Fear of Food

The things up north promise to be a lot of trouble and heart ache for a long while, but will get better day by day.  Japanese are type A  people and will peck away at it and make it right.  Thought they have not seemed to be able to do the same politically yet.

Ginza sans neon

Ironically, things in Tokyo for me have been better than usual, probably because I have been mostly on vacation.  But in reality many changes are good changes.  People wasting less electricity, less cars on the roads, shorter lines at the movies.  Ginza all dark, but the pizza ovens are still gas fired and the pizza is better than 90% of the stuff you get in NY, thought my kids prefer a big slab of tomato cheese and dough and that's it.

For me it is mostly good.  It is a little like my feeling of the US housing crisis.  I would feel differently if my life savings were tied up in a house that went to shit.  But I like cheaper houses.  I think houses are for people to live in and not to pay the bank 1/3 of your income over 20 years - the cheaper the better.  I know there are a lot of economic shocks involved.  But they were too damned expensive and prices should fall.

One bad thing in Tokyo now is fear of food.  People hoard and people fear.  People are afraid of the water, of spinach, all greens really, soon it will be the meat and fish.  And not unreasonable fear.  Real answers about food safety are hard to get.  The government will sometimes talk about iodine, but cesium is not mentioned.  We know it is there but where and how much?

No one trusts the government to protect or even monitor the food supply, so we run on rumor and fear.  This is the country that came up with Minamata Disease, the poisoning of a whole population of people with mercury to protect the industries involved.

Tokyo announced the levels of Iodine in the water when it went over the legal limit, since then no numbers released, "Safe"  safe by 1% point, safe by a mile?

And again, when they announced iodine levels Cesium was not mentioned.  Cesium imitates potassium, your body takes it in and it never leaves.  It stays radioactive for 200 years, as opposed to iodine which is gone in a month.

I did notice at the National Ministry yesterday they had a cop out front on the sidewalk with that scary big stick they hold while on guard, and inside a cop with a gun, both firsts in my 20 years working in the ministry.  This Ministry is in charge of Nuclear safety and information.  I guess they think some one may have cause to be unhappy with them now.

Life goes on.  We will watch the vegetables, milk, fish and water, though how one does that I do not yet know.

A muddle

My life continues to be a muddle.  Yesterday I accomplish very little.  All this earthquakeing has thrown me off direction.  I managed to clean up a part of a hall way I had piled high with papers and notebooks, old lessons and test results for the last couple of years anyway.  Found some treasures I apparently don't really need not having seen them for over a year and not missing them.

Guilty

I had a an interesting time in the pub last night, connecting with friends returning to Tokyo, getting tired of the scare, and feeling intensely guilty about running away.  I do not think there is anyone here that would blame anyone for voluntary evacuations .  We all felt like it more than once.  I sent my family away and almost went with them. 

But I think there is an intense feeling of guilt, not necessarily from embassy or company workers that just come here for their 3 year tour living in the foreign compounds, complaining that their gardens are not big enough, but from residents, Japanese and foreign that left.  No one blames them.  We all were pretty scared.

And as I said at the time, if a big wave is coming at me I will always run up hill.  It was just so hard to measure or judge the nature and depth of the danger in Tokyo.  You can't blame people for trying to protect themselves and families, and I don't think anyone does.  But people that leave seem to take on intense feelings of guilt.


I feel guilty complaining about Tokyo when I think of the horror people in the North have and are continuing to go through.

Humans are funny animals.

part of my letter to a friend in New York today

The slow steady drumbeat of gloom and doom goes on in Tokyo and will continue for a while.  I got some real good news in that front yesterday from NPR.  They said that the radiation so far emitted is overwhelmingly radioactive Iodine.  Which means, as they said in the article, even the effected area will be about the same radiation readings as Denver Colorado in a month or two.

That is if they can get the 6 nuclear plants in Fukushima under control which is not yet a done deal, and which were spewing out more shit yesterday,

Foreign press headlines are terrifying (selling papers).  Japanese press is reassuring (a government tool).  But places like the Scientific American on line magazine are very helpful explaining what this stuff really means.  So few people have a science background.  My kids, though educated for tests here have no idea about radiation or nuclear energy.

Anyway, things in Tokyo are not so bad as they sound.  Though there was a shocking development yesterday.  There seems to be a beer shortage. 

The Japanese personality if funny.  No riots.  Not complaints really. People are kinder and more civil in the street and in lines, sometimes long lines.  But they are hoarders.  One minute the stores are full of beer, I mean full to the top.  Then word of a shortage, shelves are empty in minutes.  Japanese are hoarders.

