{"id":346572,"date":"2021-06-23T06:05:05","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=346572"},"modified":"2021-06-23T06:05:05","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T20:05:05","slug":"new-monument-at-suicide-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/new-monument-at-suicide-cliff\/","title":{"rendered":"New monument at Suicide Cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
The Japanese volunteers that helped erect a new monument at Suicide Cliff are led by Kentaro Suzuki and Morito Asai (both on the right side of photo). (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A group of Japanese volunteers led by Saipan businessmen Morito Asai and Kentaro Suzuki and returning tourist Kenichi Nakajima have added to the rows of memorials at Suicide Cliff with the installation last week of a new Japanese memorial that commemorates the sacrifices of all men and women who perished during the Pacific War of World War II.<\/p>\n

As Asai tells it, the project got started after Nakajima approached him to seek help on how to erect a new memorial at Suicide Cliff.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Nakajima is a regular tourist and loves Saipan so he knows all the Japanese landmarks on island. On one trip, he noticed that a memorial monument at Suicide Cliff was gone and he wanted to replace it to continue the tradition of respect to those who died in World War II,\u201d Asai said. \u201cWith the help of another local organizer, building contractor Mr. Kentaro Suzuki of Moty\u2019s Planning, we started to work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asai said he asked Suzuki if he can shoulder the material and labor cost and he agreed. \u201cThe rest of the project was crowdfunded and we all did it as volunteers,\u201d he said, adding that this is the same group that did the renovation work on the Last Command Post in 2018.<\/p>\n

According to Asai, the plan to replace the monument was a team effort. \u201cNakajima did the work on the Japan side and talked to the Pacific War Memorial Association Inc. in Chiba, Japan and Japan Funding Public Interest Inc. Foundation. For my part, I talked to the Department of Public Lands, Marianas Visitor\u2019s Authority, Division of Coastal Resources Management and all gave us permission,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asai recalls that there were about 30 small statues at Suicide Cliff that were erected by families of war victims but they started disappearing one by one until around 2017, when they were all gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is still a mystery why the original monuments disappeared. Some say it was due to natural causes but some say [they were] destroyed by men. We will never know the real reason,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The important thing, Asai said, is they have replaced these small statues with one big monument \u201cso people will have a symbol to remember war victims by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asai said that the newly erected monument is made of one large boulder so it will remain strong and intact during storms and can withstand any attempt to vandalize it. \u201cWe started mid-May and finished the project last June 16. The words written in Japanese on the monument is translated in English as, \u2018Not forgotten tough times, peace for the world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want people to understand that this monument is not only to honor Japanese people who died during the war but for all people. It is a historical touchstone that gives respect to all the victims and we should not forget what happened to those people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of Japanese volunteers led by Saipan businessmen Morito Asai and Kentaro Suzuki and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":346574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[2835],"class_list":["post-346572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-suicide-cliff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}