Newly Homeless Re-Establish Order Amid Chaos. Shuji Kajiyama/Associated Press A makeshift public bath set up near a shelter for those left homeless by the tsunami that hit northeastern Japan two weeks ago. More Photos » Which would be unsurprising, were Mr. Yamaguchi not an evacuee himself, living on a 9-by-9-foot grass mat in a junior high school gymnasium here with 1,000 other people. To an outsider, much is striking about Japan’s response to two weeks of serial disasters: the stoicism and self-sacrifice; the quiet bravery in the face of tragedy that seems almost woven into the national character. Just as striking, however, is that evacuees here live in a place that can kennel your dog, charge your cellphone, fix your dentures and even provide that nonnegotiable necessity of Japanese life, a steamy soak in a hot tub of water.
There is a free laundry service, too, although they are still working out clothes-drying kinks. None of this is to suggest that Takada Junior High is the Waldorf. The messages are lived in simple ways. Ruminations on Citizen Journalism and Media Bias « Gakuranman.com – illuminating Japan. This past week has been truly life-changing. Japan has suffered at the hands of one of the strongest earthquakes the world has ever seen, endured colossal damage from a towering tsunami and fought bravely against a troubled nuclear reactor.
Thousands of people are still missing and many more homeless. For me however, living safely in the arms of central Japan, I’ve only been able to sit and watch from afar in horror. My struggle has been not from the direct effects of the disaster, but over the spread of information in the media. On March 11th at 2.46pm, just as the office was settling down after a satisfying lunch, the 6 story building I work in began to quiver. Soon, the first reports came in. I left work as soon as I could and rushed home to put the television on. The situation continued deteriorating over the following days, particularly at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Something amazing was happening on Twitter though.
Japan’s virtues should help Kan solve its problems | Reuters Breakingviews | Analysis & Opinion. The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. By Martin Hutchinson The Japanese concept of ‘wa’ — or harmony — may help Prime Minister Naoto Kan to solve his country’s mounting problems. The nation’s social cohesion and stoicism have kept a lid on looting and panic, while limiting power outages, since an earthquake rippled across the northeast of the country. Kan has played to these qualities, and since he can blame infrastructure failures on the opposition, he may emerge from the crisis strengthened enough to tackle Japan’s fiscal position. Japanese reaction to the March 11 earthquake has demonstrated the society’s civic strengths. The consensual nature of Japanese politics discourages charismatic leadership, and often impedes decision-making.
Of course, Kan has a political advantage: Japan’s infrastructure excesses, including the opaque and imperfectly-run nuclear program, were products of the opposition LDP’s 55-year rule. The mobile-Internet is a lifeline for people in postquake confusion. When the earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, voice calls from mobile phones became immediately unavailable in order to leave room for emergency calls. However, in the Kanto area, mobile Internet connection was mostly kept on, and many people turned to the Web to exchange information. On Japan’s main social networking site, mixi, some communities were set up soon after the quake to keep people informed. The largest one now has over 300,000 members and it has guides to communities by region and purpose. Mixi also has a function that displays how recently your friends logged in, so you can check if your friends have accessed mixi after the quake.
Another feature, ashiato (footprints) — which was once one of the key attractions to mixi — shows when another user viewed your page (profile/diary/message/etc). Twitter was heavily used as well. TV news was also able to get out beyond normal channels as people utilized services such as Ustream and Nico Nico Douga.
Japan. A Long, Painful Reckoning in Japan. Great Tohoku Earthquake « Gakuranman.com – illuminating Japan. I’ll be updating this post with ongoing announcements about the huge earthquake that is occurring in the Tohoku region of Japan. It has been labelled in Japanese the 東北地方太平洋沖地震 (Tohoku-chiho Taiheiyo-oki Jishin), the biggest earthquake ever to hit Japan. It struck at 14.46 with a magnitude of 9.0 and was assigned the highest level 7 on the Japanese earthquake scale. The effects were felt 500km North-South and 200km East-West with big aftershocks continuing for days later.
I was in central Japan (near Nagoya) when it struck and felt the building swaying for several minutes. Friends in Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto) also reported feeling it. This earthquake reportedly had 32 times the energy of the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923. It initially shook Tokyo and the northern cities Sendai and Iwate for minutes, producing huge tsunamis afterwards that reached 10m in height. The quake struck at a depth of 32 km, about 130 km off the eastern coast. .::: Click here for updates below!
Getting in Touch. Stoicism Amid Disaster: Japanese Region Quietly Grinds to a Halt | Asia. The Tohoku region of Japan is grinding to a halt. It is the area hardest hit by last Friday's magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the devastating tsunami that tremor generated, which, in turn, crippled a nuclear power that is now spewing radiation. With transportation routes destroyed or disrupted, the precious reserves of supplies that survived the natural disaster are quickly disappearing. Even when the roads are patched, truck drivers may be fearful of venturing too close to the crippled nuclear power plant.
I'm based this week in what is supposed to be a safe distance away from the leaking reactors and steaming fuel rods, but radiation levels in Fukushima prefecture's two biggest cities were significantly above normal on Wednesday. I have been here since Saturday, the day after the quake. Some eateries offer specials - such as the fermented bean curd curry I had for lunch Tuesday or the Yen 1,500 "Disaster Sushi Set" that has been my dinner twice this week. Heroes: Hear the Voice of the Heroic Young Woman Who Saved Thousands of... Yesterday we mentioned the emergency workers in Japan's coastal towns who stayed in their posts warning others of the danger right up until the tsunami hit.
A friend saw it and forwarded me this post featuring this heartwrenching video. The voice is Miki Endo, a 25 year old public worker in the Crisis Management Department of the city of Minami Sanriku. She is saying, roughly, "Please run away fast. " The mess of red beams are the skeletal remains of the building from which Endo made her final broadcast. The Mainichi Shimbum has the full story of Endo's heroic final moments. (The article isn't featured on their English language version, so you've got to run it through Google Translate.) The city was one of the hardest hit along the Miyagi Coast. Miki Endo did not let go of her microphone, even during the very moment the black waves of the tsunami engulfed the city, so that every last villager could hear her warning call.
I heard the voice of your daughter the whole way. After Disaster, Laundry. | This Japanese Life. | 生命を外面九天です. This is a Japanese poster urging people to conserve electricity after the 2011 earthquake. I went to work today. Normally that wouldn’t merit a blog post, but in a country with nuclear emergencies, multiple earthquakes, rolling power outages and an active volcano, the normal stuff starts to get noteworthy. As I write this, rescue squads have barely even started the work ahead of them. Grim scenes told by numbers: 700 bodies found in an incoming tide. 2,300 missing. Estimates of 10,000 dead. 457,000 in evacuation shelters. And yet, we see scenes on NHK: A Sake brewer wanders around the wreckage of his brewery. In Tokyo, where trains are running on a slower schedule to accommodate scheduled blackouts, workers “returned to work as usual” on Monday morning, which strikes some people as slightly insane.
Why is Japan going back to work? Mostly, it’s because perseverance is as deeply embedded into Japanese culture as earthquakes and tsunamis. The sentiment isn’t specific to Japan. Like this: