large bunches of connected cranes, including one donated by a Dutch folder made from a single 150-meter-long rectangle! Just as many are displayed outside in the nearby Peace Park. The difference between cities is also apparent here: Hiroshima’s Peace Park is polished and urban, while Nagasaki’s is more overgrown, filled with the same greenery that surrounds the hilly city. Paper cranes feel even more ephemeral here than in Hiroshima–the rain makes short work of them–but at least one site had the wisdom to shelter them from the elements, pictured below. The people of Nagasaki have adopted Sadako Sasaki as their own, and her legacy is well taken care of here.

Note the senbazuru hanging beneath the statue, protected from the rain.

Between leaving Hiroshima and arriving in Nagasaki, I have seen the origami crane in many additional political contexts. In 1969, a group of American Indian activists occupied Alcatraz Island, abandoned years earlier when the prison was closed. They saw the island as a potential center for Indigenous resistance, a place where they could educate their people and gather physical resistance against colonization. The occupation garnered support from many groups, including the Japanese American Citizen League. Several Japanese American activists visited the island during the occupation; years later, they made this crane in a continued act of solidarity.

That the crane now symbolizes Indigenous resistance is perhaps the clearest sign yet of an important development: that it has grown beyond Sadako Sasaki. So as hard as it may be, I myself have to move on from Sadako. I know I will never create an origami model with anywhere as much significance as the crane. Do I still create anyway? Of course. And instead of venerating Sadako’s cranes as a sacred, unapproachable work, I can choose to see them as something that can be challenged and expanded upon. How, you might ask, do I plan to challenge the senbazuru? Perhaps this will become clear through demonstration.

It is relevant to compare the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the Holocaust–not necessarily in terms of scale, but in terms of the social role they play. Both occurred during World War II, their horrifying brutality shocking the world through the spread of mass media. Both developed an extensive memory culture around them, with museums and books and films telling us to never repeat them. And in that memory culture, both are depicted as singular and uniquely evil events. That last trait in particular–the depiction of these events as unique–is what gives memorials to the Holocaust and the atom bombs their particular emotional power. It also serves as an effective propaganda technique.

Much has been written on how the supposed uniqueness of the Holocaust downplays other atrocities, particularly those committed during the age of Western colonialism. Survivors of the Namibian genocide, for instance, have argued that the Holocaust is an extension of German colonial violence rather than a singular, unprecedented event. A similar point might be made about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The atomic bomb memorials in both cities adamantly stress the special horror of the atom bomb and radiation, making their point with graphic images and stories. But countries are perfectly capable of waging war, colonizing, and committing atrocities without ever resorting to atomic weaponry. And I doubt the victims of those would take much comfort in hearing that their suffering might have been worse if they were nuked.

Our memory culture can mourn Sadako Sasaki’s death by the atom bomb, but isn’t that leaving something out? The atom bomb isn’t sentient; it doesn’t have a will or agency. There were human beings who had will and agency who decided that Sadako’s life was not worth maintaining. And if that is the case, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not unique at all. Sadako Sasaki was killed by the same engine of war that recently killed over a hundred elementary school students in Minab, Iran. That same system funded violent dictatorships across Latin America throughout the Cold War. That same system established itself through the enslavement, forced removal, and mass killings of Indigenous people across what is now the contiguous United States.

"The Dark Mark of American Progress," by Klee Benally

How does Sadako Sasaki’s story fit into this framework? She is a young, helpless girl who is easy to empathize with. She is a member of a wealthy, highly developed nation friendly to the neoliberal world order. She was never part of any group that criticized American imperialism or its role in dropping the atom bombs. She is, in other words, a perfect victim if ever there was one. Someone like Sadako Sasaki is allowed to be venerated by the powers that be in a way that Yuri Kochiyama, for instance, is not. And the crane may call for peace, but only in an abstract, sanitized manner. Imperialist, capitalist states–the root causes of war and violence–are left unaddressed, because why would they let Sadako be remembered in a way that criticizes them?

To truly honor the origami crane, then, is to de-sanitize it. The enduring power of the crane is rooted in its political symbolism; that much is beyond questioning. But that symbolism must move beyond liberal posturing and support genuine liberation from systems of hierarchy and domination. How can we extend the crane’s demand for peace into a demand for liberation? Especially if people decide that trying to make peace with a violent, murderous power structure is ineffective and other means of resistance are possible. Peace is a noble goal, but history has shown that purely peaceful resistance movements rarely coexist with prisons, police, and armies. They are either subjugated or they take the one path left to them–militant self-defense.

Can the crane still stand for peace? Or can it stand for something more than peace?

"Peace Was Never An Option," designed by Marcus Ho, 2026