Japan protests to BBC over treatment of ‘double A-bomb survivor’
Jan. 24, 2011
The Japanese Embassy in London lodged a written protest against the BBC and a TV production agency, arguing that they insulted a deceased Japanese man who survived both the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, embassy and other sources said Thursday.
The Japanese Embassy received on Friday a letter of apology from a producer of the popular quiz show, ''QI,'' dated Monday, after the producer had apologized to people who had sent protest e-mails.
The content of the letter to the embassy was similar to the producer's e-mail response to the people who protested, and said that ''we greatly regret it when we cause offence'' and ''it is apparent to me that I underestimated the potential sensitivity of this issue to Japanese viewers.''
In a comedy quiz show broadcast by the BBC on Dec. 17, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, whose international profile has been raised as a double hibakusha and who died at age 93 last January, was introduced as ''The Unluckiest Man in the World,'' with pictures of his face and atomic clouds presented in the studio.
But the producer added in his message that QI is not the type of program that makes fun of featured subjects and it introduced Yamaguchi's experience without misrepresenting it.
On the show in question, the host explained that Yamaguchi was badly burned by the atomic bomb when he was in Hiroshima on business and after returning to Nagasaki, he was atomic-bombed again.
One of the guests asked whether Yamaguchi got on a train to go to Nagasaki. The host said, ''Even though the atom bomb fell, the trains were working. So he got on a train to Nagasaki and a bomb fell again,'' drawing laughs from the show's personalities and the audience.
The show prompted the Japanese Embassy to send the BBC and the production agency a letter on Jan. 7, saying it is ''inappropriate and insensitive'' to present Yamaguchi in the way that it did, it said.
In Japan, Toshiko Yamasaki, 62, Yamaguchi's oldest daughter living in Nagasaki, expressed her anger, saying on Friday, ''I cannot forgive (the quiz show) as it looked down on my father's experiences when the world is moving toward nuclear disarmament.''
She said her family had laughingly talked about her father being unlucky, but ''it is a different story when (my father) was treated in that way in Britain, a nuclear-capable nation.''
This kind of problem occurs due in part to ''a lack of seriousness about nuclear reduction,'' she said.
Born in Nagasaki, Yamaguchi suffered the A-bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and the bombing of Nagasaki three days later after returning home.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on Jan. 21, 2011)
The Japanese Embassy received on Friday a letter of apology from a producer of the popular quiz show, ''QI,'' dated Monday, after the producer had apologized to people who had sent protest e-mails.
The content of the letter to the embassy was similar to the producer's e-mail response to the people who protested, and said that ''we greatly regret it when we cause offence'' and ''it is apparent to me that I underestimated the potential sensitivity of this issue to Japanese viewers.''
In a comedy quiz show broadcast by the BBC on Dec. 17, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, whose international profile has been raised as a double hibakusha and who died at age 93 last January, was introduced as ''The Unluckiest Man in the World,'' with pictures of his face and atomic clouds presented in the studio.
But the producer added in his message that QI is not the type of program that makes fun of featured subjects and it introduced Yamaguchi's experience without misrepresenting it.
On the show in question, the host explained that Yamaguchi was badly burned by the atomic bomb when he was in Hiroshima on business and after returning to Nagasaki, he was atomic-bombed again.
One of the guests asked whether Yamaguchi got on a train to go to Nagasaki. The host said, ''Even though the atom bomb fell, the trains were working. So he got on a train to Nagasaki and a bomb fell again,'' drawing laughs from the show's personalities and the audience.
The show prompted the Japanese Embassy to send the BBC and the production agency a letter on Jan. 7, saying it is ''inappropriate and insensitive'' to present Yamaguchi in the way that it did, it said.
In Japan, Toshiko Yamasaki, 62, Yamaguchi's oldest daughter living in Nagasaki, expressed her anger, saying on Friday, ''I cannot forgive (the quiz show) as it looked down on my father's experiences when the world is moving toward nuclear disarmament.''
She said her family had laughingly talked about her father being unlucky, but ''it is a different story when (my father) was treated in that way in Britain, a nuclear-capable nation.''
This kind of problem occurs due in part to ''a lack of seriousness about nuclear reduction,'' she said.
Born in Nagasaki, Yamaguchi suffered the A-bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, and the bombing of Nagasaki three days later after returning home.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on Jan. 21, 2011)
