00:00:01 John Daub: Welcome to Nagasaki. That's going towards the city and the hypocenter of where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 9th, 1945. The blast came in this direction and this is one of the ruins of the Nagasaki atomic bombing, the Shidoyama Elementary School.

00:00:20 John Daub: I got a chance to go inside. Not another tourist in there, which is kind of crazy considering that Japan's going to have about 40 million tourists this year. I can kind of zoom and pan across this building. But I think it was in 1999 the students and the school decided to preserve this as a museum, a peace museum, where you get a chance to take a look inside and see how the building, how the blast impacted the building. And also memorialize the people that lost their lives. There were a lot of staff members that were working that day that didn't make it. And it's kind of a very unique thing in Japan to see no tourists around here, especially in a place that is very famous worldwide.

00:01:12 John Daub: This is the former Shidoyama National School building. Here's a picture of it. They had brochures in English. There wasn't a lot of information. How you doing? It is really hot today. I thought Tokyo was hot and then I landed in Nagasaki and a blast of hot air hit me as soon as we exited the aircraft. I'll talk a little bit about that in a second. But I got a chance to go inside here. Everything is mostly in English, I want to say. But there's a staff member inside who, I didn't talk too much with her about her own story, but it looks like she probably has one. And she is the proprietor. Yeah, she's the proprietor. There's only one person in there, and you can walk around. You have to sign in when you enter the country and the time that you entered into there. And if you want to film, you probably should call in advance, which is what we did.

00:02:07 John Daub: I think this is one of the stops you really do have to come to because the stories of this area, the hypocenter around Nagasaki really put it all together. Then you get a complete picture of just the devastation. And now you have to get up to the end of this area. What happened during World War II at that time. You can see how far I am from Tokyo, flying over Yamaguchi Prefecture at the end of Honshu to this part of Kyushu, Nagasaki on the end. The airport, interestingly, Nagasaki Airport (Nagasaki Kūkō [?]) is inside, in the bay there. And I had to go across the bridge to the Rent-A-Car place and then drive out here about an hour ago.

00:02:46 John Daub: This is right now, you can see the Peace Park and the Hypocenter Park there and the blue spot is where I am right now. This is the Shidoyama Memorial Elementary School, the ruins right there, that tower. And the entrance is around the side. You've got to go inside the school and go around to the back. I think that the little building on the bottom right is also one of the ruins. I don't know if you can go in there. I think it's still a working school. But I certainly can feel that history here. And I'm glad that I came. I don't know if you can see it, but I neglected to come here the last time, which is one of the reasons why I came today. Because to make sure that I get a complete story, I have to include the Shidoyama Elementary School.

00:03:34 John Daub: That's Hypocenter Park. I might go there a little bit later on to refilm the opening scene because it's kind of funny. You can see that marker right above is where the atomic bomb exploded, directly above. It's pointing up to the sky to the marker where it is. And then the Peace Park is where they're going to be holding the memorial in a month from now, a little bit over a month. And Urakami Cathedral is also one that was very impacted by the bombing. There's some stories behind that, too. And you can see some of the ruins, including, I think, the bell. I was here about three months ago, three and a half months ago. There's some ruins down there. And you can see a little bit of the story, as well as the one-legged Torii Gate. I did a live stream walking over to there a few months ago.

00:04:20 John Daub: All in all, I think it's a really interesting story when you walk around the city, which is so cool. It's quiet. The Torii Gate's in there. It's so quiet here. It's peaceful. The people are lovely. The food is really good. I really don't know why more people don't come to Nagasaki. I think a lot of people are going to come here for the Peace Park, the atomic bombing history memorial. And then they're going to discover an amazing city that's just surrounded by mountains. Look at this. It really is. The cicadas aren't out yet, so we're not in full bloom. It's a little blast summer, but it sure feels like it.

00:05:03 John Daub: Filming, live streaming, you want to be really sensitive about it. It's one thing about filming inside, but it's another thing about live streaming. So I can show you a little bit. I don't want to go onto the grounds, because there are kids in there. But this place certainly has a story. I want to just show you a little bit and how you would get inside there. And I want to show you a little bit inside as well. So the Peace Park is open between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. at the Peace School Museum. And the entrance is around the back here. So you go around to the side here, and there's a memorial right here. Peace statue of a boy who was killed in the atomic bombing, a fifth grader.

