Energy-Saving Summer Season Has Begun

June 1^st begins Japan’s summer energy-saving campaign, and it started on a cold day with all the employees of at least one company (covered on the nightly news) wearing polo shirts to work. This is interesting on many levels. Japan has a tradition of having everybody change from one sort of attire to another on June 1^st, with the official start of summer-wear. For instance, when I worked in junior high schools, the school uniform included long-sleeve shirts and jackets for boys, sailor outfits for girls, with an optional thin sweater to wear in the cold months. On June 1^st, all the students would change to short sleeves, and nobody needed to feel out of place (unless they forgot about the change).

In the early 2000s when Koizumi was Prime Minister, he promoted a ‘cool biz’ environmentalist attire for summer, doing away with neckties (but keeping on their suit jackets!!!). On June 1^st of that year, all the male members of his party (the vast majority) did away with neckties and showed off their ‘cool biz’ looks, which was differentially complementary or looked out of place for the various members of his party. This also caught on in society at large, and ‘jaku reibo’ (弱冷房, or “weak AC”) became common on trains and elsewhere, and people put up with it, because they didn’t wear any more neckties (although they still had suit jackets).

What was ironic this June 1^st is that it was a cold day and the news program had to make the case that the decision of a company (they were covering with video clips and interviews) to have all their employees wear polo shirts was an energy-saving measure. Typically in my office at ICU, the heater goes off in mid-April, so my electric stove next to my desk goes on when I get cold, but I avoid that by wearing sweaters, not polo shirts!

Anyway, Japan will certainly raise the environmentalist ante this summer by teaching the world how to really save energy during summer. The Fukushima Daichi Power Plant disaster has created a situation in which we must decrease the electricity load by an additional 15% this summer. Nevertheless, Japanese schools only got air conditioning within the last ten years, so it is not an impossible reversal. Some people are hoping that the air in urban centers like Tokyo will become slightly cooler if people give up using air conditioners.

But realize that Japan has always had very hot summers, and last year was the hottest on record. Mothers are concerned about their small children, and schools in areas of Fukushima that are close to the nuclear disaster cannot open their windows, so students study in very hot classrooms. Having given up the ‘field day’ outside one Fukushima school managed to hold it in the gymnasium. A poignant look of relief and gratefulness was on the faces of parents as they watched their children running and playing and having a break from sitting in hot classrooms.

One response to the need for cutting electrical use is the use of LED light bulbs. We might even see a LED renaissance this summer, as consumers are catching on and the demand is soaring. Small (3mmX3mm) chips are being used to light convenience stores from the ceiling, and LED now lights the Yamanote Line trains (the central circular line in Tokyo). A TV news program recently advised consumers to use LED for places that need lighting for long periods (such as ceilings outside the genkan [玄関]　or entryway), because LED bulbs are certainly expensive but this is a good place to quickly get the value that you pay for (motoga toreru).

What I personally fear about summer is mold. In our home we constantly use three dehumidifiers during the summer to keep the mold from growing, and this is another energy-eater. For many in Tokyo air conditioners serve the purpose of dehumidification, and if people are being encouraged not to use them mold could become a large problem here, I feel, depending on the moistness of the location.

All told, this will doubtless be a challenging summer for Japan and an educative summer for the world. Undoubtedly Japanese society will develop better ways of saving energy in everyday life and the world will be hardly able to light a candle to Japan’s efforts—as usual.

Cameraderie and Self-Governance in Japanese "Educational Dormitories"

I am working with some students (Casey Walker and Guillaume Albert) on a collaborative ethnographic study of Japanese camaraderie and self-governance practices in college dormitories, taking ICU as a case study. Check out our presentation at CIES Annual Conference in Montreal (May 5, 2011).  

