My Visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

And the Pervy Cab Driver Who Took Me There

The Cenotaph at Hiroshima Peace Park, with the A-Bomb Dome in the Background/All Photos by Hope Anderson

I had a train to catch and Peace Park was across town, so I took a taxi instead of public transportation. Perhaps because I said “Heiwa Koen” instead of “Peace Park”, the driver complimented my Japanese and asked how I’d learned it. Then he announced his age: eighty years old. “Eighty!”, he repeated excitedly.

Eighty? Knowing that drivers in Tokyo usually give up their licenses at seventy, when insurance rates rise significantly, I ventured, “Isn’t that old to be driving?”

He laughed. “I can’t drive at night, only in daytime,” he said. And then he made an obscene hand gesture that might exist elsewhere, though I’ve only seen it in Japan: a fist with his thumb protruding between two fingers. “Do you know what this is? I love it! Etchi!