Tag Archives: fukushima

Medium Tank

Posted by on April 4, 2011 2 comments

As I was rummaging through Japanese news trends at work today, I came across a couple of interesting articles concerning the consequences of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and reports thereof. Again. Indeed, time is not yet ripe for me to post a wall of text about ramen, so I’ll rather use this post to provide some food for thought to outside observers.

I accidentally stumbled upon Gakuranman who had, to a large extent, published what I have been thinking and repeating to nearly everyone during the past three weeks:

“…The foreign press was scrambling for anything they could get, plastering the headlines with emotive words and shocking pictures. Fear mongering over the possibility of a repeat Chernobyl was rife as well as doomsaying about nuclear fallout over Tokyo, 200km south of the affected area. Misinformation about the units used to measure radiation levels began to spread, quickly overshadowing the plight of the people in the stricken areas of northern Japan. Even previously respectable newspapers seemed to be gripped by sensationalism and unable to report the basic facts needed to keep people free from worry. Many expats living in Tokyo and other areas left the country or moved further south due to pressure from relatives and embassies.

Something amazing was happening on Twitter though. Those of us in Japan and able to understand Japanese noticed a stark contrast between the relatively calm Japanese media and foreign press. We began translating live press conferences of the Chief Cabinet Secretary and linking to official radiation readings posted by Tokyo Electric Power Company. People with an understanding of nuclear radiation pitched in and started fleshing out our knowledge on the subject and others went into the stricken areas to volunteer at the shelters. A team of citizen journalists had assembled and were disseminating information that was not only factually correct, but balanced and peer-reviewed. A far cry from the exaggerated coverage by many professional journalists and in some cases, reporting that bordered on the unethical.”

I disagree with the last sentence, however. Most of the Finnish reporting that I saw during the first week following the catastrophe wasn’t even borderline unethical. Or journalism. There was a line in the sand somewhere, but they couldn’t even see the sand. Reporting professionals had moved out of the sand and gone into another region altogether.

Why not have a séance? Why not go mad?

I was able to identify myself with all of the actions mentioned above, from translating live press conferences to moving south due to company pressure. This was particularly important to me at a time where I’m beginning to doubt myself over my own attitudes vis-à-vis being scared shitless. After reading this article in the Yomiuri Online, it seems clear that being paranoid is the popular way to go:

“…Because of all this, I am now seeing patients visit my consultation room saying they are worried about radiation.

One said, “No matter how much I wash my hands, I can’t shake the worry that they might be tainted with radioactive substances.”

“I felt nauseated after drinking tea made with tap water,” another said.

In one extreme case, a person had been refraining from deep breathing out of fear of inhaling radiation, and they panicked after feeling a pain in their chest.”

Maybe those people aren’t wrong after all. Maybe I should forget everything I know and get frightened of everything for no rational reason whatsoever. I don’t think I could, though. There’s something wrong with my brain. I am utterly unable to make the connection between something that is not happening and what it might not cause in the future. If you stop breathing now because of the fear of radiation, you will most likely die sooner from the lack of oxygen than you would from thyroid cancer later on in life. Then again, if you follow Fox News, you might as well think that Fukushima is in downtown Utah. Parodia on mahdotonta, koska he tekevät sen itse.

But to mirror and expand the feelings of both writers quoted above, I think it is ludicrously selfish of people who are fine to project their paranoia around at a moment where actual people are in real peril. There is a difference between being worried about your family who was possibly swept away in a tsunami three weeks prior and being far from the epicenter, in perfect health, worried about a potentially large number of some radioactive unit you heard on the news and could not possibly comprehend.

On a lighter note, the situation in Nakamurabashi is becoming dire. Granted, chashuu was 30% off, but the supermarket at the station had now run out of both natto and beer. I long for the comfort of the grave.

-Antti

Pimeä tie, mukavaa matkaa

Posted by on March 14, 2011 No comments

When I went to sleep last night everything seemed to be increasingly under control. I called my boss around 8 and confirmed that I should go to the office tomorrow, provided it’s physically possible. Well I have an awesome bike so not even canceled trains are able to thwart that. In addition, the rolling blackouts were supposed to occur in Nerima at 6:20-10:00 and 16:50 to 20:30 which basically meant that going to work would allow me to follow the news and keep in touch with people instead of lying in bed reading manga. Not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, I’m just quite interested in knowing when some inconceivably destructive incident occurs again. There’s a history of those during the past couple of days. The office is situated in downtown Tokyo, in an area exempt of blackouts due to a large concentration of political institutions, including most of the embassies.