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AUj1G5vbTAJFZGd2eGM4dDVfM2NucDI2cWdi&hl=en&authkey=CO-eweoK

Here is the Abstract:

Camaraderie and self-governance in Japanese “educational dormitories”: an ethnographic case study of a university dorm reconstruction project

Japanese educators make great use of self-directed student activities (Shimahara, 1986). While this aspect of Japanese teaching styles has been examined (e.g., Stevenson & Stigler, 1992), few have bothered to examine the educational value placed on school life outside the classroom despite the stable position occupied within the Japanese Course of Study by “special activities” and “non-academic activities”.

Researchers such as Thomas Rohlen (1996) have shown how traditional Japanese modes of seishin kyoiku (spiritual training) incorporate elaborate forms of initiation for entrants into an organization, facilitating a strong sense of camaraderie and group loyalty. This pervades throughout the school experience, particularly in the sempai-kohai (senior-junior) relationships that develop as strong bonds within extracurricular activities (e.g. Fukusawa & LeTendre, 2001). The inescapable nature of these bonds has been criticized, conversely, for encouraging conformism (Yoneyama, 1999).

However, the relationships among residents in a university dormitory, together with its self-governance practices, have not been widely and systematically studied or discussed as part of the educational experience. This is particularly a concern inasmuch as Japanese universities, under the influence of global trends toward consumerist models of facilities provision, are undergoing a period of potentially dramatic change (Freeman & Thomas, 2005; Varghese, 2009).

This paper presents initial findings from a yearlong ethnographic project examining the communal experience of dormitory life on the campus of International Christian University, which holds educational goals for the dormitories and is currently undergoing a large-scale dormitory construction and reconstruction project. The study documents aspects of camaraderie and self-governance that have long been in place and residents’ struggle to come to terms with new facilities arrangements as well as the meaning of “educational dormitories.”

物作り精神で国は立ち上がる

日本の良いところばかりについて語るのをそろそろやめないと「日本びいき」の評判が出来てしまう危険性がある事を知っていますが、良いところが非常に多いのでなかなかやめられないのです。なるべく客観的に物事を見るようには努力しますが。例えば、先日成田空港のデルタのスカイ・ラウンゲでブログを書いている時、パソコンのプラグを差し込むコンセントを探していたら、隣のアメリカ人航空客は場所を教えてくれてから付加えた言葉は、「When the Japanese make it, you know they aren’t going to put the outlet where it’s going to make you tip over your drinks.」つまり、コンセントを取り付けるだけでなく、使用するお客に取って心地よく使えるように作るのは「日本製」だというと信頼があるという事です。設計のときも製造のときも月曜日でも金曜日の夕方（花金）でも大体日本でやった事は当てに出来るというイメージが未だに強い。「個人のレベルでの自主性が無い」との批判もたまに耳に入るのですが、正確性に関しては日本人の仕事は優れているという意識が海外の社会（少なくともアメリカ）に強いようです。

かといって日本人はしばしばロボットのように、やる事を素直にやって、いつも次の指示を待つ「指示待ち人間」というイメージも無くはないでしょう。でも、そのような批判は簡単には受け入れがたいと思います。同じ空港のラウンジの中で英語と日本語のテレビが２台隣同士で並んでいたのですが、英語のBBC/CNNではかなりワンパターンのいつものニュース・トピックのメニューが使われた印象があったものの、NHKニュースの報道では、いろんな社会現象を満遍なく取り上げながら、もちろん東北の復旧を中心に、取材していました。

日本社会における製造、仕事に対する考え方は、いろんな意味で徹底的です。それは、「正確性」という特徴を持つだけではなく、信念のある労働観だと思います。プラスになる事を強調する営業精神だけでなく、巧みな労働者のアイデンティティーを全うするような信念が広く普及しているようです。もちろん、日本の総合人口の誰もが深く持つ信念ではないのでしょうが、日本製なら海外の人間もまだ比較的当てに出来るぐらいの割合らしいです。やはり、 「物づくりが国を支える」というのは日本人の信念なのですね。

