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Japan.
In my three and a half years in Japan I spent some time in Tokyo and Osaka, but the majority of it was spent in a small rural community very much like some of the ones affected by the recent earthquakes and tsunami. Farming communities which, like farming communities around the world, are struggling to survive against cheap imported food and a young generation who no longer wants to be stuck out in the inaka (countryside). Communities of people who do not represent what the neon, high-tech, modern image of Japan portrays to the world. People who live in beautiful old farm houses that have been in families for generations but have heavy tiled roofs which are prone to collapse during seismic activity.
As I watched the videos streaming of the tsunami engulfing the patchwork countryside of Japan I thought of all the people I used to cycle past on my way to work. I thought about how people who were too shy to speak to me would leave bundles of vegetables, still covered in soil, on my doorstep. And I thought about the day I went for a cycle ride, but ended up stopping to watch an old rice machine plant up a tiny (by New Zealand standards, at least) field. I vowed to stop complaining about the shocking price of rice in Japan after that.
I feel fortunate that the only person I knew personally who lived in that area was OK. But I have friends who are in pain over lost friends and relatives. I hate this. I have friends in Tokyo who are enduring blackouts and can’t drink tap water (not even boiled) or even buy bottled water because all the shops have been stripped of just about everything. I worry about radiation and aftershocks as they do. It changes how you watch the news when you have a connection. I am learning to scan the sensationalism to find answers about what’s really happening.
As with Christchurch, what is needed is money. It’s important that that money is not allocated to one place and one type of aid so that it does not become tied up with bureaucracy. Within a few months there have been life-altering earthquakes in half a dozen places. Some of these places get media attention and some, sadly, do not. If you can give to the Red Cross in your own country or another large organisation that you trust and which does not allocate its collections *, please do.
*After the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka it became apparent that funds collected specifically ‘for housing’ or ‘for food’, for example, became problematic. If one allocation had leftover funds, those funds could not be used in other areas where they were needed because they had been labelled for just the one, specific use. Money was wasted. There are rumours that oversized houses were built along the coast in Sri Lanka, because leftover money raised for housing could not be used for other situations.
I wish I could describe better how I am feeling, but I’m not sure I even know how I am feeling. Maybe it’s that my feet are not on the ground. My lungs feel so stretched and overfilled with air from hyperventilating for nearly a week that I just feel like my entire body is made of lace that is floating and not able to get a hold on the ground. I woke up in the tightest little ball today that hurt all over when I tried to straighten out and stand up out of bed. At 12:24 we had been woken from a deep sleep by rumbling and concrete knocking. It was only our neighbour coming in down the driveway past our bedroom window. But from a deep sleep to that point of sitting up we had to calm each other down so that we could eventually go back to sleep, worried about heart attacks from the racing within our chests. Normal life experience does not make you react like this.
My husband and I were also deep asleep when at 2am on Boxing Day in December 2010 we were woken by the earth rumbling beneath us in our tent in Christchurch. It was a big aftershock and one that did further damage to the buildings in Christchurch. We drove into the city in search of breakfast and were diverted when we saw bricks and mortar lying in the road in front of us. The epicentre had been right under us while we sat in the car watching shop window glass move like water, hoping for it to stop. Shaken and upset, we were happy to be leaving on our pre-booked flight the next day. So lucky we could fly to our home in Auckland.
In 2007, my husband and I were in our first floor (US second floor) flat in Niigataken, Japan when the rumbling began. We’d felt many in Japan, but they usually stop within seconds. This one did not stop. In fact, the entire flat began to twist out of shape, creak and dump things off the shelves. We crouched down in the genkan (small entryway where you take off your shoes) and grabbed our “earthquake bags” that we kept there with water, snacks, a torch and a few other items. We were making plans about at what point we would run outside. Japan is so built up that they tell you it is far safer inside than outside and never to run outside. All of this was running through my head, as we rode out the waves. A bigger one came and we really thought this was it. The flat was like a fairground ride. Our minds were having a hard time making sense of what our eyes were seeing as the straight lines of the rooms twisted bizarrely*. Unlike all the smaller tremours we’d felt in Tokyo, Osaka, and Los Angeles, these were the ones that began our real fears. These were the ones that helped us to understand our mortality and we’ve never been the same since.
