Citizen Bytes: Japan earthquake contributors - one month later

Baseball fans observe a moment of silence for the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami before the start of a game between the Rakuten Golden Eagles, a Japanese professional team based in Sendai, northeastern Japan, and the Lotte Marines in Chiba, near Tokyo, on Tuesday, April 12. (Itsuo Inouye/AP Photo)

This week marks one month since the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the northeastern coast of Japan on March 11.

The magnitude 9.0 quake left devastation in its wake, along with radiation leaks at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. It was later identified as the biggest earthquake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s.

On Monday, the Japanese government boosted the severity level of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi to the highest rating -- putting it on par with the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.

At that, we contacted a number of our previous Citizen Bytes contributors to see how they were faring in Japan, one month after the quake. Here are their replies: 

Jeff Cadieux: A native of Markham, Ont., Cadieux, 33, has lived in Japan for seven years. He is currently a teacher and entrepreneur in the Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo.

When I wrote my last report, all was normal in Tokyo. But then came the reality that the Tokyo area had lost one-quarter to one-third of its power generating capacity with the destruction of the Fukushima nuclear plants.

We went through a period of scheduled power blackouts, and people made runs on grocery stores to (over)stock on basic food supplies, leaving the stores nearly empty.  Those of us who had tried to behave calmly had to do without items such as bread, milk, eggs and rice. 

Life is much calmer now.

The warmer spring weather has decreased power consumption, so the blackouts have been temporarily suspended. Grocery stores are nearly fully-stocked. The students are back at my school for the new school year and life seems eerily normal.

However, we understand that it will take a very long time, possibly a year or more, to get more power online to the Tokyo area, so we are expecting the blackouts to return when the hot summer weather causes people to turn on their air-conditioners. 

The nuclear problem doesn't seem to be a big worry, presumably because people consider us to be safe here.  We are well over 200 kilometres from the power plants, which is very far outside of even the more cautious 80-kilometre evacuation zone advised by Canadian officials here.

Citizen Byte: Life as usual in Tokyo - Jason Cadieux

Ian MacDougall: Ian MacDougall is a Canadian who has been living in Tokyo since 1984. He is a freelancer working in Japanese film translation.

In Tokyo, the panicky hoarding is more or less over, the trains are running more or less on time, but with relatively few people on them, and there are far fewer people on the streets in the evening than is usual.

The Fukushima nuclear saga, however, runs and runs: the stupidity of Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) senior executives, the obstructionism of the opposition Liberal-Democratic Party (a conservative party with which TEPCO is closely connected) trying to use the disaster for political mileage, and the fumbling of the government in the face of this has left people disgusted with the lot of them. Even though there is no real danger, it is also extending that spaced-out sense of crisis that follows a disaster like this, and delaying the mental segue into recovery/rebuilding mode.

The aftershocks are the biggest irritant now. We're still getting them, sometimes one a day, sometimes 10. Up north some of them are serious earthquakes in their own right, but here we feel them as magnitude 4 or 5, not damaging, but attention getting, and making everyone jumpy.

'Every time I email back home saying we're all right, we get another aftershock,' I heard someone say last night, to which his companion replied, 'Then stop sending those damn emails!'

Citizen Byte: Japan earthquake - Ian MacDougall

Derek Cormier: Derek Cormier is a Canadian intern from the University of Manitoba working in Yokosuka, Japan, in the Greater Tokyo area. He was in the 10-storey Nippon Telegraph and Telephone building when the quake happened. One month later, he is back at home in Canada.


About a week after the earthquake, I was urged to return to Canada by my co-op program and my family.

The day I left was a calm, sunny day, and if people had any fears it certainly didn't show. The trains and buses were running normally, grocery stores were once again stocked up, and restaurants and businesses were open. Everything in Yokosuka seemed back to normal except for the occasional blackout.

It was difficult to know how Japanese felt about the situation. If they were worried, it wasn't shown openly in public. Some of my friends told me in private that they were worried about the potential threat of radiation, and some expressed that they didn't fully trust the Japanese media. Keep in mind, however, that at the time it was difficult to find reliable information on how to interpret radiation levels and judge the situation from a rational and scientific viewpoint.

My own concerns were put to rest when I watched experts on foreign news explain why there was little threat to people outside of the Fukushima region. There were no problems leaving the country. Narita Airport was busy, but operations were running smoothly.

Citizen Byte: Japan earthquake - Derek Cormier

Alex: Alex (who asked that is last name not be used) is a 14-year resident of Tokyo and a native of Saskatchewan. He was working west of Tokyo, near one of the busy trunk railways, during the earthquake. He remains in Tokyo, but says he will be visiting Vancouver, Regina and Toronto next month.

Just this morning, one of my private students -- in a group of five housewives in their late 30s to mid-60s - -asked me two things which I think are regarded as pretty normal questions in the context of conversations with Japanese, and both of which I found rather annoying: First, why was the Fukushima reactor rated at 7 when Cernobyl was amuch worse accident? Second, whether I was going to move home to Canada.

The first question highlights the general trust people put in local media, and the fact that the media don't push too hard for information. Despite the feeling that the news is vague, if things are out of sight then they're generally out of mind, and people don't seem to have the initiative to investigate themselves, or via overseas sources such as Reuters or the BBC.  

I confess I don't know how the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) decides ranking, but I'm only a few mouseclicks/thumbtaps away from an answer. Being a foreigner, some people expect that I have all the answers to things 'not Japan' which is of course silly but this really is they way they think.
 
The second highlights the common view that as a visitor to Japan (i.e. I'm viewed as a foreigner first, though I've lived here 15 years) it would be no surprise and is even rather expected that I might bail at the first sign of trouble. Some of my friends and co-workers have chosen to leave; for example, some left to Nagoya for a few days, others to the U.K., U.S. or Canada. Some have returned; others remain.  

As to my response to my student:  "Yes," I replied, "I'm leaving to Canada next month."  "REALLY??!" she cried. "For two weeks," I continued. "You all know that I planned this trip a year ago, for my budo seminar. That's why we only have one class next month."  Her reply:  "Oh."  

The undercurrent of disappointment in her voice, preventing her from feeling vindicated that non-Japanese don't care about Japan, that we're just short-term visitors with limited interest, here to make a buck and leave, whatever she was thinking, was palpable.  

Rolling blackouts never affected my area in Setagaya, so I'm surely quite lucky.  There has been no panicking, milk products are back on the shelves, people have been mindful of their electricity use. Despite ... the re-elected governor of Tokyo's insistence that people maintain somber and solemn attitudes amid the current cherry blossom season, people have finally been able to relax and enjoy themselves for a change with beer and shochu-fueled picnics.  Things are pretty much back to normal, apart from pretty significant aftershocks over the past few days... even this morning.

Even today, as I was writing this, the president of TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) announced his resignation, which is the typical and expected response to a company in midst of a scandal.  Symbolic yet meaningless, in my opinion, but that's Japan.

Citizen Byte: Japan earthquake - Alex