On Stealing, Empathy, and Returning Rituals

Walking down the stairway in the main lecture hall on my campus the other day, I noticed a small, pink cloth zipper-bag perched neatly atop a crook in the marble banister. Instinctively I knew that someone had found it in that general vicinity and placed it in its perch. The finder could have taken it, together with his or her contact information, to the “otoshimono” (lost and found) area of some nearby office, where the owner might eventually drift in, claim it, and contact the finder to thank him or her (as is a custom with Japanese lost-and-founds), but this would be more trouble for everyone. Conversely, the pouch looked chock full and somewhat valuable (although I didn’t open it to see what was inside), and it could have easily been stolen from its perch in the lonely stairwell. Yet, knowing that the owner had already lost it, no clearly marked ‘lost and found’ was located in any obvious location, and the owner would be most likely to notice it in such a place where one passes by every day, this solution actually seemed the most reasonable. But the rationale for it clearly depends on a belief that passers-by would not steal it.

In the past, I have found items and money on the ground and been encouraged to take these to the police office. Having done so at Narita Airport once with a 1000-yen bill (a little under US$10 at the time), its owner drifted inside the police office, but it was too late; I had already submitted the bill to the police, who were then loathe to simply hand it back to its owner without confirming the owner’s identifying information as well as mine. Even with mutually hectic travel schedules, it took a little bit of convincing to get the police officers to abbreviate the lost-and-found procedures they hold with deep conviction.

Once when at the American Embassy, I had an encounter that punctuated this cultural difference to me when an American coming for some paperwork happened to find a 1000-yen bill on the floor. He looked around and, seeing no takers, slipped the bill into his pocket. Almost as if it were a comedy skit, the bill’s Japanese owner stumbled past me into the office only 5 or 10 minutes later and, glancing around, began to ask if anyone had seen a 1000-yen bill. When the American fellow produced it and tried to hand it to her, she began to refuse it, saying she did not want to ask him to replace her bill for her (not fathoming that it was her bill in his pocket). This American fellow’s Japanese wife was becoming visibly embarrassed, as she found herself sandwiched between two value systems and collective moral responsibility for her husband’s reprehensible handling of his discovery, within the Japanese cosmology. After considerable negotiation efforts he finally convinced the owner to take it back from him with no official mediation by the office staff.

Contrast that to the larger bills (perhaps Canadian $100, if I recall correctly) that were stolen out of a traveler’s wallet at a youth hostel where I stayed in Montreal this past March. The owner of the money brought this theft to the attention of the front desk, where employees helplessly told him they had not received any money identified as lost, and the traveler apologetically disclaimed the fact that he had not been careful enough in his placement of his wallet. This turning of moral tables irked me deeply, because, even though I realize theft is not unheard of in Japan, it is sufficiently rare that the locus of responsibility was much closer to the thief than the victim in my Japan-conditioned mind.

Why do Japanese people return things so dependably? I would like to think of it as a superior moral code, and that would not be all wrong. But clearly there is some training involved here, and it entails a number of specific protocols about bringing found items to socially agreed upon officials and undergoing an information relay procedure to facilitate the expression of gratitude, and even a 10% reward, to be paid without coercion by the owner to the finder. Material honesty is one behavior that is extremely difficult to enforce with external rewards and punishments. The high level of moral honesty one encounters in Japan, therefore, serves as a critical piece of evidence demonstrating the role of empathic training of young people.

Neural science tells us, according to an episode of the BBC’s The Forum I listened to this morning, that there are certain parts of the brain that “light up” when an individual exercises empathy, and some people light up those neural pathways in more consistent patterns than others. In fact the Japanese word omoiyari, or ‘empathy’, is used frequently in Japanese educational discourse, as researchers like Joseph Tobin et al, Merry White, Lois Peak, Catherine Lewis, and others have long pointed out. That is, Japanese educators avoid punishment like the plague, as a means of managing young people, preferring to appeal to young people’s sense of empathy. How many times have I heard the expression “aite no kimochi ni naru,” or “feel what the other person feels,” by adults dealing with children with absolutely no means of enforcing their will other than coaxing! This can be annoying when students in public schools don’t feel like feeling other people’s feelings. But the empathic training Japanese people receive so often throughout their school days must certainly have its effect in everyday life within Japanese society.

