Post Earthquake post

Peter Here;

My first ever earthquake experience was in the first week of my Japan experience. The birds fell silent, the ground rumbled and the houses shuddered for all of ten seconds. Then the world returned to normal, and all was left as a reminder was a gently swinging lampshade.

Last week was different, and obviously not as fascinating an observation. Of course it was scary, and of course I feel very lucky to be alive, given the devastation up in the north. The quake hit just as I was getting ready to leave for my Friday afternoon kindergarten English class, and that's exactly where I went after the earth stopped moving. It was relieving to see that apart from a few teary faces, they were all ok and treating the whole experience like camping. The teachers were absolute angels with them.

Since then, various news sources seem to have difficulty in providing accuracy in the actual situation; some people have mentioned statistics that have been quite simply plucked out of thin air, or at the very least a twitter commentary. Quite a few of my Eikaiwa contemporaries are now leaving Japan on the basis of this, personally I think it's a bit rash.

I must say it would've been very easy for me to have left Japan as I don't have any family or commitments outside of the Internship keeping me here. However, especially after the first couple of headline days were over I felt fine staying, because having come from an advertising background I know firsthand that certain news sources will very much tweak and dramatise the information to get a larger viewing audience, rather than reporting it 'as it is'. From my humble experience, news has become more about ratings than providing de-facto information, which means it is difficult to get a reasonable report on our current situation.

The best way to see through the smoke is to get to the same sources that they use, which Richard has pointed out in the previous post are the Embassies and the expert authorities that are actually working on the site. Any armchair enthusiast can call themself an analyst, so news journalists can pick and choose the ones that run with the story they want to write, if you know what I'm saying.

So quite simply, given the official and direct sources, I feel reassuredly safe here. I'm just not going up North anytime soon. I've not done any firefighting and I don't like the cold, and although I was in the Scouts and an avid fan of Ray Mears I would probably get in the way of the real heroes!

Japan Update

Richard here.

As everyone knows, we are all well, and the area where Shiramizu is (Sugito City in Saitama prefecture) is totally safe. About 195km from the Fukushima reactor problem NE of here.

While some of the dojo members have family they can not contact in Sendai, Miyagi and the areas where the tsunami hit and the reactors are, everything in Saitama is normal, and there is no need to evacuate.

The situation in Japan looks grim on the news, but actually things on the ground here in unaffected areas (most of Japan) are better than the news reports.

The 80,000+ people first thought lost in Miyage/Sendai is now down to 13,000 (most of them still unconfirmed missing, part of the many not yet reached by rescue crews in isolated coves), and the millions first thought in shelters is now 400,000+.

Still horrible, absolutely, but much better than expected.

It reminds me of 9/11 in New York when 50,000+ people were said to have maybe died at first, but after a few days, it was realized the actual number was much smaller. I'm not trying to trivialize the 3000+ lost on 9/11, no, just pointing out over time things are seen in a more real perspective.

I am not leaving Japan.

Pete is not leaving Japan.

There are non-Japanese leaving, either they had plans to leave later this year, or they had been in Japan long enough anyway or they are foreign company expat staff. Some people are taking their children south or out of the country.

The expat staff will most likely be gone for just a week or two until things calm down. All the company people I talk to or hear about say the same thing.

Some of the non-Japanese leaving will come back.

My decision to stay is simple. It's based on cold, hard facts from official guidelines.

Not TV news talking heads, not 'my friend heard...'.

I live 210km from the Fukushima reactors. Shiramizu is 192km away. Tokyo 230km.

The US military, Jpn gov't, Canadian gov't, British gov't, the Int'l Atomic Energy Commission, the World Health Organization and UN Disaster Relief all agree outside 30km in the worst case scenario is still safe.

The US military has 50,000+ personnel in Japan, many who have their families here, but they are not evacuating their children nor the other civilians.

Again, there are lots of 'experts' from universities, etc talking a lot on TV news, but I'm not listening to them.

Only if there is an evacuation order for Canadians will I leave this area, either for the south of Japan or another country.

If I did not have important responsibilities here at home, work and Shiramizu, I would be in Sendai right now volunteering to find people, radiation warning or no radiation warning. I've done forest firefighting, I have basic search and rescue training, and I'm Canadian so I can handle the snow they're having now.

While I have woken up each day expecting for hear this reactor crisis is being controlled, it keeps going sideways, but not worse in that a 100km exclusion zone is not being created to my knowledge at the time of posting this.

I honestly think we are still in the first week of shock and confusion, but by next week, things will be much better.

Again, any concerns someone may have, they must look at the only experts that count, as I've listed them above.

The silver lining to this cloud is that with so many non-Japanese English teachers abandoning ship, there are going to be tons of extra English teaching opportunities for our interns to sort through and choose.

As each intern tries to make the internship better, including the quality of part-time work, the current interns will have a truly unique opportunity to get a few extra good paying gigs.

The official websites I'm looking at.

US Forces Japan

http://www.facebook.com/pages/US-Army-Japan-I-Corps-Forward/105103590727

US Forces Japan Commander positive announcement

http://www.afntokyo.com/afntokyo/Eagle_810.html

UK official site

http://ukinjapan.fco.gov.uk/en/help-for-british-nationals/travel-advice?ta=travelSummary&pg=1

Canadian official site

http://voyage.gc.ca/countries_pays/report_rapport-eng.asp?id=140000#2

BBC live Japan - good, except for the odd sensationalist report

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

Good articles in the Japan Times today about language and attitudes related to these issues, plus helpful information sites.