Long after we’d left Japan and returned to the relative safety of Auckland we’d still jump and look at each other in fear whenever a big truck would rumble past or waves would show up in a glass of water on the table because someone had accidentally kicked it. Slowly we began to calm down and only occasionally would we have these episodes. But, the experience in the tent in Christchurch brought it all back. We felt terrible for the people of Christchurch who have been living with this since September 2010. By the time we visited in December people were still shaken but perhaps beginning to accept that the worst may possibly be over. People were focussed on getting their properties repaired. The people seemed optimistic, even, and perhaps a little stronger after each small aftershock** that life was still good and things were going to get better and better. People seem to be resiliant in this way.
But then, of course, the worst had happened and the world is looking on helplessly and with heavy hearts.
I wanted to tell my earthquake stories, not because any of this is about me because it’s absolutely not, nor to trivialise anything that has happened to Cantabrians, but to let others know what it is like to have experienced any of this and the lasting effects. The main event is horrifying and terrible and uncomprehensible. But for survivors, the psychological damage will last a long time. After a life-threatening event, I think the survival instinct in you says that you have had your close call, and now you can go on and live your life to the full. That is the only way your mind can begin to move on. In this instance, it did not work that way and it will be very hard for Cantabrians to move on.
People will need to tell their stories and they deserve to be heard as each time the story is told, even though there is no sense to be made of it, the act of going through the events can remind the person that they are now just telling the story and no longer living it. People need love, patience and understanding. I don’t think there is a logical end point at which people should be expected to be ‘over it’. And people need financial support to rebuild their homes and lives. If you can, please give something to one of the organisations listed at the end of this post.
*We were very lucky. Most of the damage was a few kilometres further north where many of my students and their families lived. Not all of them were lucky.
**There have been over 5,500 since September 2010.
Japanese lollies.
I don’t even eat lollies except for chocolate, but something about the design of Japanese sweets sucks me in every time. Then I open the packet, eat one, and pass the rest to my husband. Kawaii desu yo!
sleeping commuters.
Nobody sleeps at night in Japan…only on trains. It’s like riding the Narcoleptic Express to work.
And, yes, sometimes they snore…and drool.
time spent with good friends.
This photo is a couple of years old now, but I’ve been thinking about the friends we had back in Japan quite a bit recently. I think it is wonderful how you can float around on the globe and then settle down for a while, look up, and there are people just like you. Amazing, amazing. What are the chances? Why does this happen? Maybe you have to be open to it in some way. Or maybe there’s some boring reason like the fact that they are doing something similar to what you’ve chosen, so you think alike.
This was a moment out of a long weekend we spent at our friends’ cabin in the mountains. It is known as the “Foreigners’ Village” by locals because there have been long-term expat summer homes here for generations. There are Japanese who come as well, but the basic conditions only appeal to very few people. The history is amazing and every simple little cabin has its own story. One cabin is the place where we spent wonderful nights discussing books, listening to music (some on LPs!) creating menus and making delectable dishes, trying to outdo each other and then waking late the next day from too much wine. If it weren’t for our ages, you’d think it some scene out of the life of an undergraduate. Eventually we’d make it down to the local sento for a bath.
I’m convinced someday that I’ll be able to collect all these wonderful people and get them to move to one place so we can live like this all the time. But I know that will never happen because we are all transient by nature. We can’t stop forever. That’s what makes us alike. But wouldn’t that be cool?
Japanese mushrooms. I really miss the variety and they were relatively cheap. These are bunashimeji.