Are Japanese Collectivist? And Why Should We Care?

I think collectivist societies such as Japan (and of course East Asia in general) have a lot to teach the rest of the advanced and advancing world. We typically think of collectivism as a characteristic of developing societies, but Japan is arguably one of the best advanced-nation examples of a collectivist society. Of course I say this with a full realization that there are many people who would challenge the characterization of Japan as “collectivist” relative, say, to China or Korea. Certainly Japanese children grow up with a strong sense of individual responsibility and individual rights, but these tend to be rights and responsibilities relative to some imagined, collective group.

Before stating my opinion about what Japan has to teach us about collective living, let me clarify my understanding of some differences between Japanese and Chinese collectivism. In the Japanese case, society at large looms significant as one of the collective groups to which individuals are responsible and with which they affiliate. This can be seen readily in the overwhelming in the “social capital” we have seen since the Great East Japan Earthquake in March of this year. Most people have shown themselves remarkably willing to do with less electricity, for instance. I just received an email announcement that we will have the power shut off on campus to save energy (because of Tepco’s problems) for: “3 to 20 seconds at 6 a.m.”! Are you kidding? That is so short! These planned power outages have ended up being short because so many people have cooperated with energy conservation. And although the Asahi Shinbun reported over the weekend that numbers of volunteers to affected regions have recently dropped, there nevertheless have been a lot of people grabbing for the opportunity to help, just because they care…for ‘people’. We have not seen this sort of thing occur across China yet.

On the other hand, Chinese folks show their collectivism in their tendency to cluster more tightly when living overseas. Look at how Chinese foreign students defended their country’s honor during the period leading up to the Beijing Olympics, when human rights claims against China threatened the participation of numerous actors. I find it hard to imagine Japanese foreign students doing the same thing around the world. This seems to me to be part of a family-loyal aspect of the Chinese psyche, in which one unapologetically defends the interests of one’s family (contrasting to the Japanese tendency to apologize not only for oneself but for one’s family or inner circle members—think also about how mainland Koreans speak honorifically to others about their own fathers and mothers, but Japanese, sharing a similar linguistic set of mechanisms in their language, speak with humble forms about their own parents). Likewise, when large numbers of Chinese live in any given overseas city, such as Brisbane, Australia, they establish stores on separate corners of the same intersection. You generally don’t find Japanese doing that, preferring as they do to mix in with local populations. Part of that could be historically motivated by the dishonor of coming out on the wrong side of World War II, but it would be difficult to argue that China has never had its historic episodes (as has any other country, Australia included).

Yet there are ways in which Chinese seem less collectivist than Japanese. Some Japanese anthropologists have referred to Chinese as having a “broad face” (kao ga hiroi), meaning Chinese individuals maintain many relationships, relative to Japanese individuals who prefer to deepen loyalty with fewer ‘others’. Japan Close Up has argued (in some issue a while back) that this development arose from China’s history as a continental entity in which people come and go—far away, compared to Japan’s island history, where everyone knows that the distance they may yet traverse is limited, and they must therefore maintain closer relationships and reputations with those they know. The example was given that a Chinese storeowner might criticize a customer for coming in and buying nothing, while a Japanese storeowner would never think of doing that (although I have encountered such treatment before in Japan on a rare occasion, and never in the US).

