Hiroshima

The Atomic Dome, Hiroshima, April 21, 2008.

I took the ferry and train to Hiroshima and checked in at the Business Ryokan Sansui, where the whiteboard sign greeting me read: Burke Taters. In Hiroshima I visited the Peace Memorial and Museum, all set in a lush green, tree-filled park. All this, right at the spot that was devastated by the A-bomb in 1945, just below the huge fireball that lit up the sky and burned everything for miles in an instant. On a beautiful sunny day, in such a civilised country, this is all difficult to imagine. But, the museum does a good job to tell the story of the day that made this city famous.


For my second day in Hiroshima, I had a choice: 1) visiting the floating temples at nearby Miyajima*, or 2) tour the Mazda Museum and factory. As you can see from this photo, I went for the Zen experience, and kept the appointment for the zoom-zoom tour I had made when I arrived at the train station's tourist office the day before, when I arrived.
The car pictured above is a 1967 Mazda Cosmo, the world's first production rotary engine sports car, and a blatant rip-off of the Alfa Romeo Spyder.


This 1969 Mazda Luce, was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italy.


A mini-El Camino built by Mazda, for mini people.

After the tour of the museum, we were allowed into the factory to observe the assembly line. Watching the factory men at work was truly Zen, as I know it. One is easily lead to contemplate the existence of man, and the intricate relationships of everything in this universe. To see just a slice of the incredibly intricate infrastructure and labour that goes into assembling a car is mind-blowing. Everything is designed to flow, so that the production line never stops. And, to think that as complex as everything in the factory is, it is nothing compared to the earth's living systems.
I watched as one guy worked in tandem with a robot to install pre-assembled dashboard units. He was moving non-stop, quite quickly, too. The tour guide told me the workers get a 15 minute break in the morning, and one in the afternoon, and a 45 minute lunch break. Not too far off Lang's vision in Metropolis, I thought. Around the corner, however, there was a woman working on another part of the assembly line. She didn't appear to be busy at all, and in fact stood around while waiting for the next car to arrive so she could install the rocker panels covers. I asked the guide about this disparity and was told that woman don't do the difficult jobs. It certainly looked that way.
I really do think that watching the factory assembly line at work was one of the more incredible experiences of my year abroad. Here are some of the contributing factors: 1) cameras were not allowed in the factory, so the experience was of the moment, and not filtered through a screen of viewfinder, 2) the repetition and movement was strangely organic, like watching worker ants, because it was a multiple vehicle assembly line, 3) there were only 3 of us on the tour, so quite often I was standing alone, leaning over the catwalk railing looking down to the factory assembly line, the worker's unaware of my existence - again, like watching marching ants, and 4) It was mesmerizing, like watching the water fall over the edge of Niagara Falls.



Form and function merge pleasantly on this bench for the elderly and infirm on the local train in Hiroshima.


The morning tram in Hiroshima.

* as for floating temples, I can wait until I get back to Toronto and bike down to admire Eb Zeidler's Ontario Place. Way cooler.