Maybe it is in the social DNA from generations of oppression by the ruling classes, from floods, fires, wars, and quakes.  Remember in the 7 Samurai movie, the farmers eating mullet, ready to starve, but under their floors, rice, sake, swords and treasure.

Too bad about America in terrible debt, but still being the cops of the world.  It is an addiction, as you and Eisenhower have both said.  A hard habit to break.  Will the American people ever get wise to it and complain?  Will the Japanese get wise and stop electing the same money eating, nuke building fools?  I wish I could say I was optimistic.

Anyway I have no plans to leave.  Though it might be a good chance to get Yuki out, get her going on a new direction in America, though I am afraid she wold not go without Sumi and Sumi has a brand now school she worked so hard to get in about to start, first gathering tomorrow.

We are drinking bottled water, staying away from milk and spinach for a while.  But it will get better soon, or it will get a whole lot worse, depending upon the nukes and the fools and heroes trying to cool them.  Time will tell.

And a friend lent me The Thin Man films from the 30's and 40's, great fun, though all 5 are about the same movie.

an e-mail from Germany

It was nice to get an e-mail from a friend in Germany this morning.

It was nice to hear of two generations there protesting together against nuclear energy.  With global warming nuclear energy was about to be popular again.  As she said there are also political reasons, American companies and America trying to help it's trade balance (GE and Westinghouse make lots of the nuclear plants here).  And it is big money for construction and for politicians and probably for local governments too.

But now they see the price.  There will be a 30 or 50 Km dead zone for 200 years in Fukushima I think.  It is horrible but it is good timing to remind people that nuclear energy is very safe until it isn't safe.  Such powerful poisons are created, and so long lasting.

Poor people have to leave their homes.  Farmers loose their farms and their way of life.  I wonder how much of this radioactive cesium and iodine is going to appear in fish.  And fish can swim.  They so not stay in Fukushima.  They do not stay in Japan.

Japanese people are better about trusting the government, or anyway they are not so good about changing it.  Maybe these troubles will change Japan.  But I am not optimistic.

Tokyo water is safe, it comes from a different direction.  Probably food will be OK.  But I wonder how much they will start to screen for radiation in fruit, vegetable, milk and meat markets and Tsukiji.  America has wonderful radiation detectors from worry about Terror.  I do not know if Japan wants to use them.  It has always been a problem.  The top government protects itself and treats Japanese people like animals.

The constant drum beat of fear

Lots of new panics around town, all seem trivial and rumor, but it got to the U.S. State Department.  They are evacuating families from the American Embassy in Tokyo which set off teh army to do the same, voluntary relocation they call it on the army news.  Things like this do not make anyone feel more comfortable.

And the contamination stories have started, spinach, milk, now even the Tokyo water.  We are well outside the evacuation area so I expect short of a giant blasting meltdown (which could still happen, but I doubt.)  We are fine.  I think the Japanese government is starting to restricted vegetables etc. from the evacuation area (morons, why would they think it was OK to sell irradiated food from the evacuation area in the first place).  The local market guy said to expect a shortage of vegetables, which is fine with me as long as they are not sell the hot ones anymore.

I expect such news and stories to continue like a low constant drum beat for months if not years.  I still think it will be safe enough, but high stress and less than all the time convenient.  And it is a distraction fom the people who really need our attention up north.

What's it about?

I hear people are getting sick in the states overdosing on iodine tablets.
A few days ago it was about panic.  Today it is about heroes: Dave fast on his motorcycle when most of us were still shaking in town, going up to dig for his good friend's family in the north.  Dr. S who says to me, "Oh, we are OK.  Really, Tokyo is OK, But if it comes to the worst with the nukes, you can take your family to my little cabin in the mountains.  I and my wife have decided, we will go to the affected area to help."

There is a town in Saitama who relocated a little town whole from the evacuation zone, to keep friends and neighbors intact.

There is a great rice pot that at one time was used by a Yanaka temple to feed people in need.  Now is a decoration used to catch rain water.  We pray now that our priests will step up and be heroes again too.

Poetry

"Poetry is for people who fly in their dreams," from a Russian poet on the BBC today.

nearly a full moon

It was a very pleasant night. Talking about books and playing a little music with a friend.

