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Director of U. of I.'s Japan House to take paper cranes to Japan on peace tour
Melissa
Mitchell, Arts Editor
217-333-5491; melissa@illinois.edu
2/16/05
|
CHAMPAIGN,
Ill. — When Japan
House director Kimiko Gunji embarks on a tour of Japan next month,
she’ll be doing more than just chaperoning a group of tourists.
She’ll be directing a personally planned peace mission.
And in their bags, Gunji and others members of Tomonokai (Friends of
Japan House) participating in the Sakura (cherry blossom) Peace Tour
will be packing a few extra items among the usual clothing, cameras
and film. The group, which will be in Japan March 24-April 5, will be
traveling with 1,000 multicolored, hand-made origami cranes, which they
plan to deliver to a memorial park in Hiroshima as part of a project
called “Paper Cranes for Peace.”
“In Japanese culture, the crane is a symbol of longevity and happiness,”
Gunji said, explaining that for many years people from around the world
have deposited thousands of intricately folded cranes at the Children’s
Monument in Hiroshima’s Peace Park. The gesture, she said, is
“a visual representation of the desire for world peace.”
Visitors to the memorial were originally inspired to make cranes, she
said, by the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young Japanese girl who developed
leukemia in 1955 after being exposed to radiation through the bombing
of Hiroshima in 1945. Sasaki believed that the gods might grant her
wish for restored health if she folded a thousand paper cranes.
Gunji traces her idea to bring the Champaign-Urbana community together
to make origami cranes and deliver them to Japan to a couple of sources.
“I’m always thinking of some way to be aware of the importance
of bringing together the people of the world … to spread seeds
of peace,” Gunji said. One source of inspiration, she said, was
an old woman she encountered during a visit to Japan about 15 years
ago.
The woman, whose daughter had died after the Hiroshima bombing, spent
her days on the sidewalk crafting doll bookmarks and giving them away
to passersby. She did this as her own personal way of honoring her daughter’s
memory, in the hope that others would think of her and remember what
had happened, Gunji said.
“She was just sitting there, happily making these paper dolls,
one at a time,” she said. “It was very inspirational.”
Gunji said she seriously began entertaining thoughts about how to involve
Americans from her adopted community in the international crane-making
ritual after observing how U. of I. students were affected by the memorial
in Hiroshima. She first began taking students to the site during intercultural
study tours to Japan when she served on the staff of the university’s Campus Honors Program.
“Students were affected by it,” she said. “They would
get very serious and talk softly. I thought, ‘These are students
who are eventually going to be leaders.’ When dealing with top-notch
students … and when you consider that one person can change a
whole history, I wanted to find a way to get them into the system, to
recognize that they can change history.”
To prepare for the upcoming peace tour, Gunji has hosted a couple of
crane-making sessions at Japan House. Participants included area teachers,
who took the project back to their schools and involved students as
well.
Among them was Sherri Polaniecki, who teaches art to sixth-graders at
Mahomet Seymour Junior High and takes her students to Japan House each
quarter to study tea ceremony.
“I got involved in the peace project initially because I thought
it would be an excellent extension for my students to be involved in
a project that fostered peaceful relations with Japan since we are already
learning about Japanese culture and we always talk about harmony and
respect as parts of the ceremony,” Polaniecki said. “Further
dialogue that accompanied the project brought up a lot of reactions
from students regarding the atomic bomb, and the young girl, Sadako,
who died from leukemia as a result of the radiation.
“I think by doing the peace project as a class, it sends students
the message that whether or not we agree or disagree with America’s
choice to bomb Hiroshima at the end of World War II, there are always
consequences from violent actions such as these, and it is important
to remember and learn from such repercussions. I think it also lets
students feel like they have a place to contribute their wishes for
hope and peace, which is so important, especially as students are surrounded
with images of the Iraq war.”
A final crane-making session will take place during Japan House’s
open house celebration of Girl’s Day, from 1-4 p.m. on March 3,
at Japan House. As part of the Girl’s Day celebration, traditional
Hina dolls also will be on display.