00:06:09 John Daub: I like the fact that they do have a lot of markers in the city as well as explanations in English right there. So let's go back to this point I want to talk to where the signal is a little bit stronger. You start to lose signal inside there, because we're up on a hill surrounded by a lot of other concrete buildings. So I did get a chance to go in there. I filmed some clips. I didn't get anybody, because I know it's a quite sensitive thing here. So check out my experience inside there.

00:06:41 John Daub: What's really amazing is that they've preserved the walls the way that they were. So you do feel like you're walking inside ruins, fire, the blast. It looks really scarred inside there. They've put some pictures in there and pictures and displays on the wall. So you get a chance to remember what happened on that day. There aren't a lot of structures left. In fact, I think there's very few that offer this kind of an experience. You shouldn't be filming the photographs without permission. So I'm doing it from a distance here. This is a scale 1-100th of that day and the ruins afterwards. And they've built it inside there so you get a chance to take a look. And it's actually quite well done. You see the trees are all burnt out. Everything is twisted. All the metal that was part of the concrete. A lot of it was just blown apart. But much of the integrity of the building is okay. And you can see from the tower window, looking back at the city, this is where the bomb would have exploded out from that direction there. So that's my experience inside there. I didn't want to show too much of it.

00:07:56 John Daub: By the way, Ponkotsu Ben, thank you for bringing the stories of the atomic bomb survivors of both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Well, thank you for that. My mother and uncles will be remembered. But you helped bring light to the story. Nagasaki is my home in Japan and I will always... Well, I think as a resident of Nagasaki, it's hard to separate the stories from the war. But we're getting now to the 80th. It's anniversary, memorial. Anniversary is something I think that's more of a celebration, memorial, I suppose, where a lot of the remaining survivors might be there. And they sit in the Peace Park, which is about 500 meters from here, 400 or 500 meters from here. And they have at the moment that it occurred 80 years ago, we'll be having a bell rung as well as a lot of speakers. It's a very big one this year, 80 years. But what is most significant about 80 years is that a lot of the people that were children back then are now in their 80s or near 100. A lot of people in their 90s. I interviewed two hibakusha survivors for this episode coming up and they're in their 90s. And very, very sharp. So I'm looking forward to sharing the story with you guys.

00:09:19 John Daub: I hope the connection is okay. It's going in and out a little bit. I'm sorry, it's the signal here. The brochure shows some pictures of the school. Let me see if I can bring it a little bit closer. Of what the school looked like on that day. There you go. And the remains of it as well. I can open it up here. It's a lot of information and I'm really surprised that they have it in English too, which is great. So that it explains everything that you're seeing here. And I don't want to ruin it for you. I do think that you should come here and check it out. But there's a lot of things. This tree fell down in 2016, I believe. Yeah, 2016. And they found a way to preserve it and it's inside there. So you can see a lot of the trees in the area. The big ones, the strong ones, survived the atomic bomb blast, which is quite amazing.

00:10:19 John Daub: So let me see if I can, I might be able to just show you a little bit of the area here. Here's the other school, the other building right there. You got to go up a slope, and in the summer it's really hot. I think I filmed all that I need to film here. It's very sensitive because there are kids in the school. I don't have permits to film them. So you have to be careful. I'm going to take you down around here and I want to say thank you to Ponkotsu Ben. I'm going to go down there and see if I can find a cold drink to celebrate the Super Chat. I do appreciate that very much. Basically, you paid for my plane ticket to come back here.

