Hiroko Nakamoto, founder of the Gateway to World Peace project, is an alumna of Pratt Institute, N.Y. and Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She has had a long and illustrious career in architectural interior design. As a young girl, Hiroko witnessed the horror of nuclear devastation firsthand. In 1983, she started a fund to initiate the project. Now, having secured from the City of Hiroshima a significant piece of land at the Hiroshima Railway Station Front, together with a commitment for the perpetual up keep of the property, the project is much closer to the realization of a dream.
My Japan is an excellent book. Living in America we have certain prejudices and bias towards other countries. Because we are Americans we think that the atomic bomb, although we do know it killed many people and displaced thousands more, we do not think about it from the the other point of view. The citizen of Hiroshima. The ones that were there that day living their innocent lives. The victims. Also because we are Americans we are forced to learn about only European culture. I am only thirteen years old, and I knew very little about Japanese Culture before I read this book. The author brought me into a Japanese home. She explains the importance of family and makes several comparisons to American culture. Some things seem humorous at first. For instance she states in Japan when American soldiers appeared at her door she was not sure what to offer them. She had heard somewhere that Americans like raw vegetable, Japanese people do not eat raw vegetables. So she gave them raw onions. Before reading this book I thought only bad things came out of World War II. I now learn that some good things came out of it. Because of it Hiroko Nakamoto could receive a college education, when before women would never have even dreamed of that. I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in Japanese and Western cultures coming together to form a new Japan.
Hiroko Nakamoto
Founder
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