But living in Japanese society presents social difficulties for a Westerner like myself. Having been acculturated to expect public space is a domain where I relate first with those closest to me, I have often been surprised at how those closer to me turn their psychic ‘face’ away from me when others are present. My father-in-law, for instance, never hugged his daughter and me or our son when we arrived in Japan after three years away. Rather he immediately devoted his attention to the family friend who was kind enough to drive us to his home from the airport. Only after she had left did he start talking with us. My wife, when her finger was in pain because of an accident during a skiing trip with in-laws turned not to me, but to the whole group with her pain.

As an American, these episodes need to be interpreted culturally in order not to take offense. This is sometimes difficult to do, but in the long run it might be the sort of cultural learning that modern societies should strive for. In Triumph of the City, Edward Glaeser writes about the ecological advantages of urbanization. Regardless of whether we agree with Glaeser, the reality of urbanization cannot be denied. According to the BBC’s One Planet, most of the earth’s population now lives in cities, and by 2050, that number should grow to 60% of humanity. If the world is to urbanize and families are to shrink, there would seem to be no choice but to collectivize our cultures, and among the advanced and advancing societies, East Asian cultures like Japan might have a way to show us how.

There are many aspects of the Japanese ‘nanny-ocracy’ that Western civilization may not be prepared to adopt (beeps and buzzes and bells that notify the public what time it is and what sorts of items are located where; tight transportation schedules; garbage separation expectations; enforced participation in neighborhood cleaning activities), as well as the networking conventions of group decision-making (nemawashi). But there might be Western ways of doing similar things, and as the world urbanizes, and as families shrink, we will no doubt need to look more to Japanese social models for how to turn our attention from our smaller and shrinking in-groups to larger social groups, because Japan already has viable ways of doing just that.

Japanese Culture’s Organic Bent Contrasts with Irresponsible Policy

I started washing dishes ‘the Japanese way’ when I was 22 years old as a homestay visitor in Morioka in 1984-1985. I learned from my homestay hosts, the Moritas, that one need not use hot water, but lots of cold water is used. Instead of using a cloth inside a sink full of warm, soapy water, as I had grown up doing in a Norwegian-American nurse’s family, I now converted to using a sponge and running cold water over each dish for washing and rinsing.

This difference in method seems to reflect different beliefs about soap, detergent, and chemicals in general. In my American upbringing, we had a washing sink and a rinsing sink, and food scraps built up at the bottom of the former, while the latter was crystal clear, but nearly scalding, so as to kill as many germs as possible. Taking rinsed dishes out of the rinsing sink sometimes involved grabbing them quickly and setting them up on the rack next to the sink, sometimes still donning a small puff of suds until they dissipated during the drying process.

Of course, even in America we did not consider it a good job to leave suds on the dish for the next person to eat, but it was not so flagrant a crime. In Japan it is flagrant. Furthermore, even having a rinsing sink of still water is problematic, because the last water the dish touches before being set on the rack contains some residual detergent. The Japanese alternative is always to use running water, although it need not be hot.

Thus in my American home we were much more concerned about ridding ourselves of biological contamination, while in my Japanese home (and this is as true in my Japanese wife’s kitchen as it was in the Morita kitchen) it is chemical contamination one is to avoid. I should perhaps not have been surprised to discover, then, that Japan has a strong tradition of organic farming. In fact, places like Asian Rural Institute, a Japanese farming NGO where agricultural leaders from the developing world come for training (http://www.ari-edu.org/english/index.html), focus their development assistance efforts not so much on cleanliness or even productivity, but on farming naturally.

Certainly this is not to say that Japanese culture does not have strong traditions of hygiene. It does. But chemical contamination is more deeply distrusted, relative to my American experience. Apple peelings are shaved before serving, and this is typically justified by the possibility of chemicals used in their production. Vegetables are generally washed, but potato skins have never caught on, for the same reason. Recently dentists are recommending Listerine, but gargling with old tea (degarashi) is still a preferred method, and health rooms at middle schools I worked for sent out notices that green tea has the ability to envelop viruses, rendering them powerless to infect the gurgler. Health supplements are quite popular these days, but urban legends readily indict them for one malady or another. Meanwhile, wearing masks prevents colds. Japanese homeowners cannot be found walking around their yard with ‘round-up’ and lawn manicure (with gasoline-powered mowers, fertilizers, ammonia, and weed killers) has simply never become a national pastime, as it has in the US.