00:11:20 John Daub: I flew here via Jetstar. You guys want to see Mount Fuji? Let me see if I can bring this to the forefront here. I flew right over Mount Fuji. So this is, see I can bring, okay going up here. So these clips are compliments of Ponkotsu Ben. Thank you. So I got up here. I took Jetstar. This was actually about $115 for the flight I think. Jetstar is pretty cheap. As you guys know, it's a budget airline. The seats are like leather, like fake leather but not a lot of leg room in there. I mean it's enough to give the thumbs up here. And about 25 minutes after takeoff, there was Fujisan right there. I took it with my full frame camera and just a couple of clips with the smartphone here. But you can see the north side of Mount Fuji is pretty, pretty clear. I put this on Instagram, this one here. So you can see the north side. No clouds and the south, east and west side is clouded over. That's Fujisan for you. That's the way the weather works up there. Yeah, Jetstar is squishy but it's only a two hour flight so it's not really that bad.

00:12:41 John Daub: So we're leaving here the Shidoyama Elementary School. If you have any questions about this in particular, leave it in the comments below and I'm happy to answer any questions about Nagasaki. I've been to many of the sites around here walking. I was here in March and I'm here again on July 1st. Last time I came with ANA. That was a much smoother ride. And no, nothing against Jetstar, but I was squished in there pretty good. It was only half full as well. So I like the fact that we have that cheap option. The thing with Jetstar is that you can't do it as a day trip. It's, you have to go back on another airline because the same flight that came in goes out an hour later. So I'm taking that back twice. I'm going to be back tomorrow. So I'm going to be spending the night on Glover Street again.

00:13:36 John Daub: Alright, let's go get a drink. I see a vending machine over there. I parked at the convenience store on the other, sorry, I parked down in this direction. Oh my goodness, it is, I woke up. It was 90% humidity. 30 degrees Celsius early in the morning. That is pure and utter destruction. It is so hot in Tokyo. And then I came here and said it's not any better. In fact, the air quality is not that great because a lot of the pollution from China makes its way across the Sea of Japan to here. Oh, I see some, is that peach nectar? I might go for that. There's a Tsutaya. These things are throwbacks. You don't really see them anymore. Tsutaya. You see them out in the countryside? Not so much in Tokyo anymore. Maybe there's one in Roppongi. Yeah, there you go. There's the peach nectar. The Nikki, which is a, the Fujiya. How much peach juice? That's 30% peach juice. That's something. Vitamin power up. That sounds good. Mugi-cha might be the ticket here. That's the one with a lot of, with some vitamins in there. All right, I better go Mugi-cha. Oh my God. I'm, my shirt is drenched. When I got off of the airplane, I drove past a Uniqlo and then I stopped in there because I had to get another T-shirt. I didn't bring enough. This one, oh, it does have a, a cute, a sweet gar reader, but I don't, oh, that's tempting. The nectar. Now I'm going to go for the unsweetened barley tea. I don't need the sugar. A lot of vitamins and minerals in the barley tea. Good for summer.

00:15:50 John Daub: That is such a good feeling. It is so hot. Baking. This is early for this. This is supposed to be still the rainy season. Oh my gosh. What a trip. All right. Now that I've filmed inside of the Shidoyama Elementary School for some clips for this edited episode. I'm going to make my way to the next stop. And yeah, this episode is going to be great. I mean, it's probably going to be a heartbreaking episode because the witness accounts from that day, the first-hand witness accounts, we're probably not going to have too many of them left in a couple of years. Already, we're starting to see people that I've interviewed in the past. The one guy in a Hiroshima video, that I interviewed, he came in and he described what he saw from the train of, of melted, it's a hideous sight that he, no human should have to suffer or endure through that. And no one should have to see and experience that. But war is war, man. It's an awful, awful thing. And we need to be reminded of that every now and then, because we can forget. But with the memorial coming up again, 80 years, I think it's really important to highlight these stories before they're gone.

00:17:23 John Daub: So, Ponkotsu Ben, I think I know that you get that as well. I would love to see more YouTubers coming and contacting the Hibakusha organization. They're very, very friendly. I gave them my plan, and they helped set up some interviews with survivors. And I had that translated last month. And now the subtitles are in, and so I'm getting closer to the completion. There's the Shidoyama Elementary School ruins from at the bottom of the hill. I'll get a shot here before I take off in the car, but you can't fly a drone around here. Oh my goodness gracious.

