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发表于 2011-9-8 10:18:59
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VOX POPULI: Bright future awaits children of March 11 disaster
A short poem titled "Asobimasho" (Let's play together) consisting of only 20 hiragana characters goes: "If we forget names/ Why don't we just say/ 'Let's play together'/ That's enough." It was created some 50 years ago by a 6-year-old boy. Appearances don't matter for children to make friends. This is as true today as it was in the old days.
Children in the Tohoku region who survived the Great East Japan Earthquake and the tsunami it spawned have been receiving unpretentious messages of encouragement from kids overseas. The messages are part of the KIZUNA Message project organized by UNESCO. More than 30,000 messages with drawings or written words have been sent. Children in more than 50 countries took part. The messages are displayed at the Sendai UNESCO Association.
Among those I viewed are the following, many of which were sent from small countries. "Even if you lose everything, (the) future is still there," wrote a child from Bhutan. From Fiji, a child wrote, "The sun will bring you happiness again." A girl from Australia wrote in hiragana: "Totemo shinpai shiteimasu." (We are very worried about you.) A child in Afghanistan, where war continues, drew a picture of tsunami.
The 30,000 messages of "Let's play together" will be distributed to schools affected by the March 11 tsunami and the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Yuki Takahashi, a senior at Tohoku University who is helping with translation work, said: "When the children grow up, I want them to remember that they were not alone and people overseas also supported them." The movement can also eventually develop into grassroots exchanges.
A ray of hope for the stricken areas is the smiling faces of young children. This summer, an exhibition of handicrafts made by students at Watanoha Elementary School in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was held in Tokyo. "Broken pieces of the town" such as kitchen utensils and toys that the tsunami carried to the school ground have been put together to create humorous objects. I am relieved by the children's playful spirit.
A cute card from France carried the sentence: "I love sushi." There is no fixed form for goodwill. I want children on whose shoulders rest the future of the stricken areas to stay strong and strive to achieve their dreams in their own way with innocence and cheerfulness. Once they regain their energy, a bountiful future awaits them.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 7 |
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