So while Japan is fully on board with most aspects of modernity, Japanese culture has never embraced chemo-modernity. Genetically modified foods are scorned and the spraying process makes imported rice suspect in the eye of the consumer.

Yet all this attention to preserving natural environments and consumption habits falls by the wayside in its significance when the government allows incinerators to distribute dioxin and power companies to litter radioactive particles. It seems profoundly ironic and tragic that all these careful daily efforts of the Japanese people are so utterly disregarded by those in power.

The Japanese Are Back

Today I am writing from Montreal, Canada. This is my second conference here in the past two months, the first one being right after the great Tohoku earthquake. The Hinomaru flag is still hung outside the falafel shop near the youth hostel where I am staying—waving beside a Canadian flag and two flags from a local hockey team. I was moved when I first saw two Japanese flags hanging in front of that shop when I was here two months ago, but now there is only one Japanese flag (I think the other one was replaced by a hockey flag).

At my conference I have run into many Japanese participants, unlike in March. In March I spoke to every Japanese participant I could find and ask them where they were from. With no exceptions, the answer was always “Kansai,” not Tokyo or anywhere north. Now Tokyo area participants seem the most numerous, as one would normally expect.

But Japan’s recovery is far from coherent. Tohoku is still not prepared to accept volunteers in full swing. Nevertheless, more people seem to be focusing on the tsunami recovery and fewer on radiation. I learned last night that over 100,000 civil defense troops are helping with the rubble and other recovery tasks, comprising nearly half of civil defense forces in Japan!

At the conference I am now attending, Comparative and International Education Society, a Tuesday panel session on “Education in Emergency Situations: The Case of Japan” was organized just in time for the conference, and a full and enthusiastic audience attended and has been talking about it ever since. Although I had to miss this session, I learned from those who attended that Ministry of Education in Japan (MEXT) is promoting efforts to arrange university credit for student volunteer activities in the recovery.

These all look to me like promising signs, although the challenge will be in logistically receiving all the volunteers headed for Tohoku from around Japan and from around the world, in the coming months. Especially after having volunteered in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake there, I feel the tasks of facilitation must be daunting. Nevertheless, the need for volunteer help is monumental, and volunteerism itself has developed considerably over the past 16 years. With any luck I will get a chance to bring students there myself. If I do, I will post pictures.

Japan Will Rise from the Ashes

The slogan, 「今こそ力が問われるとき」(Now is when we need to be strong) flashes across the top of the TV screen as the national news continues its daily focus on the disaster zone in Northeastern Japan. Certainly there are many huge problems, with both the nuclear disaster and the economy, but the main focus is clearly on the tsunami victims. People are coming out of the woodwork to volunteer as never seen before in Japan as story after story covers the tremendous challenges faced by victims. Children displaced from their school friends, overcrowded schools where victims have enrolled in large numbers, older people growing immobile by the day as their usual exercise routine has been destroyed, people unable to retrieve their possessions, human corpses in the ocean contaminated with radiation--the list of simply awful circumstances continues, and the nation is rallying around their countrymen and countrywomen.

One university president used his position to order green leafy vegetables from the agriculturally rich region near the nuclear reactors that was not affected, but which suffers from a natural sort of boycott. A student interviewed in that university cafeteria explained, “Oh, I don’t think much about whether there is radiation in the vegetables or not. I’m sure it’s safe.”

