Comments on: [Earthquake – Fukushima] Leaving Tokyo Today… See you on Thursday in France

By: lenawash

lenawash — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:07:00 +0000

In full agreement with you. Don’t come back, too much baka gaijin in this country anyway. People who really love Japan stayed here anyway.

By: Syncbyte

Syncbyte — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Another Frenchie bites the dust. Do us a favor and STAY OUT once all this paranoia subsides.

By: Tolangley

Tolangley — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Here Here to you Noeuphemisms! Very well stated. I certainly admire the Japanese culture with the calm that has prevailed. I live in a very high risk earthquake zone as well and can tell you that if we were hit with a “big one” pandemonium would prevail, no doubt. But there are also far too many people there who will do what the government tells them without question simply because that is what they are taught. Every single country in the world is telling their nationals to move 80km out of the reactor area, yet the Japanese gov’t hasn’t moved it beyond 20km. I believe that this is because they can’t give an evacuation order, because they can’t get people out (roads are impassable, trains aren’t running and no one has fuel). Tell them to go, knowing they can’t get out. So withold crutial information and put lives in jeopardy. They have brought in every manner known to man of dispensing water on the reactors, short of manual bucket throwing, but have refused help from all other countries. US, UK, Germany, etc who have all offered to send over their top specialists in nuclear science to help them through it, have been turned down. Why is that? Wouldn’t you think that the more knowledge, and experience that you have behind you the better off you’ll be? Your country, its people and its economy is seriously at stake!
As for leaving the country, some of the posts I’m reading make me both angry and sad. Stay and fight?? What, exactly is the fight? The advancing “enemy” cannot be stopped with guns and bombs, instead it is a invisible gas that can cause pain, suffering, birth defects and death for millions of adults and children for generations to come. If you choose to stay to help with the cleanup efforts and to help put your country back on its feet, that’s wonderful and you are to be commended for it. And I’m sure every single person there (Japanese or not) capable of doing this (and even those that aren’t) would like to stay to help. If you are an adult, and choose to stay, that is your choice. But please do not choose to keep your children (and remember that they are also the future of your country) in imminent danger. Move them to somewhere safe, be it another area of Japan or another country. They are innocent victims and it is not fair to subject them to the dangers of radiation and possible future illness or death. You can always bring them back home when you know they will be safe. You will not be abandoning your country, you will be saving its future. And I might add that in world war II, many mothers attempted to flee their countries with their children as well. The difference with that, is that the journey in itself was dangerous and many didn’t make it, yet they tried….for their children.
I am not a nuclear physicist, I am not Japanese and I don’t live in Japan. I am simply a worried Aunt who is watching carefully not liking at all what I’m seeing…..the same as the rest of the world. My nephew, with a very pregnant Japanese wife, and 2 young daughters lives 65km from the reactor in Fukushima. Apparently her parents don’t want them to leave, so they are staying….despite the multitude of proofs that we are sending to them of the dangers. However, their culture says that “the gov’t says we are fine, so we are fine.” The lack of food, water, heat and fuel is bad enough, but not lifethreatening yet. However, the radiation is another matter altogether. We really don’t know for sure if they can get out or not, but the worst part is, they are not even trying, simply because they are told they will be fine. We are all worried to death about their futures and that of so many others in the same situation….both immediate and long term.

By: Noeuphemisms

Noeuphemisms — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:37:00 +0000

My wife is Japanese and we were scheduled to move to a place outside of Tokyo next week because I got a job there. Needless to say, we are not going now. Her family is OK (they aren’t located in the immediate area where things are the worst), but people seem to have been in denial about the growing problem and slow to recognize that they need to make precautions in case things really turn for the worse. For example, my employer in Japan still thinks that people will go to places were the radiation level is 300 times above normal and they have yet to issue a warning to those they (still) expect to show up in the areas where the radiation level is climbing by the minute.