Mobile internet lifeline

Sorting quake information

Feel free to contact me if you have any concerns or questions. Please be aware we are very busy right now so if we don't reply right away, especially if the message is non-essential, I apologize.

In terms of sending advice for what we should do here, I will have to disregard it for now if it doesn't match what the authorities I have listed above are stating. Thank you in advance for understanding.

Other than all this, it sure has been nice and sunny. Today quite windy, I had a wonderful bicycle ride back from the dojo after checking in with Pete. The wind blowing out to sea of course :)

Richard

The Travelling-on-Trains Fairy Tale

Written and Illustrated by Louise

Once upon a time, there was a karate student, intelligent, modest and with great hair, who went on an epic journey, travelling intrepidly and fearlessly into the great unexplored reaches of western Honshu. Because she preferred to spend her money on other things (like food and nice places to stay), she bought the cheapest train tickets she could (aka the Seishun 18 Kippu), which each gave her five days free travel on Japan Rail (JR) local and rapid trains, anywhere in Japan. Those trains are actually the slowest you can find, but the magnificent karate student bravely endured this hardship.

At first she amused herself by watching the outside going past (though the insides of tunnels are pretty boring) and by looking at other people's shoes ('Can one judge a person by the shoes they wear?' she asked herself); then when it got dark she meditated (i.e. practiced being a vegetable); and when this became too tiring, she read the insides of her eyelids.

Snacks for the journey. Note the Tiger-Bun (or toraman) on the left.

Snacks, a bit later

Snacks see the sea

Who ate the snacks? Must've been the Tiger-Bun

In this way, the courageous karate student travelled without major mishap up hill and down dale, from Saitama to Nara, to Koya-san, to Hiroshima, Tsuwano, Matsue and back to Nara. Snacks were bought and eaten, photos taken and sights were seen. But little did she know what would happen on the last leg home.

The day started like any other, not a cloud in the sky and no premonition of what awaited. The first sign that something was amiss came when the first train to Kyoto kept stopping between stations. The karate student used her super-duper Japanese skills and picked out one word in the conductor's announcements: traffic lights. 'The train signals must keep changing', she deduced. 'Not to worry, I have 40 minutes to spare before my next train from Kyoto at noon.' That first train arrived at Kyoto 37 minutes late, so the athletic karate student ran into the station for her next train and on the way past read the station signboards.

Shock, horror! There had been a level crossing accident between Kyoto and Maibara, her next transfer point. 'Hmm.... I still have to get home, so I'll go as far as I can along the line, and maybe it'll have been sorted out by the time I get there,' she thought. This she did, but nope, it hadn't.

What to do, what to do. By sheer chance, the station that the fortunate karate student had reached was connected to a private railway line that also went to Maibara, though the long way round. With some help from a very friendly station attendant, she decided to take the private railway, throwing her luck to the winds and gambling that it would be faster than waiting for the JR trains to start again.

Thus, along with half the population of Kansai (the other half travelling in the opposite direction), she crammed into a rather slow, hygienically challenged train, and became more acquainted with her fellow passengers than she really wished. But because the karate student was the type of popular, kind and generous person everybody wants to know, she made some lifelong friends without even mussing her hair, and arrived at Maibara only three hours late.

To cut a long story short, she continued on her journey home, navigating at each transfer point by sense of smell (her carefully prepared itinerary no longer applicable), and arrived successfully at Omiya, Saitama, at midnight. But this wasn't the end of her troubles. Omiya is not home for the patient karate student, and to her disappointment, as her train pulled into the station, she saw the last train to her final destination pulling out.

Having fun at the end of a long day. Ha ha.

Now Omiya is a nice place in which to shop and go to karaoke in the daytime or early evening, but after wandering around for a bit, the tired but undefeated karate student concluded that Omiya in the early morning was not where she wanted to be. No internet cafes presented themselves, and spending the night in MacDonalds was decidedly unsavoury, so after a short conversation with a couple of friendly taxi drivers, she set off at last on the final, most expensive, part of her journey. In record time the taxi had dropped her home, and she lived happily ever after.

The End

19th WKF World Karate Championships 2008 Full Results

Lawrence again (no, they haven't shipped me home.... yet...).

I took the liberty of scanning the complete results from all the divisions from the recent WKF World Karate Championships here in Tokyo, Japan.

***After you click on one selection below, then click on the button on the bottom right hand corner to expand***

Enjoy!

Kata - Individual Female
Kata - Individual Male
Kata - Team Female
Kata - Team Male
Kumite - Female -53kg
Kumite - Female -60kg
Kumite - Female +60kg
Kumite - Female Open
Kumite - Team Female
Kumite - Male -60kg
Kumite - Male -65kg
Kumite - Male -70kg
Kumite - Male -75kg
Kumite - Male -80kg
Kumite - Male +80kg
Kumite - Male Open
Kumite - Team Male

Men's Team Kumite Final Highlights at the JKF Wadokai Worlds

Here is the men's team kumite final, highlights only.

(I thought I had the women's final too, but it must be on another tape, so I will look again).

Richard