Other news stories cover volunteer efforts in Tohoku (Northeastern Japan) and why this is a time when the country needs to come together. As on any other given day of news,「ガンバレ日本」signs are shown in new and interesting places, stores, wall surfaces and clothing. Other phrases like 「つながろう」(Let’s connect) and 「日本を信じている」（I believe in Japan) are tucked away subliminally on a corner of the screen or show up in a public service announcement. Red Cross donation account information occupied the back of a bus service magazine on the way to the airport, and signs (i.e., billboards, etc.) of encouragement could be seen here and there. 

Perhaps any society placed in this sort of situation would strive to muster as much solidarity as possible, but Japan has a particularly innocent and unaffected way of doing this. As a people, the Japanese are not ones to shirk common-sense expectations or waste too much time focusing on their complaints. They are extremely adept at accepting the situation and doing what must be done. If dramatic scenes of huge waves carrying whole villages out to sea dominated YouTube worldwide last month, scenes of country roads surrounded by glacially diminishing rubble have remained the warp and woof of daytime screen viewing in Japan since the disaster. There is no limit to viewers’ tolerance and continued demand for rubble-filled scenes of rural Tohoku. It stays on the screen throughout the day, every day, without exception.

Let’s hope there is no other sort of other distracting disaster that will distract Japan from its currently solid focus on recovery, as the sarin gas incident seemed to divert its focus from the Kobe earthquake recovery in 1995. It seems like these sorts of disasters happen in cycles, and history goes on. But the depth of disaster this time also promises to keep the whole country focused for quite some time.

One politician this past weekend suggested that this might be the right time to develop the West Coast of Tohoku (exactly where I lived in childhood), because it faces the Japan Sea and China and Korea, so it should be valued more as and economically strategic area for Japan. Moreover, the West Coast (Akita and Yamagata) were completely untouched by the tsunami and nuclear disasters and would therefore be easier to quickly develop, but the benefit would by likely to rapidly cross the mountains eastward, resulting in an economic win-win situation for the tsunami victims, Japan’s economically strategic position in East Asia, and for the underdeveloped 「裏日本」（backside of Japan, as the Tohoku West Coast is often called) area. The Sugiyamas, very close friends of my childhood family, have been talking about this for years.

But because Japan has a national debt to the tune of 200% of the GDP, all projects are currently difficult to fund and start up. However, since the earthquake consumer spending has gone down over 5%, and Japanese society is in gear to tighten its belt for the common good. Considering all this, my outlook for Japan is that:

1. It will take 10 years to recover from this disaster
2. Those 10 years will see a reinvigoration of Japan’s disillusioned and unemployed younger generation, many of whom will find themselves through volunteering to help their compatriots.
3. Japan will continue to increase its trade with mainland Asia, and the role of the Western seaboard will heighten considerably.
4. Tohoku will become one of the most thriving parts of the Japanese economy 10 years from now.

Experience with Radiation Is One of Japan's Strengths

Today I had an interesting conversation with some good folks who, when I asked for directions to the bus stop on my way home from renewing my visa at the Immigration Office, kindly offered to give me a ride to the Tachikawa Train Station. Our conversation gravitated--like a pin and a magnet--to the topic of radiation. (Honestly, I am not in the habit of bringing this topic up with strangers and people I meet in public, but they are constantly bringing it up with me!) The comment that this man made to me is that Japan, being the only country ever to experience atomic bombs, knows what it is like to recover from radiation, and the people are therefore not as scared as one might expect. Everybody has a friend or a family acquaintance that either survived Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or is closely related to someone who did. Needless to say, everyone also knows of people who did not survive. Having that knowledge gives the Japanese public a historical gauge by which to calibrate fallout risk.

