Pearl Harbor
For those of you who did not know
this, yesterday was Pearl Harbor day. I know that I am a day late for this but
to celebrate this we are going to watching some Movies about Hawaii and Pearl
Harbor, and by drinking pineapple flavored Coconut water.
When I was 12, I was able to go Honolulu
and visit Pearl Harbor. We got on a boat watched videos of firsthand
accounts of the battle. What I remember most about the tour was not the old
ships and planes or the testimony of the soldiers. What I remember the most is
that everything was translated into Japanese. There was probably two reasons
for this:
1)
Hawaii is about halfway between Japan and the
U.S. and as such it is a major vacation destination to the Japanese.
2)
The attack on Pearl Harbor is part of our
history that we share with Japan.
Indeed there were a good amount of Japanese tourist there,
which seemed odd to me that the time. I mean I don’t think I would go to Hiroshima,
and watch documentaries about them. I think I would feel fairly embarrassed to even
be there.
Book:
One of
my favorite books about World War II was one that I read in high school, Farewell
to Manzanar It is about the experiences of a young Japanese American girl
after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Once the U.S. entered the war,
Japanese American’s like Jeanne Wakatsuki (the author and protagonist of the
story) was forced into Japanese internment camps ran by the U.S. government. The
first chapter “What is Pearl Harbor” accounts how Japanese Americans reacted to
the bombing, and how the U.S. government first reacted to Japanese Americans.
One of my favorite quotes comes from this book: it is in chapter 7, when a
soldier is interrogating Jeanne’s father. The interrogator asks him, who he
wants to win the war, U.S. or Japan. The man’s response is, “When your mother
and your father are having a fight, do you want them to kill each other? Or do
you just want them to stop fighting?”(Houston, 64).
Movie:
“Pearl Harbor”, the movie starring Ben Affleck, Kate
Beckinsale, and Josh Hartnett; is an extremely long movie that reminded me a
lot of a bad Bollywood movie. Most Hindi movies are about three hours long,
have drawn out and dramatic romance, have acting that is just shy of good, and choreographed
dancing. The only one of these four things this movie didn’t have was the
dancing.
If you would like to learn about
Pearl Harbor, I would recommend a movie I found on Netflix, “Pearl Harbor:
Legacy of Attack”. This “National Geographic” documentary features the voice of
Tom Brokaw. It takes you back into the mindset the American People had at that
time, at the same time giving us an accurate historical account of the events.
Food:
I do not remember too much of what I ate the first time I
went to Hawaii. I do remember eating Poi- Mushy gray goo made from Taro root
and eaten with two fingers. I also remember this is where I first ate Sushi.
Now at the time I was afraid of raw fish, so while at the beach, my mom bought
us a dried plum sushi. The plum was salty and sweat, and was wrapped in sea
weed and sticky rice. Unlike sushi that I have eaten since then, it was shaped
in a triangle and not a rectangle or roll. My mom had just bought it from a
cart that was right off the beach. I have never eaten sushi from a cart since.
My
second trip to Hawaii was on the big Island. Being that it was more recent, I
have a lot more memories of it. Everyplace we ate breakfast featured spam. Span
Scrambled eggs, Spam as a side to pancakes. Now I do not eat pork, but I had to
make an exception here in order to get a true taste of the culture. When I was
on my way to Volcano National Park, we stopped at a gas station. There, in the
heat lamps was something I have never seen before- Spam Sushi! This had to be
what the locals ate; I mean who but the locals eats food from underneath gas
station heat lamps? I had to try it. It was awful, but I am really glad I ate
it.
Work Sited:
Bay, Michael. “Pearl Harbor”. 2001
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki; Houston, James D. Farewell to
Manzanar.1973.
Prentice, Patrick. “Pearl Harbor: Legacy of Attack”. 2001
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