Trusting the Paper Crane

"Trusting the Paper Crane" is the title of the first book I read in English at Juhee's preschool, Samuel Yochien. On July 13th, I went up to Juhee's classroom to read to the kids a book that was in both English and Japanese. The teacher had read it to them in Japanese a couple of weeks prior (see blog posting Mom Teacher Conference) so they already knew the story. Except for Juhee of course... :(

The kids really enjoyed listening to the story in English and were amazingly attentive the whole time, even though they understood very little of what I read. Afterwards, many of them came up to me and said random words they know in English - "apple!", "banana!", "see you!", "bye bye!", etc. They were so cute! I had a great time and I think the

kids did too. Juhee definitely had a great time, which is what I was most happy about. :)


The story is about Sadako, the girl who made folding 1,000 paper cranes for a wish to be granted - a very old Japanese tradition/saying - famous around the world post WWII. She lived in Hiroshima

at the time of the dropping of the atomic bomb and developed leukemia from the radiation. She died before she could finish folding 1,000 but her friends and family finished folding them for her and buried them with her.


She folded them, one by one, in the hopes that if she folded

1,000 origami paper cranes, she would be healed from leukemia. Hence the title, "Trusting in the Paper Crane".


After I read the book, it was time for the kids to go home, so instead of taking the bus, Juhee came home with me. She very happily and excitedly held my hand all the way from the classroom to the car and was a very happy bunny that day - and so was I! :)

On a slightly different note...

August 6th is the anniversary of the bombing in 1945 and prior to this date every year, there seem to be many memoir-type events that happen as a precursor to the memorial. On the actual date, different types of memorials take place all day long at the Peace Memorial Park.

Kids living in Hiroshima will probably be told the story of Sadako at least once a year till they're older as well as (some of) the atrocities of war and the results of the a-bombs being dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I wonder what they're told, how they're told what they're told, and how they're lead to think of the war and all that happened. I've received education in four different countries and it's interesting to see how and what is taught during history class. As you can imagine, it's always very different. :) How does a country that instigated war, committed so many war crimes (sex slaves or "comfort women", human experimentation or "maruta", slave labor, etc), caused so much pain and suffering to so many people around the world (e.g. Koreans were punished for using Korean during the Japanese occupation), and never publicly apologized for any of it, educate future generations on what happened in the past? From what my Japanese friends have told me in the past, it's not the same as what is taught in Korea, America, Germany, or the UK, but I don't know what's being taught now.

The book ends with "No more Nagasaki. No more Hiroshima." I don't think the translation is quite right, but I do hope that there will be no more need for a-bombs to be dropped anywhere in the world. I also pray that people all over the world will learn to put their trust in the one and only true God, and not in origami paper cranes.