A Song for Nagasaki

Paul Glynn, S.M.

Who's the author?

Shusaku Endo

Who wrote the foreword?

Dr. Takashi Nagai

Wrote The Bells of Nagasaki

Shintoism->Atheism->Agnosticism->Catholicism

List the religions Nagai went through

Dr. Takashi Nagai

A survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki

The main character of the book

1908

When was Takashi Nagai born?

Dr. Takashi Nagai

The dean of radiology at Nagasaki University at the end of the book

Shimane Prefecture

Where did Takashi Nagai grow up?

Fumitaka Nagai

Master of Chinese herb medicine and grandfather to Takashi

Calmness

In the beginning, he's anything but calm.

What does Noboru mean? Why is this ironic?

Tsune & Noboru Nagai

What's the names of Takashi's mom and dad?

Lafcadio Hearn

Who was the famous westerner that mastered Japanese ideographs?

Matsue close to Shimane

Where did Takashi board with relatives in secondary school? Where was it close to?

tied a noose around his neck

What did Noburo do when he was young in order to stay up studying?

Put lipstick on money in order to catch robbers

What smart thing did Tsune do when she was young?

Like we regard saints

How does the Shinto regard their gods?

nature

In Shinto ____ is sacred.

1910

When did Fumitaka die?

thatched roof university

What is Nagasaki University also known as?

Nagasaki University

Where did Takashi go to school?

Bc it "made sense" and was all the rage in the West

Why was Takashi atheist?

Kublai Khan

Grandson of genghis khan

killed men, raped women, cut holes in women's wrists and hung them

What did the mongols do to the Japanese?

Because it wiped out all of the Mongol ships

Why were the Japanese happy when the tsunami came?

The remnants of the 10 ft. wall built by the Japanese to keep the Mongols out

Where did Takashi visit that had to do with the mongols?

in order to highlight his patriotism and show what a stretch it was for him to practice Catholicism (a Western religion)

Why did the author include the story of the Mongols and Takashi visiting the 10 ft. wall?

Come home

What does Takashi's dad's first urgent letter say?

Tsune, his mother

Who dies when Takashi "comes home?"

a stroke

How does Tsune die

She held on until Takashi came home

What was special about when Tsune died?

He saw there was more to man than the physical body

What did Takashi see when he looked into his dying mother's eyes?

Intuition

How did he know here was more to man than the physical body when he looked into his dying mother's eyes?

He takes a boat back to school so that he can think about everything that happened.

How does Takashi travel back to school after his mother died? Why does he travel this way?

Pascal's Pensee's

What book does Takashi read that is the "1st milestone on a huge journey?"

thought

What does Pensee mean?

French Catholic Scientist

What was Pascal?

Most scientists don't believe in things unseen, so this is new

Why is Takashi surprised with Pascal?

skeptical people

Who is Pascal's wager directed at?

If you bet on God's existence and he does exist, you have everything to gain. If he doesn't, you have nothing to lose. (Better safe than sorry)

Describe Pascal's wager.

grace, paradise lost

What are some words in Pensee's, a metaphysical logbook?

Those who relied only on reason

Who did Pascal ridicule?

Over confidence in reason leads to skeptical

Laziness and complacency with reason leads to stupidity

Why did Pascal ridicule those who relied only on reason?

The eyes of the heart

What sees the higher truths?

Alien to Eastern thinking

Why did content in Pensee's unsettle Nagai?

The alieness of fork and knife and odd western breakfast

What does Nagai compare Pensee's to?

faculty

reason

Pascal says that reason isn't the highest ____ and uses ____ to prove this. It's a vicious circle.

higher truth of God

Unaided human reason can reach the ______.

He doesn't see how he can throw away all reason and blindly believe and pray in a God he doesn't know even exists

Why is Nagai reluctant of Catholicism at first?

Abandoned kings because this isn't our real world

What does Pascal compare us to and why?

He thinks of the Japanese proverb that mice can't see stars nor worms flowers unless they look up

What does Nagai think about when comparing Pascal's humans?

the bamboo cutter and moon princess fairytales

Some professors say that Pensee's is fictional and compare is to ____ and _____.

It's the opium (sleep/stupor drug) of a country, you can't reason, says it lessens our sense of responsibility

What does the teacher Marx say about religion?

scientific fact

What do the Japanese teachers think one should base their beliefs on?

Pensee's is so un-Japanese but he can't stop reading

What is the first inner struggle of Nagai?

He presses him for facts bc he's now skeptical

What does Nagai do when a professsor tells his class that emotions are electrical current in the brain?

The other doctors are clinical and harsh, but the death of Tsune has softened Nagai.

