VOX POPULI: Memories of 'senninbari' a warning against blind allegiance

Asahi Shimbun

4 days ago

Educator Hama Omura (1906-2005), who was known as 'Japan's best teacher of the Japanese language' for her unique teaching method, taught for 52 years from before, during and after World War II.
Until her death at the age of 98, Omura often talked about her experiences of making 'senninbari' (literally, 1,000-people stitches).
Senninbari is a strip of white cotton cloth that was stitched 1,000 times and given to a soldier going to war by his mother, wife or other well-wishers. Worn on his person, it was meant to protect him from bullets.
One thousand people were needed to make 1,000 knots in red thread. On the streets, women would be asked to stop and add their knots, while schoolgirls contributed to the effort in the classroom.
At the women's high school in Tokyo where Omura taught, regular classes were canceled for making senninbari.
One thousand marks were made on each piece of cloth to indicate where the knots should go. All the 1,000 participants threaded their needles simultaneously with a uniform length of red thread. The entire procedure was perfectly synchronized.
'The first bell rang, and that was the signal for everyone to make one knot,' Omura recalled. 'Then the second bell rang, twice. When done (with making the knot), the cloth was passed on to the next person. This process was repeated.'
It is frightening, even to just imagine, 1,000 young girls making knots in perfect unison—and not one stitch out of line, literally.
Omura herself voiced her regret later as a teacher in 'Onna tachi no Hachigatsu Jugonichi' (literally, 'Women's Aug. 15'): 'We were in a daze. We'd forgotten to think or doubt.'
The Asahi Shimbun's 'Koe' letters to the editor section ran a comment on Aug. 13 from a reader who said their twentysomething child did not know what the words 'fukuin' (demobilization) and 'shoi gunjin' (disabled veteran) meant.
I was stunned anew by the magnitude of what the passage of 80 years has 'swallowed up,' so to speak. We must not let wartime expressions fall into oblivion, and that definitely also goes for the memories of what led to those wartime realities.
I believe Omura's reason for recounting her senninbari experiences was to stress the importance of thinking, questioning and speaking out.
What needs to be recounted for posterity also existed in the details of the lives of noncombatant citizens who didn't go to the front.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 14
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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.