00:18:12 John Daub: One thing that I always do, if you do come and you're, you have somebody that you're going to be interviewing, I always bring omiyage (souvenir gift) from Tokyo or a gift. But this time it came from Chiba because Narita Airport is there. So I got some sort of peanut confection from Chiba. So just always have a little small gift to say thank you. Because they're coming here to give me the interview. I'm not paying them anything for that, but I'm really appreciative of it. So it's always good to think about the other person, other people and bring something to give. A small gift just means that you're thinking about the other person. I think that that's a polite thing to do. Many, they're often surprised at a foreigner who's traveling alone. I don't have a cameraman or any Japanese assistance with me. Brings an omiyage gift. That's always a good sign. And it also helps to loosen people up a little bit as well. Because when you do interview people, the first minute or two, I like to do really simple questions and talk about anything except for what we're going to be talking about. Easy stuff. Because you want to know the person that you're talking to. Right? I don't trust, if someone just interviews me and I've never met them before, I probably don't feel as comfortable sharing information with them. But if you can get a chance to get to know somebody, hey.

00:19:49 John Daub: Oh, I did not know that it's 100 yen for 40 minutes. Wow. You're welcome, Sean. That's not too bad, but that's not exactly wonderful. I think I've been here for a little bit over an hour. Oh my gosh. So I have an interview at 6 p.m. tonight with the one thing I did not get in my, I'm just going to go into the car and turn on the air conditioning. Oh God.

00:20:31 John Daub: This car is freaky. Check it out. Look how much head space I have. It's called the Roomy. I think it's pretty, it's a pretty interesting car to drive because it has, it has none of the power, no power. It's got real little, little teeny wheels like a kei car, but you got an amazing view looking around here. So I got to open the windows for a second to let the steam out. Holy smokes. This is crazy. I think it is a kei car. No, maybe not because the license plates would be a different color, right? The Roomy. Yeah. Yoda Jedi 01 got it right. The Roomy. I usually get a Vitz. I think it's called. Which is a small Toyota compact car. I don't need anything special, but today I got, they gave me this one. I don't mind it at all because it's really comfortable. I have to be honest with you.

00:21:39 John Daub: The interviews that I have been working with for the Hibakusha are heartbreaking stuff. And for the last three weeks or so, I've been somewhat depressed. It's a really hard thing to make a story. And when you make a documentary like this, you put your heart and soul into it. I was in, I almost broke down talking with the people, hearing the story. I'm not fluent in Japanese. I understand about like, I don't know, 70 to 90%. There are some things that I could not catch, which, you know, I get the gist of stuff and I learn new words all the time, but I'm certainly not fluent. But I get the gist of everything that they were saying. And it was some hard, hard stuff that they shared with me. One woman was very young. And the other person was, I think he was 16 years old when it happened. So his account is much more vivid. But no longer do we have anyone in their 30s or 40s, the mothers or fathers. We're talking like now the third generations, people that were under the age of 20 usually. 16, 15, 14. The one guy I interviewed was such a nice guy. I want to go back and visit him. He's 94. And he's more like, he has more energy than I do. It's crazy. It's the Japanese genes, you know, he lives out in the countryside of Nagasaki. Now he shared his story, a lot of details in there. And I think this is going to give it a really good picture of it. And I had a guide take me around the hypocenter, just like I did for Hiroshima. But I think it's, I hired a guide. Great guy. He spoke perfect English too. And he's, he was a child when they rebuilt that cathedral over there. So he has a really deep connection with this area as well.

00:23:41 John Daub: Sorry, I had to, I have to stay hydrated. It's crazy, crazy hot. While I was inside the Shidoyama elementary school, two tourists came in. One guy was from Sweden. I tried talking to him. He wasn't much of a talker. He said, oh yeah. And then he kept walking. So some, maybe somewhat socially awkward person. It's okay. And the other guy, I just said, hey, and he goes, hey, and he knew where to go. And that's all. I try to talk with people, but it's hard sometimes. This is so far off the beaten path. There are very few adults that survived the bombing that are still alive today. We are losing them every day. Right. And that's my biggest fear when I came to Japan 27 years ago. Holy crap. There were a lot more people around to tell those stories.