What does Nagai find is different between the other doctors and him?

What his life means

What is the first big question Nagai asks?

By studying others' lives

No

How does Nagai attempt to figure out what his life means? Does it work?

Bc your own life should only make sense to you

He compares it to lace and the ladies that make lace

Why does studying others lives not help Nagai figure out the meaning of his? What does he compare this realization to?

a thinking reed

What does Pascal say man is?

Like grass, you are easy to kill; however if you were crushed,it'd make you better than the crusher bc you know (can think) that you're dying and being crushed

Why does Pascal compare humans to a thinking reed?

Other Philosophical books

What else does Nagai read in his search for answers?

It will bring him to God.

Nagai has a crazy inner struggle, but why is it good?

Pascal and his wager

Why is Nagai questioning his lack of beliefs?

yoshi

man who takes his wife's surname so that the family name can carry on

No, he didn't even specify whether he liked her or not

Did Takashi know about the girl he got set up with?

to strike a marriage deal (equipped with a super lit fishing village retirement plan and a super fancy study abroad for free thing)

Why does a professor and a businessman visit Takashi's father Noburo?

he was mad bc he thought he'd sold himself when in reality Takashi didn't even know he was being vetted for marriage in the first place

Why does Noburo send Takashi a telegram to "Return home immediately."

shallow intellect

Pascal says our ____ couldn't grasp God.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

What does Nagai think about the beauty around him?

Test the hypothesis of God

Finds a Catholic family willing to take on a boarder

What does Takashi decide to do regarding his search for God? How does he do this?

Away as a school teacher

Where is the Moriyama's only child?

Moriyama family

What family has a long history with persecuted Catholics?

feudal baron

someone who owns property

Ukon Takayama

Japanese Thomas More, arrested and stripped of castle lands, exiled because he didn't renounce faith

Hideyoshi

Takayama

shogun, liege lord

Samurai code

Banned Christianity

Crucified 26

Dictator ____ grew apprehensive when men of high caliber like _____ referred to Christ as their ____ because he thought it'd jeopardize the _____ code, so he ____ and ____.

They shouted encouragement, singing "Praise the Lord, he children of the Lord", began the Sanctus, sang Jesus, Mary, Jesus, Mary

What did the crowd do when the 26 were crucified in Nagasaki?

Sung his farewell song, asked the others to believe, forgave those who killed them, and said "Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit."

What did Jesuit Paul Mimi do on his cross?

Water man

Calendar man

Chokata, head man

Name the four jobs of the underground Christian group.

Kichizo Moriyama

(1856) snared in police net, died under torture, didn't betray trust, his son became Sadakicki's father

Japan was forced to open to the outside world by Commodore Perry's gunboats and signed a commercial treaty with the United States. The Europeans and Americans built churches in Japan.

Why were churches being built in Japan?

Father Petitjean of the Paris Foreign Mission Society, 1864

Who completed a church in Oura, a southern suburb of Nagasaki and when?

priest will be celibate

will have a statue of Mary

it will obey Papa-sama in Rome

What were the three signs that the church would return to Japan?

Thought their husbands were dilly-dallying with their decision on whether or not to go.

Why did the wives visit the church first?

Our hearts and your heart are the same

What did the Japanese woman Yuri say to the priest?

Disguised himself as a farmer and went after darkness to the cow shed to celebrate madd

How did the priest celebrate mass with the secret Japanese christians?

3,414

How many Urakami Christians were set away to 19 detention camps?

664

How many christians died in captivity before foreign protests helped free them?

Tsumo Akagi

Who did Sadakichi fall in love with on his cattle buying trip to Ukujima?

mi-shinja

an unbeliever

the Crow

She has luxurious jet-black hair

What was Tsumo Akagi's nick name? Why?

No

What Nagai accepted to live with the Moriyamas at first?

It was his second time asking and It was soon after they came home from Mass and they thought maybe the Lord sent him

Why did the Moriyamas let Nagai live with them?

two big bells booming from the nearby cathedral

What woke Nagai up at 5:30 every morning?

Noon and 6 P.M.

When did people stop to recite the Angelus?

enlightenment

They set aside a day of rest, their schools were just as good as state schools, the clergy had a way of living that touched a chord within him

What did Nagai think the Nagasaki martyrs were closer to than everyone else? Why?

As the Maria Kannon, Buddhist merciful one, with a small cross inside or behind the image

How did the underground Christians disguise the statues of Mary?

Shoji

Sliding windows and partitions in Japanese homes

The mother

What did Nagai think was the central figure in Japanese life?

Kyrie Eleison

Christe Eleison

What was the girl singing to quiet the baby?