It seems important in these tragic times to continue to live and enjoy life.

end of the world as we know it

I have see all those new action/adventure movies, shouting, shooting, stabbing and such.  Why is it I at a time like this I fall back on the old ones, Rick and his gal in Paris drinking the last of the champagne.

Just the Brits and the Japanese in the pub tonight.  Everybody else went home.

Heroes

I don't know if you can see the little gold people in this painting.  They are some of our heroes.  This has been a terrible natural disaster and man made disaster.  Many heroes have been consumed.

Fear Itself

It does bring to mind when the people of Westchester,  all around my sister's house, were putting plastic over their windows and doors to save themselves from poison gas attacks after the World Trade Centers were destroyed.

at the end of the line

It is hard to be in the center of fear.  People watching news overseas are full, full of panic.  Foreigners in Japan also.  I went to the Tokyo Immigration office yesterday.  The line of foreigners who wanted to get re-entry permits were around the block, and around the next block.  People do not have faith in the Japanese government to handle a crisis.  And we do not trust that we are being told the truth.  Untrue, slow, and unclear information makes a perfect place for panic.

Hard to make a rational decision about how to take care of yourself and your family in this situation.

All this feels selfish and callous when hearing the sad stories of people in the tsunami.

It is a perfect storm of stress and trouble.  And all of this on a sunny day in Tokyo, a really nice day.  An otherwise perfect day to enjoy another day of life.

Nuclear Panic

Today's painting, Fukushima Daiichi

People are prone to panic with new technologies.  No one complains when 10,000 people died coal mining. last year in China, or about the real increase in deaths from lung disease from surfer dioxide and other particulates the coal burning plants kick out.

But if there is a tiny leak that isn't actually dangerous to public health and people pull out their hair an howl.

I do not mean to that say I am pro-nuclear energy, or weapons.  I am not.

I am just saying people panic, and dangers are most often overblown.

All that being said, today I reached my tipping point today.  I am afraid.

I do not think Tokyo is about to to be consumed in a fireball of hell, but for the first time I start to fear that there is a real possibility that we will be exposed to radioactive cesium and Iodine, and god help us, something worse.  From what the NY Times says they are really in deep trouble up in Fukushima. they have had multiple meltdowns of fuel rods, and it looks like one breach of a containment tank.  It is possible that it will soon be too dangerous for anyone to be in or near the nuclear sites to continue trying these last ditch efforts to contain the problem.  What then?

Real Bad.

The wind mostly keeps blowing it all toward California, but it did shift once today for a few hours.  Tokyo radiation levels went up 20 times normal.  Not dangerous, but it does give an indication what could happen if all hell breaks loose up there and then the wind changes and blows towards us again.

It then becomes the worst case.

Short time should tell, in the next 3 days or so.  But so far every bit of news from up there has been bad.  It could get worse fast.

What should I do?  I have kids here.  Worse than that about 10 million people have kids here.

How selfish are we?

When the first big shake happened I was in a bookstore in Nohonbashi.  It started small and was not a surprise, but at some point I realized it was pretty big and worse than usual.  I also noticed that it was slow and rolling, so it meant that the center of the quake was far away.  But at the same time it was terrible big for a slow roller.  My next thought was, “god help the people at the center of this.”

It is not a selfish thought.  But it was not followed up.  I was truly concerned about people at the center, but what could I do?  I was in a bookstore shaking.  After that I also did nothing.  Not easy to help from here and not easy or reasonable to go there.  I would just be in the way.

It is easier to worry about helping a person in my family, or living next door, or very near.  A person in front of my house.  But people in a tsunami in Bangladesh?  Folks in the middle of tribal war in and African country?  Rebels fighting in Libya?  I am concerned for all, but basically do not help.  When in our sorry earth is there not a disaster happening somewhere?

There is some hope and expectation that governments that I directly support with my money will give assistance.  But I do not help.  Maybe I will give a little extra money, donate clothes, or an old blanket, not complain when the power company blacks my house out for a few hours to save power.  OK.

Mostly, people in these situations have to suffer.  They have to help themselves.  And professionals have to help.

Selfish?

Here is my selfish worry.  This last earthquake was terrible for the people living northeast of here.  Horrible.  Many people lost their lives, or had homes, whole ways of life destroyed in a wave, in a minute.  Horrible, sad.  But on a national scale, Japan can handle it.  Aid will get there.  Professionals and local volunteers will be pulling people out of rubble rescuing them from house tops.  Water will get through, food, blankets.  People will have to sit in cold community centers, eating cold rice balls.  Not happy, not easy, but help really is on the way.

