히로시마 원폭에서 생존한 391년된 분재...아직도 자라 391-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived Hiroshima Bombings and Keeps Growing
391-Year-Old Bonsai Tree Survived Hiroshima Bombings and Keeps Growing
Image via USDA-U.S. National Arboretum.
만일 나무가 말할 수 있다면
역사의 뒤안길에 너무 할말이 많을 것이다.
이 분재는 1625년에 식재되어 거의 400년 가까이 오랜 역사의
소용돌이 속에서 굳굳이 버텨왔다.
현재 미 국립수목원에 있으며 아직도 자라고 있다.
이 나무는 일본의 분재 마스터인 마사루 야마키에 의해 1976년에 헌납됐으며
특별한 비밀스러운 이야기가 숨겨져 있다.
야마키 가족은 1945년 8월 히로시마의 원폭이 떨어진 곳에서 3.2km
정도 떨어져 살았다.
원폭으로 무려 14만명이 사망했고 도시는 폐허로 남았다.
하지만 집안에 남아있던 분재는 다행히 크게 훼손되지 않았다.
야마키 가족은 미국 200년 기념제에 앞서 국립수목원에 이 분재를 기증했다.
황기철 콘페이퍼 에디터
Ki Chul Hwang, conpaper editor
By Jessica Stewart on December 22, 2016
If trees could talk, this bonsai would certainly have a lot of to say. Planted in 1625, it’s lived a lot of history in its nearly 400 years. Currently located at the U.S. National Arboretum in Washington, D.C., it was gifted to the United States by bonsai master Masaru Yamaki in 1976. Little did the Arboretum know that this diminutive plant held a special secret.
The Yamaki family had lived just two miles from where American forces dropped the atomic bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. This horrific event killed 140,000 people and left lasting effects on the city, but Yamaki, his family, and the bonsai—all of whom were indoors during the explosion—were left largely unharmed. Yamaki later donated the tree to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum ahead of the American bicentennial, never uttering a word about its unique history.
The white pine’s connection to Hiroshima was only revealed in 2001, when Yamaki’s grandsons paid a surprise visit to the collection. And while the museum doesn’t advertise this piece of the bonsai’s history, preferring to emphasize it’s role as a gift of friendship between two nations, it has recently added information about its connection to Hiroshima to its website.
“There’s some connection with a living being that has survived on this earth through who knows what,” says Kathleen Emerson-Dell, assistant curator at the museum. “I’m in its presence, and it was in the presence of other people from long ago. It’s like touching history.”
