Monsters Plague Japan. But What Do They Mean?
How ancient history and modern calamities have cultivated a national obsession with menacing creatures.HIROSHIMAON A BLUSTERY afternoon last November, I stood on the esplanade of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park listening to the solemn gong of the Peace Bell as English and American tourists rang it again and again. A traditional Japanese bell made of oxidized metal, it has a pendular log that strikes at the atomic symbol engraved on its side as if to banish that evil from the earth. A few feet away, a group of Japanese schoolboys stood laughing and gamboling, hanging on each other as schoolboys do everywhere. More
