Lost In Translation

Dealing With Mass Hysteria

The biggest stress and challenge of this crisis for me has been dealing with the fact that the event of a large earthquake aftershock off the coast of Tokyo is quite probable this week and the ongoing crisis at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

The second biggest challenge is dealing with the mass hysteria surrounding the situation that has people hording food and supplies (see the photo above of the eggs section at the local supermarket and the water section below), making ignorant and uninformed statements that lead to fear mongering, and the fact there has been a great exodus of people out of the country or out of the Kanto area. This is mostly due to the prospects of radiation clouds being blown into the area from the nuclear reactors. Radiation poisoning is something that really sends people in a panic since it's something they don't understand.  A friend who is in the medical profession had to talk someone out of iodine pills for radiation poisoning in Seattle, Washington yesterday.

There is great distrust with the Japanese government on informing people of what is going on at the reactors-which can not be helped since they cannot get close enough to inspect them yet and are doing their best. The French government has suggested that French citizens evacuate Kanto just in case and western expats are making a huge exodus out of the city. I must know of a dozen. My contact at the US Embassy is following the Japanese line on the crisis-so I can't believe that they are going to put millions of people at risk for fear of setting off a stampede with evacuation-it is 120 miles away and is being somewhat contained-remember people survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think Japanese are easily the most pussyfooted nation in the world and they are largely staying put in this crisis and THAT tells you something. I am not evacuating until I am TOLD to do so.

So how am I passing my time in this crisis?

• Spending much too much time monitoring the fear mongering from emails, social media, and mainstream media.
• Finishing up a correspondence course that will allow me to renew my teacher certification in Washington state (just in case-you never know what the future will bring). It's fairly involved, History 137 "Reconstruction to Present." 12 2-4 page essay assignments (which includes a significant amount of reading), a midterm, a final, and a 8-12 page research paper with 3 book length sources. I already completed the first, HIST 136: "Columbus to Reconstruction," and another course HUM 105: "Interpersonal Communication." However, I enjoy studying history so it's been interesting doing so from an adult and informed perspective. So far I've completed 8 assignments and have started planning for my research paper.
• Recently I have been reading a book on Kindle via my iPhone application and sometimes using the actual Kindle machine, in addition to reading a "physical" paperback book. My current Kindle book is Hitch 22 a memoir by Christopher Hitchens and my current paperback book is I'm Staying With My Boys: The Heroic Life of Sgt. John Basilone, USMC by Jim Proser that was one of the sources used in the HBO miniseries The Pacific.
• I am also re-watching The Pacific on DVD (I had hoped there would be lots of extras in the box set and sadly there are precious few).
• Studying Japanese-I'm using a workbook that is called "Idioms: Basic/Intermediate Level."
• Making my way through Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy." I've already watched A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. Today I plan to watch The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Post Earthquake Images

I'm uploading some images I took with my iPhone that I posted on Facebook for people who aren't on it, like my parents. Today I went to Shinjuku and many businesses were closed and conserving energy-and the big TV screen at Studio Alta was also shut off.

I usually cut through the JR station to get to the east side of the station from the Keio line and there was orchestrated chaos as people lined up in the station for the limited service trains (many were cancelled due to the rolling blackouts).

This picture was from Friday the 11th, the evening of the big quake, when all trains were stopped for several hours and hordes of people walked home from work-here walking west from Shinjuku. The elevated expressway was shut down so traffic was also at a standstill.

After Shock

I don't usually make personal posts on this blog-it's become a space to discuss things like movies, books, food, travel, and things related to Japan. But the last few days have been really surreal due to the massive earthquake that rocked Miyagi prefecture and that has been haunting everyone with all the horrific video coverage out there.

It may have been the big one, but from where I was at home it wasn't. Don't get me wrong-it was the worst earthquake I've ever felt and seemed to go on forever. But it did little more than knock some things off shelves in my apartment, which is located at ground level. I imagine it must have been terrifying for those who were 20 stories up in office buildings. There was no apparent damage in my neighborhood of Sasazuka, which is located just west of Shinjuku about 25 minutes by walking. I always wonder when an earthquake hits, and there have been many over the 13 years I've been here, if this is the one that will rock Tokyo to its foundations. It wasn't and I feel extremely lucky. The fact that I'm on spring vacation means that it hasn't affected my professional life either-I don't have to be in an office or teach any classes. I'm on my own schedule. So I didn't get stuck away from home like so many people who were stranded since the trains closed down for most of the day. I went to see what was going on at the station area and saw the legions of people walking west from Shinjuku to their homes on Koshikaido, which is a major arterial. Also the traffic gridlock of people driving home. Many shops were closed down, and those that were open looked gutted of food, water, and other supplies. I guess I took it for granted that Tokyo would be taken care of.

I had dinner at a ramen place down the street-just in case the gas was still off. That was my major inconvenience-initially the gas was off, but at some point it came back on after I reset the switch. I was in desperate need of doing laundry, but the coin laundry places I usually use had gas power dryers weren't working, so I left the clothes out to dry naturally.

The next day I tried to go to the gym, but it was closed, as were many shops. But elsewhere business as usual was going on. Several events were cancelled: a friend's club event the St. Patrick Day's Parade. I got fed up with sitting around in my apartment seeing Facebook hysteria and watching the news so went and met some friends for drinks in Shinjuku and Shibuya. It was eerie like New Year's Day-so few people out and about. 

