With Your Incessant Talking

Rabbit, rabbit, rab­­bit. If you can’t make a Chas n Dave reference after visiting an island populated almost entirely by rabbits, then what’s the point of having a blog at all?

As well as having some of the most beautiful and interesting tourist attractions in the world, Japan also has some of the tackiest. Recreations of European cities, The Island Where The Fictional Momotoro Slayed A Fictional Demon complete with ACTUAL DEMONS, Dejima, anything that involves a “local specialty” etc.  I’ve taken great pleasure in visiting some of these less worthy destinations. They are sometimes quite charming, with a bit of luck involve figurine recreations of past events and you can usually buy a funny gift or two.

Okunoshima or “Bunny Island” sits somewhere on the borderline between “tacky destination” and being a genuine place of interest.

During the Sino-Japanese war, the government began using the island to research and manufacture chemical weapons. These weapons were used during the following decades to obviously tragic effect. The island was removed from maps of Japan and the work was hushed up. Apparently, train conductors would draw the curtains of carriages as they passed the island so that it could not be seen by passengers. Not sure how effective that would have been. The manufacturing processes were primitive. Many workers and residents of the island became ill, suffered or died as a result of the work.

Industrial Remains

At the end of WW2, the factories were closed and the chemicals destroyed. Rabbits were introduced to the island. They multiplied prodigiously (tame joke avoided) and nowadays the island is known primarily for the large population of tame rabbits who you can feed, pet and generally make a fuss of. My students love the place and quite a few of their “What I did during Golden Week?” presentations involved a trip to the island.

The journey over was pretty painless and we saw rabbits almost as soon as we stepped off the boat. I had a steady supply of carrots that I used to basically buy cuddles. I also had a stick that I carried round with me for a hilarious metaphor-based joke. That didn’t actually happen. I liked how many different types of rabbits we came across. They were all shapes and sizes, ranging from mangy and wild looking to Disney-cute.

Bunny Party!

I’ll maybe admit that I did get a bit bored of the rabbits after a while. But the island itself was quite pretty. We did a pleasant hike up and around the centre of the island. We even saw Japan’s Tallest Pylon (official). It really was very tall!

Japan's tallest pylon!

We also checked out a museum about gas production on the island. Japan’s issues about openly discussing its own history are too complex for me to cover adequately here. But in the 1980s, a museum was opened on the island to show the history of the chemical production. Like the Hiroshima Peace Museum, it has a strong anti-war bias. And like the Peace Museum it is not merely inward looking. In addition to illustrating how gas was made on the island, the museum looks at the effect of the gas in war and makes strong statements against its use, with some unpleasant pictures of its effects during the Iran-Iraq war.

I’ve seen so many museums about war-not just in Japan but in the UK of course, where my favourite museum remains the Imperial War Museum. Japan’s museums on the subject vary tremendously-I have still not visited the controversial Yasukuni shrine and seen the “alternative” viewpoints about the war there. The war is a subject that I avoid as much as possible with my friends here. But anyway, this particular museum was very impressive for its thoroughness and outward perspective.

Now then. Here are some cute pictures of rabbits:

The mysterious and enigmatic K Chan tempts a rabbit.