Hiroshima, 80 Years On: A Bar Owner’s Thoughts on Knowing the Facts
On August 6th, 2025, Hiroshima marked 80 years since the atomic bombing. The children’s representative at the Peace Memorial Ceremony opened their address with these words: “For a future world without atomic bomb survivors, many people need to know the facts — so that we never repeat the same mistakes.”
Know the facts. That phrase stayed with me.
Growing Up in Hiroshima
I was born in Hiroshima. I grew up here, and I still live here. Every summer of my childhood included folding paper cranes, visiting the Peace Memorial Park, and listening to the accounts of atomic bomb survivors. Reading Barefoot Gen. Sitting under the survivor trees and thinking about peace. For children who attended elementary school in Hiroshima, this was simply part of summer — not unusual, just present.
Most people in Hiroshima share a clear wish: no more nuclear weapons. And yet, because they know what war actually costs, some voices here also argue that nuclear deterrence is a necessary reality. Growing up brings complexity. I still believe these weapons should not exist. But I have learned to hold the contradictions without dismissing them.
Welcoming the World at the Bar
Through Bar Little Happiness, I’ve had the privilege of meeting guests from many countries over the years. Some arrive in Hiroshima and tell me they don’t want to visit the Peace Memorial Museum — they find the framing uncomfortable, or they come with their own complicated feelings about the war. I understand that. I don’t push.
But when I gently encourage people to go, and they do, the response is almost always the same afterward: “I’m glad I went.” What they find inside is not accusation or propaganda. It is human detail — objects, photographs, recorded voices — that makes abstract history impossible to hold at a distance. The experience changes something.
Mika’s Perspective
I am a bar owner. I don’t claim the authority to speak about world peace at any scale. But I was born in the city where the first atomic bomb fell on a civilian population, and I believe I have a responsibility to say something, in my own words, about what that means. If you visit Hiroshima, please go to the Peace Memorial Museum. And if you come to the bar afterward and want to sit quietly with a glass and think — that’s exactly what this counter is for.
Read the original Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/hibaku80/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
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