There will be rotating blackouts in the surrounding area possibly until April, but the main 23 wards of Tokyo will not be effected and I live in work in this area, so again it, doesn't have  a direct effect on me personally. I guess I am extremely fortunate.

The next few days will hopefully see Japan return to some sort of normalcy, but I know that won't be true for those near the epicenter. But I guess the rest of us are ready to get back to normalcy. Who knows what the long term effects of the quake will be? However, I do know that things will get worse before they get better as the number of dead are tallied and the nuclear power plants that are in danger of meltdown have been shut down.

Jon And Sarah in Tokyo

First night in Akasaka at the Ninja Restaurant (trust me it is as cheesy as you are imagining and I look better in real life!)

We saw a couple of weddings at Meiji Shrine in Harajuku the next day.

Here's Sarah and Jon in front of the Meiji Torii gate.

Modern architecture in Omotesando on our travels.

No trip to Tokyo is complete without a stop in Kabukicho. If you want to see the inside of a host club-you have to ask Sarah.

A temple in Yamanaka.

 A steel mask at a temple in Ueno Park.

This doesn't look like a temple or shrine, but it's in Ueno Park.

This picture has the Sky Tree and Golden Turd in the same picture in Asakusa. (Although my guests from Minnesota said that the Golden Turd looked like a Viking Horn)

The new Gap/Mizuho building in Ginza. We did more than this. I Promise. Ask Jon and Sarah.

 

Snowy Spokane

It snowed more than 10 inches during my stay-but not as bad as two years ago. However, ti does look lovely-shoevling not so much.

Bonenkai: Ghenghis Han

Ghenghis Han is located in Shin Okubo and was a good time. Food, drink, costumes, and Mongolian wrestling-more on that later. The shop manager livens things up with songs and makes the customers drink vodka from a horn. Here we have Hisako, Kenyan Dan, me, and Meiji colleagues Maggie and Robert.

Mike and Jon in traditional gear. 

The whole gang.

 

The set menu had lots of meat-and it was all you can drink.

Carve your own chicken.

A random Japanese guy from another group with a couple of girls from their party pose with Tony and Kevin (far right) after the Mongolian wrestling matches. Tony beat Kevin and drew with the other guy.

1987: A Good Year For Music

I recently reacquired The Smiths Strangeways Here We Come in a fit of nostalgia. I remember it as one of the last albums by the band that I had only discovered a year or two earlier. I was astonished to see it in the Top 50. 1987 was my final year of high school and first year of college-it is a blur of Schmidt beer, Dicks burgers, high school, journalism, existentialism, finding  my way through a disappointing first year of community college, rocking cassettes in my 71' Ford Mustang, Chuck E. "mother f****ing* Cheese and Pier 1 Imports...

Then I happened to stumbled across the fact that my favorite local band, The Yong Fresh Fellows put out my favorite album of theirs, The Men Who Loved Music also in 1987. I did some more research and realized that 1987 was a VERY good year for music, much of which I got into that year or soon after:

The Smiths Louder Than Bombs also came out, the solid Pleased To Meet Me by The Replacements, my favorite U2 album The Joshua Tree, the ubiquitous Appetite for Destruction by Guns and Roses, Dinosouar Jr. You're Living Alll Over Me, the disappointing Document by R.E.M., Substance by New Order, the sublime If I Should Fall From Grace With God by The Pogues, Kiss Me Kiss Me The Cure, Music For The Masses Depeche Mode, Sign O' The Times Prince (saw the film), Tunnel Of Love Bruce Springsteen, Sister Sonic Youth, the second best Jesus And Mary Chain album Darklands, INXS Kick (I saw them on tour in Spokane?!), the best Pixies album Come On Pilgrim, Sinead O'Connor The Lion and the Cobra, the last Husker Du album Warehouse: Songs And Stories, Midnight Oil Diesel And Dust, The Cult Electric, Love and Rockets Earth Sun and Moon, Jane's Addiction's debut Jane's Addiction, The Housemartins The People Who Grinned Themsleves To Death, Billy Bragg Back To Basics, Meat Puppets Mirage, The Screaming Tress  Even If Especially When, Beastie Boys License To Ill, Public Enemey Yo! Bum Rush The Show, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Your Funeral, My Trial, 10,000 Maniacs In My Tribe, Redd Kross Neurotica, The Fleshtones Fleshtones vs. Reality, Drivn' N' Cryin' Whisper Tames The Lion, The Flaming Lips The Flaming Lips, Tom Waits Franks Wild Years, Echo & the Bunnymen Echo & the Bunnymen, The Verlaines Bird Dog, Llyod Cole & The Commotions Mainstream, The Silos Cuba, Guadacanal Diary 2 x 4, Hoodoo Gurus Blow Your Cool, The Bodeans Outside Looking In.

Hanami 2010

Hanami at Yoyogi Park-it was all good until it rained.

 

NCAA Men's Basketball Championships:1st & 2nd Rounds, Spokane, WA March 19 & 21, 2010

March Madness at it's finest.

 

The Camaros Live @ Mootsy's

My Spokane friends The Camaros had a show friday night at Mootsy's downtown Spokane. Always good fun, they've added some new originals and covers from the likes of Devo and The Cramps. Eric on guitar, Jill singing, and Rob on drums in the picture above, not pictured: Kirstin and Mark.