There is a precedent for all of this: the great Hanshin earthquake of 1995 in Kobe–the government was slow to respond and people had to fend for themselves. In the hardest hit areas this time, sufficient food, water and fuel for heating is not getting to citizens, despite Japan’s wealth, yearly earthquake drills, and a large self-defense force, the government is irresponsibly letting the stress levels rise among the most severely deprived because it is not providing adequate relief efforts for them. Supposedly, some of them are getting rowdy now. Moreover, the government–and most of the media outlets (which are tied to the hip of the government, especially the major newspapers) can not be trusted to tell people exactly how bad things are. In fact, the information now has slowed to a trickle and the German government is challenging the Japanese government to be more forthcoming about the real situation. Remember, this is a country were doctors don’t tell you that you have cancer. They might tell your loved ones, and then it’s up to them to find the strength to tell you the truth (and many don’t). I used to live in another state (prefecture) in Japan. A doctor there (who was a student of mine) said that the cancer rates of his patients who lived around the nuclear plant in that prefecture were higher than average, yet the government was in denial about this, as well as the citizens themselves. The Japanese are incredibly hearty, yet also peculiarly adverse to reality and the truth. When things go bad, they get stoic and tough, and then soon give up in fatalistic fashion (“shoganai” attitude). These national characteristics lend themselves to people responding to emergencies very slowly, or not at all.

The Japanese government is the biggest problem in all of this. To evacuate people in such limited numbers, to do so only in narrow concentric circles around the nuclear power plants, to tell others to stay inside their homes, and then to do these things (almost as if grudgingly or not to “panic” people) only at the last minute is asinine. People living in ever wider circles away from the nuclear power plants should already have been evacuated while the situation was less critical and still manageable. When they finally tell people to get out of those areas, there will be no gasoline to motor out of the area, the roads will be clogged and there will be chaos. Apparently, the “just-in-time” inventory and delivery system mentality in Japan has met its limits and logical counterpart in this disaster. In either case, if Japanese were taught to think for themselves more, more of them would already have initiated a disaster plan on their own. Instead, they look to the government for guidance, a government that is sleeping at the wheel.

Bottomline, this situation is going to get worse and the government, in the end, will be excoriated for its response, or lack thereof.

By: gornes

gornes — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:04:00 +0000

We shouldn’t blame anyone for making their decisions, we are all human having own priorities. However, hats off to those who don’t panic, don’t buy B.S. overreacted info on the disaster in international media. Zichi has his right to express his opinion, the thing is you could just formed it in bit different way than just throwing “Leaving Tokyo today…See you in France on Thursday”. Many of us foreigners living in Japan used to say (not saying it is also you) stuff like “I came to Japan because I fell in love with Japanese people, culture, just everything is different, now I think I can’t live in my home country, here I just found my place, etc.”. These are very very serious statements, and we should be sure we can actually take Japan with all its “features”, those good and bad ones. Experiencing earthquakes on daily basis is one of those “features”, this is about it, talking about fully accepting life in Japan. Over 120 millions of Japanese can’t suddenly just leave everything and run away, even if they would hypothetically have chance. If all people would suddenly freak out, and just close themselves in homes, this country would collapse in shorter time than you can imagine. Japanese are a very unique nation, they don’t panic when there’s no real critical situation, and there isn’t critical situation now. Here in Tokyo I see them living just as before, going out to work, eating ramen and drinking beer out, this is very important for country’s economy. I can offer a little for them, yes, but not freaking out and leaving in rush. There are thousand and thousands of those who lost everything, need food, shelter, and are in much higher danger of being exposed to the radiation than others. These country will survive because its citizens aren’t thinking of only their own asses, they are just patient and do as the government tell them, they are organized, there’re no looters, they will eventually go through this and become even stronger. Ganbatte !!!

By: Quientuves

Quientuves — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 10:54:00 +0000

“should they abandon Japan and fly to France as well?” Yes, to france, or any other part of the world safer than that.
“yet they remained in France and fought” Fight against who or what? Radiactivity? If things worsen, a lot of people will die or suffer very hard illnesess. If all the people is dead or severily ill, who will take care of them? So there is need of people kept as safe as posible, to have someone to take care of the rest and help in the reconstruction.

On the other way, less people in the affected zone, less worry to the governement in case of evacuation.

By: shibitobeta

shibitobeta — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:57:00 +0000

[bookmark deleted]

By: Jl

Jl — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:41:00 +0000

British…………….. typically

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:20:00 +0000

To die for foreign country? To die for any country? That’s the ravings of madman! Such arrogant thoughts! People wants to be in safety, people have right to choose – to leave or not, to return or not. Your opinion is not worth for anyone. It’s good – to love your country, to help your country. But please have respect for what other people choose for their safety. Almost no one wants to be a kamikadze.

By: winter

winter — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:17:00 +0000

So you think you can speak for Japan? Foreigners will come back here regardless of whether they leave on not now, based on the economic value they add to companies that operate in Japan not based on what some brit artist how lives in japan thinks. Dude you may even become a liability with your bravado if you caught cancer and will have to be treated using the the tax we pay.