One born and raised on Gunkanjima remembers it as “a lot of fun”… Sunday’s “Diamonds in the Sea” theater setting was real life

* This article is based on FuraidoGunkanjima comes back to life in colorThis is a re-edited version of a portion of ” ( Eastern Shinsho Q).

Provided by: Gunkanjima Digital Museum

Hashima main street. There was always a lot of foot traffic around Hell Dan.

What Gunkanjima was like in the past, revealed through interviews with former islanders

Hashima Island, also known as “Gunkanjima,” continued to play a role in Japan’s energy industry for more than 80 years, from the time the coal mine went into full operation until its closure in 1974. During that time, tens of thousands of people lived on the island. A remote island with the highest population density in Japan, with close proximity to work and residence. What was real daily life like when the island itself was a “living city”? They were both born and raised on Hashima Island and are true “Gunkanjima natives”, so we asked them to look back on their lives at the time.

Azuma Ishikawa was born in 1945 (Showa 20) and lived on Hashima Island for about 18 years until 1964 (Showa 39). After graduating from high school, he worked in Nagasaki for a year and a half, and then moved to Takashima alone to get a job at the old Takashima City Hall, which had jurisdiction over Hashima. Takashima is about 3 kilometers north of Hashima and it is an island, together with Hashima, like a coal mine.

“I didn’t feel like I had left Hashima because I was able to return immediately,” says Ishikawa. Until Hashima closed in 1974, he returned several times a month to work and to visit his parents. remained on the island. I spent much of my life interacting with Hashima.

A family of 8 lives in the 6-tatami and 4-and-a-half tatami rooms in Building No. 30, the first building to be completed.

He spent his childhood in Japan’s first reinforced concrete platform building, Building 30, and moved to company housing for miners, Building 20 and Building 19. In 1955, when he was 10 years old age, he moved into the new Building 48 with us.

“My family of eight, including my parents, my grandfather, and five siblings, lived in two rooms of 6 and 4 and a half tatami mats. in the stove every morning until high school.

At that time, Hashima is often talked about as having a progressive lifestyle with the most progressive environment in Japan, but I wonder if it was a little different depending on the family. “When my father worked the second shift (night shift), he would come home early in the morning, so my mother would cook rice in the oven every morning and stay awake ‘wait for him to come home,” said Ishikawa. Electrification progressed gradually, and by the late 1950s home appliances were available.