00:24:46 John Daub: Sorry, we're back again. The phone overheated. That's the first time the iPhone 14 has overheated. So I turned on the air conditioning full blast and the phone is up against the vent. That's crazy. That's how hot it is. Sorry. It wasn't an earthquake or anything. It was just the phone is literally up against the vent blasting out the coldest possible air right now. So yeah, there you go. So I'm just going to keep it like here and let the phone, it's probably going to die. The battery's got about 10% left. If you're really interested about the atomic bombing history, and I think it's a little bit more than that, I think it's really good for everybody to experience it. At least you get a chance to bring what you saw in the history books to life. And when you see it with your own eyes, it leaves a really strong impression. I saw the museums in Cambodia, in Vietnam, in Hanoi. And I saw, you know, the museums in Germany as well. In the United States, I've been to war museums. I've seen a lot of stuff. You know, when I went to Pearl Harbor as well. And the thing is, you know, we sometimes forget the history that we learn as kids. And it's really good to go back and remember those that were lost on both sides. Whether, as an American in Pearl Harbor to remember the servicemen in the Navy that, in all, I guess it was the Navy, all of the armed forces that lost their lives in that bombing. And then come to Japan, and realize, you know, civilians had nothing to do with it. War is a really nasty thing. But you have to remember how nasty it is. And these kinds of visits do that. I think for kids, maybe around eight or nine, might be mature enough to do it.

00:27:05 John Daub: The burned victims were treated poorly. It's sad. There was nothing. Based on my interviews, you couldn't really drink the water. There was an amazing amount of thirst. No water. You're burned. Nothing to treat it. They brought out oil, cooking oil, and then motor oil. Whatever they could do to try to relieve the burns that happened. And you couldn't drink the water. There wasn't much, any food for days. Those that survived were probably hanging on by a thread. Some people were able, which is, what is the most amazing thing is that story I made last year, on the atomic bomb trains of Hiroshima. I knew the story, but I didn't know how deep it was until I made that episode. And I was able to interview the 94 year old conductor of the A-bomb train. It's crazy. They got the train running 72 hours after the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. That is insane. You have to watch that story. Go back and rewatch it in August just to remember what happened that day. I found the old army footage that was taken in the aftermath of it. We're talking like weeks after. And you can see that the train is running. It was insane. When you think about it, because the tracks would be twisted. How could you find trains that are still working? Who would be around to even fix it and then maintain it and then clear the debris from the road, then get the power going enough to make this run in the first 72 hours. Hiroshima has so many amazing stories like this, and we're going to lose a lot of them because people are just now past the point.

00:29:08 John Daub: So the one thing that I learned talking with the associations and one of them won the Nobel Peace Prize last year in December, 2024, which is a huge honor. A lot of people have stories to tell, but they just never shared them. And then when they go, it's up to the family members to do it, but it's not quite as powerful if you don't hear it firsthand from somebody whose eyes had seen that. I remember when I was a kid talking to someone who said they'd seen Babe Ruth play. I'm like, holy crap. What? Like he stopped playing in the early forties or something, but there are people around who had seen him play. And those people that had were inside of the house that Ruth built are no longer. So I think that that's something that's really part of my responsibility as someone who lives in Japan to do something like this. It's very important.

