For a couple of weeks during August and September ANT-Hiroshima took on a Chinese student, Dong Yanan, as office intern.
Dong-san is an exchange student from Tongji University in Shanghai. She is studying at Tohoku University.
Dong-san came to Hiroshima with a group of young people from areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. The group had come to Hiroshima on internships so that they would be able to learn about how Hiroshima recovered from the atomic bombing at the end of World War Two.
While working at ANT-Hiroshima Dong-san translated Paper Crane Journey into Chinese. Dong-san says that she made the translation in the hope of strengthening ties between Japan and China.
Paper Crane Journey describes the life of Sadako Sasaki, a little girl who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but later contracted leukemia and died at the age of 12, in 1955.
When she was in hospital, Sadako began folding paper cranes according to an old myth that your wish would be granted if you folded 1,000 cranes. After she died her classmates started a campaign to raise money for a memorial and in 1958 the Children’s Peace Monument was unveiled in Peace Park.
The publisher of Paper Crane Journey has given ANT-Hiroshima permission to attach translations of the original text onto the pages of the Japanese-language book. So far, ANT-Hiroshima has translated Paper Crane Journey into 11 languages, including English, German, Nepalese, Dari, and now Chinese. Translated versions are made whenever requested and provided at “cost” price.
When Dong Yanan returns to Tongji University next spring, she plans to donate a Japanese and a Chinese copy of the book to the university. She says,
“I want to tell people that war, which victimizes innocent people, must never be waged”
The executive director of ANT-Hiroshima, Tomoko Watanabe expressed her hope that,
“The hopes for peace of young people will bridge the boundaries of political differences.”
If you would like to order copies of Paper Crane Journey in your language, please contact ANT-Hiroshima at ant@ant-hiroshima.org to discuss your needs
