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Old 2011.06.29, 06:56 PM   #81
W3iHong
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Oh so, the rainy season has passed?

So, food and soil are the problem now?

Let's see what would be affected...

Meat, fruits, rice(I got bad feeling for rice)...

Let me ask again. Do they check the water supply going to farms and agricultural fields? If not, they have to check the meat, fruit, vegetable and grains when it is processed.

Thanks for entertaining the mad scientist wannabe =D
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Old 2011.07.01, 12:10 PM   #82
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there are no need to worry about to be brought from elsewhere.

the land is contaminated already.
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Old 2011.07.01, 09:37 PM   #83
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Oh... crap...
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Old 2013.12.12, 08:46 PM   #84
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So I've been doing a bit of forum wandering, mainly to put off some grading. If I post something, though, that will justify everything and I'll then get back to work.

For some reason I wanted to resurrect this thread. It was such a stupid thread at first. That first post.....I like that it's still there, as a monument to the insanity of fandom. But of course it settled into a more serious thread.

It's been almost three years, what's the point of reviving it? I guess I'm not so much reviving the thread as I feel like reviving myself IN it. Looking it over, I can't believe what little I had to say. Thinking over it a bit more, I remember being a little remote from the forum around that time. Not a good time to be a Ringo fan unless you had a long afterglow from Ultra C.

Anyway, I was up to my ears in Japanese language classes, field research, and wandering around a very nice Tokyo neighborhood. I think I came on the forum now and then with brief random comments with long stretches of time in between. And that remoteness carried on through the whole earthquake experience.

Now, they're finally getting around to taking the melted-down rods out of the Fukushima plant, under who knows how many layers of government-imposed security and media blackouts. (The new state-secret policy now enacted should have a nice chilling effect on whatever independent voices are still out there.) And I guess I've been thinking about that time when it was all happening. Almost three years ago? I can't believe it. I also can't believe I was virtually mum on the subject.

Anyway, I never told my story, so here it is in short form: I was sitting in Japanese class, at a desk against the wall under a window. And I start feeling it. The teacher is giving a lesson, and I lift my hand and put my palm against the wall. Something's happening. "Jishin?" says my classmate behind me. I turn and look at him. His eyes are darting around the room. "Jishin," I answer. That shuts up the teacher. "Jishin?" he says with a smile, as if wondering what we were talking about. Then we all feel it. Yeah, it's a jishin all right.

We all go under the desks. The floor is shaking, rattling, and rolling. It must have lasted about a full minute. Then it stops. We get off the floor, pull ourselves together, laugh a bit, and then settle down again into our chairs. Okay, big earthquake, not a world-ender.

Then the aftershock. Much worse than the first actual quake. We go under the desks again, and now we're rattling for a good minute and a half. I believe what I said at the time was "Fuck...fuck...fuck..." Now I know what I'll say if I'm ever in a nosediving plane. For some reason I remember afterwards apologizing, in Japanese, to my seatmate, a young Chinese woman, for saying "fuck." I also remember feeling quite proud of myself that I could say something like that in Japanese.

Well, that was it for class that day. Internet in the building was still on, so I went to the school's computer, and wrote an email to the five most important people in my life, saying "This will be on the news. I'm fine."

When I got back to the classroom a Korean classmate showed us his smart phone, which had a tsunami warning on it. Actually, it was a big blue circle pulsating over the entire Sendai region.

It stopped being funny.

Here we were all flushed and happy that we survived this big thundering quake, like we all just got off a roller coaster. Then we realized not everyone got off. We actually got off lucky.

Class dismissed for the today. I and five or six classmates wander around Waseda University, heading for the nearest park. My eyes and ears were on full alert, and believe me when I say that I saw EVERYTHING that day. Maybe everything that could be seen in one day without dying or violating some laws of physics. People were running up and down the street, or standing perfectly still. People were crying, laughing, singing, swearing, panicking, relaxing.....everything but working. I and my classmates sat in the park and let it happen all around us. I bummed a cigarette off my Korean classmate, and even though I hadn't smoked since Kyoto, Summer 2010, it was time to start up again.

Goddamn that was a good cigarette. I could feel the smoke going down deep and tingling all my raw nerves. I knew I'd be okay.

What were we going to do? Go home, see what's going on. Some guys wanted to drink but I wasn't ready to escape yet. Not like that, anyway. I just wanted to know what was going on.

So...I became intimately acquainted with the news anchors on Fuji TV. Ah, those anchors wearing their cute little helmets with the cute Medama logos. I never got bored with their repetitious coverage, I never got bored with every new bit of disaster video that showed on the network fifty times an hour...I never even got irritated by the incessant advertisements for AC Japan. I can remember their jingle like it was the voice of my own child: "Ay Sheee!"

