colors

It all started in the downtown Yokohama. We were supposed to watch a Japanese dance-drama called No, and I stupidly left my ticket at the dormitory, some 420-yen-train ride away. I was walking back to the station when I saw these murals on what would otherwise be like the forgotten buildings in Manila, vandalized, shabby, completely unlike the Japan I know and love. There was this big painting of a Harajuku girl's face: chalk-white face, blue makeup, black hair. And the eyes were painted anime style, with tears spilling out, gray angels on the iris.

And it all came to me: we should have more thought-provoking graphics in our lives. What if someone painted that mural thinking, I have seen enough hardships in my life, people need to see pain magnified in front of their faces. That way, they'll realize everything could change in an instant. Do something positive now. Help others. Care. Don't let anyone feel like this again.

Of course, that mural is still tucked away on that walkway near the station, not really out for all the world to see. But the colors were amazing. And the painter could have thought what I just wrote, right?

I guess I got into this semi-dark mood when I saw an article on the Japan Times about earthquakes. It said that the Japanese government is allocating a budget for the rehabilitation of Tokyo in the event that a major earthquake happens, a fact that a lot of people believe will come in the near future. This very earthquake-prone country has continued to scare me with quakes in the middle of the night. And what's worse, people keep telling me that a major earthquake happens every five years, and the last one was in 2000.

I am just here typing, praying that they are wrong, flashes of the 1995 Kobe earthquake wreckage on my mind.

After all, besides the earthquake news I am still on a high. We went skiing in Nagano, the host of the 1998 Winter Olympics on a tour with 40 plus other Filipinos. And I couldn't have had asked for anyone else; there will always be an enthusiasm and camaraderie between Filipinos that can't be had anywhere in Japan. We met exchange students, graduate students, first-time skiers like us, skiers and snowboarders, computer experts. All had a great time as we fell on the snow and helplessly skidded out of control on that first day. Skiing was like flying, a high in itself.

Everything was white: mountains, the snow, trees, even the cold I felt was white. I literally have never felt so happy and at peace.

After that, we went on a field trip to Okinawa, an island on the southernmost part of Japan, known for its tropical weather. At first, I thought only in Japan could I go from freezing cold days to warm, rainy nights. But when we found out that Okinawa is also known for its U.S. bases occupying 45% of the island, and being the only place in Japan where ground battles were fought during the World War II, the trip became another assault on my senses. We saw three UNESCO World Heritage sites, groped around in dark caves where a lot of Japanese committed suicide, and confirmed to myself that yes, they do consider their emperor as God.

I was so shocked at the fact that Okinawan civilians died just because they thought Americans were the devils. They had rather died by poison in some cave, with other bloated corpses than be killed in the hands of their enemies. They drank poison, killed their babies, and as the needless, red blood spilled, they cried, "For the emperor!" To think I shone my flashlight on their broken teeth and combs.

When I asked our fellow Ferris students what they thought of the suicides, one of them said she would probably have done the same thing. When I asked why, she explained that those Okinawans didn't know about the outside world. The mainland governement misled them with wrong information or deliberately kept it from them, the horrow of the pre-World War II militaristic education, which drove them to the battlefield with no skepticism but rather with a willingness to serve. When the bombs and gunshots came, they were caught in the middle of the soldier's fighting and didn't know what to do.

Then we headed down to the beach. While they were splashing in the water, and running around the sand, I thanked God we were safe and healthy and alive. The endless blue sea can do that sometimes. We are alive, and that is all that matters.

I always thought that war was scary, but now I realized lack of knowledge, of truth is scarier. Now we know and remind ourselves: "War kills everything - a life of every single being/ therefore our story continues/ we will speak of the truth of war, brutality, pain/ engraved in our bodies/ and memories." This poem was on the passage to peace section of the Himeyuri Museum, right after a room filled with black and white pictures of the girls who died on the battleground, mobilized as nurses.

I think spring is coming now. The cold winter nights of the past month and a half are pretty much becoming a memory. Now, even if we still bundle up in our coats or turn the heater up, the wind is not as brisk, and the warmth while indoors is not as fleeting. The first warm windstorm has arrived; I saw it on the newspaper this morning. And so, thank God it is official: spring is here at last.