“Lots of Tall Grasses and Big Red Ants” (2018)

“Lots of Tall Grasses and Red Ants”

By Tomoko Kubota, 2018
Listen to this edited audio piece through OHMA’s SoundCloud channel

During the Pacific war, the American and the Japanese army fought a fierce battle on Okinawa. The three-month battle took more than 200,000 lives. Of these, more than 12,000 were civilians, that is, about one-quarter of the prewar population in Okinawa. Teiko Yonaha Tursi, who was 4 years old when the battle occurred, talks about what she experienced during and after the war.

About the image above: View from Kyan Memorial in Okinawa, close to Konpaku no Tou. Cape Kyan is known as Cape of Tragedy, where many locals jumped to their deaths to avoid capture during the battle of Okinawa. Photo by Tomoko Kubota in February, 2016.

Tomoko Kubota-Hiramoto is a newscaster and a reporter of Tokyo Broadcasting Systems Television in Japan. She also contributes to Japanese newspapers and Magazines on a variety of topics. Her passion as a journalist has its roots deep in her hometown, Hiroshima. Tomoko was surrounded by the stories of the Hibakusha, the atomic bomb survivors as she grew up. Through them, she learned to value and respect peace, and became determined that she would like to dedicate her career to the alleviation of conflicts in the world.

Her interest in OHMA results from her uneasiness as atomic bomb survivors age. She would like to devote herself to ensure that the A-bomb survivors’ experiences and desires for peace are faithfully inherited and shared with as many people as possible. Therefore, she would like to conduct continuous interviews of the atomic bomb survivors. There are still many who are unable to talk about their experiences, those who have gone through the worst of the tragedy. Furthermore, she would like to cultivate the oral history archives of the atomic bomb survivors, as well as of the Americans involved with the atomic bombings, and start research on how the memory of a witness and trauma could be transmitted to future generations effectively.

Tomoko holds a BA in Foreign Studies from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.