00:30:12 John Daub: 14 year old girl who asked for help to, yeah, she was 14. Thanks for correcting me with that too. A lot of people go to Hiroshima and not many people go to Nagasaki. That's worse. Whatever they, they use whatever they could find that would ease the pain and suffering because they weren't going to make it. Sasaguchi-san, who is the 14 year old conductor who was at the time when it happened, she told me that the screaming, the smell, the crying, some of the stuff I cut it out. It was unbearable. The person that she slept next to, at night in the morning would be dead. They wake up and then there would be a dead person next to her. They just didn't survive the night. Whatever you could do to ease people's pain. They didn't have, you know, like opium or something to give them to ease the pain or some sort of narcotic or whatever. They didn't have anything. Because they were unprepared for it. No warning. So it just happened. And even so, war is a really nasty, nasty thing. And I know a lot of the viewers here, probably not you guys, but people watching this in the playback are going to talk about, you know, they started it. There's always that .1% that talks about the sides as though the war is still going on. The war is over. It doesn't matter who started it and who finished it. It's now up to us to live and learn from it. And try to prevent it, I think. And I really have a ton of respect for Nagasaki and the people here. And they're trying to share their stories now before it's too late. That was my impression. They really wanted us to hear the story. So when I contacted them, my assistant Emmy and I contacted them last year. I actually contacted them years ago and I didn't get access. But they gave access this year. And I was able to get those interviews and make the story. And Akino, who has been very helpful as well, hope you get a chance to meet with her. She has other stories that I can tell about the abandoned houses in Nagasaki and some of the history. So I look forward to talking more with Akino, who is a resident here but also lived in the United States, who contacted me as well. But I already had the story in motion. So I'm glad that I finally could finish this year.

00:32:37 John Daub: From what I understand from the, I don't want to talk too much about the politics of it, but I think, yeah, Ninja Monkey, they did, they changed the museum around. It's a lot more global now. It was kind of, at the end, it got a little bit hardcore. But it's still pretty hard, it slams you at the end for sure, that Hiroshima Museum. It's the same kind of stuff, but I think they've made it a little bit different. They had like the 1980s sort of missile arms race. They did a better job with that in Hiroshima. They have a little bit of that as well. The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, it has the Little Boy and the Fat Man. So they have a replica of the atomic bomb that was dropped from the American side and the full size replica, which is very powerful and that'll probably make its way into the thumbnail. But the museum was very good here. Very good. And for peanuts, I think it's like 30, $40, you can hire a guide that will spend half a day with you and will take you around. I can give you the name of, if you want to ask me in the comments, I can give you the name of the person who guided me. He spoke perfect English and was able to share a lot of inside knowledge. And I drove him around a little bit in the car. We bailed to the car to drive around because it's a lot of walking, but even some of the guides are getting up there in years. So the woman I'm interviewing tonight at five o'clock, the reason why is, she's third generation, meaning she wasn't born until after the war. And she's continuing the story of the Hibakusha. So for this episode, I want to make sure that the legacy and the stories of the Hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bomb, their stories continue. I'm not sure how that happens. So she's a person who is going around sharing the stories of this. And I think that that's a critical part of this episode. Not just what happened that day, but how the world is going to continue to remember Nagasaki after those who Hibakusha are gone, because there's only a number of years before we lose the last one, probably at age 102 or 103, or they were too young to remember it firsthand. And we're going to rely on the children of the Hibakusha soon enough for their firsthand stories. Story told to you in person is so much different than watching on the internet. So it'll be hard to do a good job with it.

00:35:14 John Daub: If you have any questions, leave them in the comments. I am absolutely drenched. So I might go to the hotel, change my shirt and then come back. Yeah. Any questions before I tune off here? Did you see yesterday? Our friend Oriental Pearl put up a real asking me viral questions about life in Japan. She's pretty sharp. Everybody, every creator is different, has their own way. We all learn from each other, the good and the bad. She's a good person, a good friend. She cares a lot. And it's interesting to talk to. Very interesting. Yeah. All right. I'm parched. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to drive away. So let me know in the comments. I'd love to hear about you or your stories here in Nagasaki. If there's anything else you'd like me to cover in Nagasaki, let me know. I'm leaving tomorrow morning, so I won't have time to do it this time, but tomorrow, I will bring you to another area. Maybe back where the street food is, tomorrow. I don't know. Maybe tonight, I'll do a street food episode. I don't know. I'm going to be staying at the same hotel I was at before, because they were really good. And it was really affordable, the hotel here. The same hotel, that's usually about 12,000 yen, was 6,000 yen here. I don't know why. I guess it's because there's not a lot of tourists that come down here at this time of year. I don't know. All right, guys. Take care. Mata ne. I got to hand hold it now. Ponkotsu Ben, thank you so much again for this super chat and the support. And I really do appreciate it. And I hope one of these days I can catch up with you, and talk about all sorts of stuff. Mata ne.