Of course, the rolling blackouts did not actually begin today either because TEPCO cannot get their shit together. In unrelated news, going to the office had also been canceled but I had been out of reach so I ended up cycling there anyway before learning of the change of plans. After hearing some other negative news about the Fukushima plant, I went to Shibuya to have a Japanese pizza buffet for lunch and witness the relatively quiet streets again. I guess I’ll ramble about the unique attributes of Japanese pizza some other time.

What do you mean Jim rubs birds

I recently stated that life in Tokyo is proceeding as normal. This is only partially true, although far closer to the truth than the widespread panic in western media. A couple of peculiarities can be observed. People are still emptying stores of all fresh food. Not food that actually doesn’t spoil and could save you if you were isolated from all services for months though, only the good stuff. I don’t know if the locals will combat the growing fear by stuffing themselves full of sushi and steaks but it sure appears like that. Another specific phenomenon is the rush to gas stations. Throughout Monday there were lines of dozens of cars attempting furiously to secure something they widely believe to be the last tankful of gas in the city.

Because I’m personally affected by the situation in Japan as well as have the unpleasant task of calming people back in Finland and elsewhere who believe I will be dead within a week, I tend to place emphasis on conveying news reports that do not concentrate on scaring people with vague comparisons to historical events and repeating the term “radiation” like a fucking buzzword. Some misinformation can be attributed to the intermedia degrading grapevine effect. I totally made that term up.

According to the information collected, Tokyo should be fine. I have yet to hear about a nuclear plant accident that would have been inherently lethal 240kms away from the main location. Even if and when the current hazard escalates further, the damage will most likely only concern Fukushima and it’s surroundings, i.e. the danger will remain relatively local. I am currently scouting the possibility to go to west Japan for some contemplating but just to be clear: leaving Japan is my last goddamn resort. If I leave, I can’t come back. Therefore, I’m very reluctant to fly back home due to rumors and misinformed opinions. I hope that those who care about me understand this and can trust me in making the right choice while taking all variables into consideration. In all honesty, I have enough to cope with here as is.

-Antti

When it rains, it pours

Posted by on March 13, 2011 No comments

As if the earthquake and tsunami alone had not been enough, Saturday offered new ways to terrorize the general public. The situation at the nuclear reactor in Fukushima, to which I made a quick allusion in the last post, deteriorated. The cooling systems had failed due to main power supply lines in the region being destroyed as well as backup power generators for reactors 1 to 3 being damaged by the Quake-Tsunami combination. At 15:36, there was a hydrogen explosion at reactor 1, causing the building housing to collapse and allowing international media to go properly mental with their reporting.

Qui ne sait rien, de rien ne doute.

In Tokyo, life went on as usual. The neighborhood was calm and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I went grocery shopping in the afternoon and eventually visited the sentô next to my apartment later due to hot water being cut at home. Besides the TV in the sentô sauna running the same rolling news about the nuclear scare, people in Nukui behaved relatively indifferently towards the situation. I had the television on non-stop at home for the 18 hours I was awake as well as all internet news outlets I could get my hands on.

Meanwhile, reports in international and Finnish media became exaggerated to the point where it was impossible to say whether they were trying to cover the actual events at Fukushima or just hoping for the entire country to go up in flames. I have to admit that the government and so-called official reports were slow to come in the first few hours following the hydrogen explosion, but that does not exactly mean you can just make shit up. I was pretty close to writing a couple of politically incorrect e-mails to editors of Finnish newspapers but in the end I realized it wouldn’t amount to anything. They’re shit, and shit rarely listens. Although comparing Fukushima to Chernobyl can increase traffic, the basis for the comparison lies solely on the fact that both entities include the mysteriously menacing word “nuclear”.

As though the actual events were not frightening enough.

It was also the first time I personally experienced the difficulty of finding realistic reports of recent events that actually had happened in the pile of smut sometimes called online news. By the time I went to sleep, it seemed matters had become stable at the first reactor and the general situation was under control. We’ll see what the morrow brings.

-Antti