What was really disturbing was the death count. In the lower right hand corner of every round-the-clock news channel, they had a confirmed death count. I remember distinctly seeing it in the low double-digits just a couple of hours after the quake. Then it just kept going up, and up, and up, until it hit 1000 and then I think at that point they just stopped showing it.

The quake happened on a Friday, so I had the weekend to hang out with my housemates and take stock of the situation. And study for a final exam on Monday that for some stupid reason I actually thought was going to happen.

I studied hard that weekend. I was ready for that exam. I was also in deep denial.

On Monday they cancelled the finals and sent us all home with warnings about safety. I literally had nothing to do.

Since January I had a return flight to Boston booked for the end of March, and a round-trip ticket to go back to Japan the start the new semester the first week of April. The point of the Boston trip was to get myself a long-term visa provided by my school; for January-March I was on a 3-month tourist visa...expiring at the end of March.

Flights out of Japan were being simultaneously overbooked and cancelled. Little thing going on over at the Fukushima plant.

Fukushima, what a fucking disaster. Seeing it live, what a disaster. A man-made shitstorm. How nice to see your favorite news sites putting your country of residence on the front page with a giant headline: "MELTDOWN." How nice for my family and friends back home. And you know, millions of other people. Not to mention the people living in Fukushima. My tutor from Kyoto 2010 grew up in Fukushima. Her family was evacuated, sent separately to different parts of the country, and yeah, she's never gonna see her childhood home again. Thanks to the wonderful folks at Tepco.

Tokyo was safe but a pain in the ass. I took an overnight bus to Osaka to relax a bit. Then my country's embassy starts flying its people out of Japan and telling all US nationals to do the same. I sent an email to the five most important people in my life and said if you want to see me, tell me, and I'll see what I can do. One said yes.

I said my final exam was cancelled at the school, but that doesn't mean I wasn't tested on my Japanese. My hour at the JAL office in Tokyo was my final exam. In a foreign language, I got my flight to Boston moved up to the only date that was available...the next day.

I paid my rent through the next month, left most of my stuff in my Tokyo apartment, and flew out to Boston where I spent a nice two weeks with my girlfriend and family. The headlines in the US newspapers were insane, and I was considered insane for still going through with my long-term visa. But I worked too hard to get that visa and I wasn't going to give it up unless my university ordered me not to. I called my advisor and he said, no, my school was not forcing people not to go to Japan (unlike Yale and other schools).

Fine. I went to the Japanese consulate in Boston, which was a ghost town. I was the only one in the entire immigration office besides the nice lady who took my application. I was also the only one in the office a week later when I came to pick up the visa. For some reason I was worried the application would be denied.

Then it was back to Tokyo, where I moved to a new, better apartment, resumed Japanese classes and research (and sporadic forum participation), and considered the countless aftershocks only mildly more irritating than most of Dai hakken.

I also finally quit smoking.

Three years? Feels like three days ago.
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Old 2013.12.13, 07:44 AM   #85
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Wow Nimh, thanks for sharing that with us. Have you considered journalism?
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Old 2013.12.13, 10:31 AM   #86
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Thanks, Entry. I'm still trying to figure out what kind of writer to be. With school done, the options are many.
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Old 2013.12.13, 05:44 PM   #87
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I also think you would be a great journalist. You have a clear, concise, authoritative writing style. But unlike many aspiring journalists, you also have a personal touch. Props to you.

The earthquakes are so far removed from my daily life, but lately family members have been asking if Hachioji is anywhere near Fukushima (not really) and if I will be affected by any earthquakes (possibly). It makes me appreciate the relative comfort and stability I have now compared to the anxiety along with the culture shock that I will have in Japan.
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Old 2013.12.13, 08:05 PM   #88
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Oh you will be affected by earthquakes, most of them you won't even feel. And when you do feel one hard, just remember you're surrounded by tens of millions of other people who felt the same thing. I always found that weirdly comforting.
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Old 2014.04.01, 07:50 PM   #89
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Those tens of millions of people are the same that will clean all supermarkets and kombinis of food and water and other supplies, just in case, in such scenarios. The shelves were very empty after 3.11.
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Old 2014.04.01, 09:30 PM   #90
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True, Jonny, but I think Los Angeles would be worse after a big quake. We've just had a few minor ones (that were strong enough to freak people out). A big quake hits the LA power company, and no water can enter the city. Scary to think about.
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