By: Leah
Edited: Harith Syafiee
I often look back on my time in Japan. I was once naïve, too young to understand just how lucky I was to be able to live abroad. I wonder how my life would look if I had stayed longer than I did. If I had gone through middle and high school in my cushy international school in Osaka instead of my not-so-cushy school in Malaysia. Would I still have chosen to wear the hijab? Would I have ended up at IIUM? Would I still have decided to become an English major? All questions left out in the open for me to ponder when I am alone in my dorm room.
I envy the younger me sometimes for all the opportunities she had. All the historical sites, museums, and temples she got to go to. All part of a bigger part of history I was too young to understand. Now, as an adult, I think about the Hiroshima museum often. When I was probably seven or eight, I travelled to Hiroshima with my parents. I don’t remember much of that trip, except for the Hiroshima museum itself. I must admit, going to such a gruelling museum at such a young age did have its downside. It steered me clear of history and placed a fear in me about the past and all the things that have happened. I think about the last building memorial at the museum, a building brought down to its very foundation by the bomb. As an adult, I feel grateful that I got to experience these places. All the artefacts from such an atrocious event, the belongings whose owners were eviscerated from the face of the earth.
I remember the paper cranes that stood on display outside the museum, the ones that were handmade by one of the child victims. She was only two years old when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Because of the severe radiation, she developed leukaemia. While in the hospital, her friend told her that folding a thousand paper cranes would allow you to become immortal. So she folded paper cranes. A thousand, to be exact. She, unfortunately, did not live forever but lived another ten years before she passed away at the age of twelve.
I think back to the day it began snowing in the early morning. I was woken up by my neighbour yelling at me to come outside and play. I got up, my mother zipped me up in a jacket, put on boots on my feet and mittens on my hands, and off I went—such simpler times. Then, when we were done, we went back to our respective homes and had breakfast and hot chocolate. I was still in my pyjamas.
Sometimes I’ll go on to Google Street View and look at all the places I was once able to walk. I’d virtually walk past my old neighbourhood where I lost one of my crocs in the paddy fields or the park where I learnt to ride a bike. I often wonder where all my friends are. Many have changed, of course, considering it’s been over a decade. My old classmates are all over the world.
With the way the world is going, I don’t wish to fold a thousand paper cranes, but I do wish to one day go back to Japan and be able to experience it as an adult.
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