What about Tokyo?

If this kind of a thing, rather, When this kind of a quake does hit Tokyo – Who will come?  Who will help?

Tokyo is the center, communications, government, roads, trains, airports - 12 million people, more!  When the tsunami is rolling up through Nihonbashi, Ginza, Kasumigaseki, up here as far as Ueno mountain, when the landfill much of this town is built upon liquefies, when the giant gas tanks catch fire and the fires rolls like an express train through the low lands, which is most of Tokyo. 

Who will come to help?

I can’t imagine the scale of it.  Who can?

cell phone warning of a quake already in progress

It is why bread is sold out at the local store today, people buying as many bags of rice as they can carry, flashlights are all sold out.

It is why people in Tokyo walk so softly this morning, as if they were afraid of setting off the big one with a heavy step.

It won’t come this week, or next.  It will not come when we are all looking.  But everybody knows, every scientist, every kid in school, knows it will come, and sooner rather than later.

Who will come to help us then?

What to do?

People outside think we should all get on a plane.  "I will send you money.  Fly out!"

Japanese do not think of this.  It is their home.  Where would they go?  Why?
I have lived here in Japan over 20 years.  I guess it is also my home now.  I do not think about getting on a plane and flying away.


It is pretty dangerous here too.  Have  20, 000 people died this week in the quakes and tsunami?  Probably more.

How many people died in the World Trade Center?  I know two of my friends did.  How many people died from gun accidents and gun crime in America this year?  How many people in cars?

Yesterday's Earthquake

Up north they got the real trouble.  So terrible.

 Mine is just another little story.

I was just coming out of Tokyo station when the second quakes were hitting.  The little building across the street had the  4th  floor glass out and already tumbled to the street.  People trying to evacuate, but glass still falling, ladies screaming running holding their heads, me in the center of the street watching the tall buildings bending and swaying like rubber, wondering if this was going to be the big one, streets to narrow to escape in that part of town.

Quite a few moments for reflection. 

Luckily only some small glass from some older building broke.  Funny how it only popped the glass in the middle floors.

Then a 2 hour walk home with the rest of Tokyo all on the sidewalks, every one using a cell phone, or trying to.  I stopped for ice cream half way. 

Someone had tried to take my bicycle in Nippori where I had left it, but only managed to drag  it around the corner to a darker spot and bend the lock a little.  I worry about Japanese sometimes.  A New Yorker would have had that lock snapped off in seconds.

I stopped in the local pub for a pint.  they reported only one bottle of gin as breakage.  Good botle though.

It has been shaking off and on all night and now today.  Sometimes I wonder if it just me shaking. 

Yap

Sunny day yesterday, good for walking around.  I rediscovered the yap coin in Hibiya Park.  Worth 1000 yen in 1924, or so said the little note beside it.  Gift of the mayor, though at that time I expect the mayor of that Yap Island was Japanese.

Nice coin.

New School Year

April begins the new school year.  My youngest enters high school.  Today I was filling out the forms.  Questions like Father's occupation, phone numbers, home address.  At the bottom bottom I was confronted by the same question that surprised me and gave me hope when my children entered Japanese elementary school - "What is your hope for your child's education?"

What a wonderful thing, asking a parent's hope, dream for his child entering a new school.  It seemed a great and very Japanese thing to do.  It gave me hope at a nervous time.  And of course it is a frightening time, sending one's child to strangers to, "educate," to mold one way or another.

I was confronted by this question again today, "What is your hope for your child's education?"

I wrote the same thing I wrote on the elementary school form.  It shows that I am a fool, at best very optimistic considering the reaction my hope received the first time.

My hope is that my child will learn to love learning.  That is what I wrote.

The elementary school teacher read my hope and laughed in my face.

And it was, in retrospect, funny for what the school does, what is mostly taught is to hate education, to hate the idea of learning, to stop questioning.

The goal of education in Japan (and from what I recall in America as well) is to send another generation of unquestioning TV anesthetized morons, another box of cogs, into the world.

Girls Day in Japan

Today is girl's day, Third day of the Third moon, the Peach Festival, a pretty time in the early spring before the cherries blossom.  It is a sunny AM in Tokyo, hard cold wind.  Kids are finishing up their school years, wondering what the next year will hold, maybe thinking about a week or two of break before it all starts up again.

Soon graduations will start happening, kimonos and toasts of congratulations, then April fools' day and the new year will begin.

I forgot to pay the rent on the studio, better get up and out to do it.