One Month Later

Having lived in Japan (though in a region far from the disaster zone), I have a small sense of how life there will never be the same.

A post card, c. early 70s:
There's no English caption, and for years I treasured this card as an amusingly odd image: working-class Japanese enjoying a sunny day outing, as they accompany a boat transformed into what looked to me like a rather goofy creature...

... it's something about the look in the eye...Years after finding this card in the U.S., I had learned enough Japanese to identify this as the Minato Matsuri (port festival), held August 4-5 in the city of Shiogama, Miyagi Prefecture.

I've found the festival described online: portable shrines are carried aboard two large boats, decorated as a phoenix (as in the card) and a dragon. The main boats are followed by family fishing boats, as everyone joins in to pray for good catches.

From this series: a scene in Shiogama last month—Volunteers sift through debris in Shiogama, northern Japan, Sunday, March 20, 2011, after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
AP Photo/The Yomiuri Shimbun, Miho Takahashi

Having traveled through a good bit of Japanese countryside, I know that the rural population is elderly, as are so many of the survivors living through this trauma.

Toward the end of March, there were some very moving images and words by photographers traveling in the region.

Jake Price's photo essay is here. He stayed in a shelter for the displaced and reported that—

The elderly were hit the hardest. At least sixty percent of the people in the center were elderly...

While much has been written about Japanese stoicism, I don't see it that way. There's a lot going on in thoughts and hearts if you look closely at faces and eyes as well. The events of two Fridays ago were swift and violent; people along the coast are still in a state of deep shock. The first person whom I spoke with in my hotel in Yamagata started shaking and was nearly brought to tears when she heard that I was interested in her story. "Aside from my husband it's been a week since I've told anyone about what happened. I just needed to tell someone."

... Although I had my own food, I was constantly being given more. I wanted to turn it down, but to do so I thought would be impolite. While reserved, people were also open, giving, concerned for this stranger who showed up with dirty boots and two bags. Not stoic at all. If anything, I found people determined to keep a gracious spirit alive even during this most trying of times. At the epicenter I did not come across one crack in a single building; accordingly, the same can be said about people's dignity.

Price's observations are echoed by Wes Cheek, who traveled to rural areas where aid was finally reaching some of the people who, isolated in their own homes (not shelters), had been cut off from the rest of the country.

He phoned reports to Sam Seder during the trip, and the March 30 show [after the 2:30 mark] has some inspiring stories of survivors helping each other.

The March 31 report [2:00 mark] had stories like Jake Price's: of survivors being grateful that someone was simply listening, and that the world had not forgotten them.

Wes also had some observations about how, enormous as the task of rebuilding will be, it will be helped by the country's focus on infrastructure, and a sense of refusing to let the survivors down.

He also mentioned the difference from American attitudes after Katrina, as in the "why didn't they leave?" blaming of victims.

To that I would add: Japanese society isn't subject to the kind of divide and conquer rule under which we live. After Katrina, the political agenda that benefits from pushing fear of the other acted as it always does, demonizing the storm's victims. A practice promoted by our media, directly or by declining to perceive it.

True, there was a Japanese right-winger's grandstanding after the disaster. But Ishihara soon had to walk back what he said; unlike here, there is not a Japanese mass media promoting this kind of thing, 24/7.

One month later: the nuclear plants are anything but contained. Belatedly, the evacuation zone is being extended a little, as aftershocks continue.

Long-range consequences to the environment and human health, in Japan and around the world, are unknown. They are completely unaffected by national borders.

If there's to be any hope for this poor planet, it will be if activism in Japan and the rest of world aren't too late, and can get results.Anti-nuclear demonstration in Tokyo, March 27.
Reuters/Toru Hanai