Through this conversation I realized there is a good reason, other than a fundamental trust in society to mobilize as needed to address risk on so many levels, why most Japanese people in the Kanto area (centering on Tokyo) have no reason to evacuate and everything to lose by evacuating: as Japanese people, they have a history of overcoming radiation. I also came to accept the possibility that when people mention the history of atomic victimization, it need not be taken as defensive or political, necessarily. But certainly for most people here, it is foundational to a muffled, but buoyant, sense of patriotism. I could detect a sort of matter-of-fact national pride when he blithely explained to me how this current level of radiation is really nothing for Japan to make a big fuss about, having gone through what it went through in the past century (remember, the atomic bombs fell BEFORE Japan’s rapid economic growth into a global power).

But the racially visible absence of many foreigners is, I think, a public concern, and for me it feels a bit different to be a foreigner now. However, this public concern might be a bit misplaced as well, because the foreigners who have ‘left’ Japan or simply stopped coming to Japan are mostly tourists and short-term visitors. Certainly this is a valid concern for tourism and for the Japanese Language education industry, and internationally minded universities such as my own need to think about implications for student demographics. But this is likely to be a blip in the long-term, I think.

That said, Tokyo’s low level of radiation, both in air and drinking water as of today (radiation was reported at undetectable levels in drinking water today for the first time since the great earthquake in March), will only be maintained if the Fukushima Daiichi Plant disaster is kept under control. But all bets are off about that, and some news sources reported the situation worsened today. Nevertheless, even if the Fukushima disaster management efforts do not go well, the immediate impact in most of Japan is not likely to be dramatic.

In a nutshell, I think most of Japan’s efforts should be directed to the recovery, while TEPCO and the committee Japan is now forming to supervise its nuclear power (including international specialists) keep working to address the nuclear disaster. If the nuclear cleanup does not go well, Tokyo will get more radiation, but most likely not at levels that will put us at immediate risk.

What the rest of the world should perhaps worry about is toxic rain. At least in Tokyo people usually use umbrellas…

Coping through Social Management

Outside Japan there seems to be a strong sense that the Japanese government is covering up information or simply being vague about the extent of problems in Fukushima. Much of this is, of course, justified, because that is what all governments do. But there is a Western ethic, at least in the US, that policies should reflect a zero-tolerance for danger to human communities, and it almost seems to violate this ethic not to cancel life as usual in any town or city anywhere near Fukushima—even Tokyo. The reality is that we all live with risk—even driving cars is riskier than not, but untold lives have been saved because people were driven to hospitals.

So clearly, we live with risk. We balance risk and benefits as individuals and as communities. But things start to become shaky when safety measures (which help to balance out the risk) require higher levels of knowledge and sophisticated ‘fuzzy’ analytical capabilities on the part of large sections of the population. At some point of sophistication, the danger of failing to implement safety measures adequately weighs too heavily on people’s minds (consciously or subconsciously). That is when evacuation starts looking more attractive. In the case of foreigners living in Japan, that is when people start wondering why we stay.

However, in the case of a minutely managed society that the Japanese ‘nanny-ocracy’ is, problem-solving skill levels actually are so collectively high and based on exquisite collaborative abilities of the population at large, that it actually becomes possible to consider managing something as invisible and insidious as radiation and something as disturbing as after-shocks.* Because so many people are ready to follow directions, confer with each other, and rely on each other’s analytical sophistication, avenues start to emerge for managing the complex crises caused by the nuclear disaster.

As a case in point, the government has ordered all businesses and institutions to reduce their electricity usage by 25% this summer or face heavy fines. In tandem with that, there are elaborate protocols for inspecting a wide range of environmental quality factors. At the institution where I work, ICU, this includes surveys on five separate days during spring, summer and fall, at our main lecture hall. It will be conducted under Tokyo Metropolitan Governmental supervision in 13 classrooms spread throughout all of the four floors of that building. Surveying will measure:

·      ...Floating particulate matter

·      ...Carbon monoxide

·      ...Carbon dioxide

·      ...Etc.

I am not trying to imply that environmental surveys don’t happen elsewhere or that several cities in the US don’t conduct energy saving plans, but I am simply impressed with the level of cooperation that is expected here in Tokyo. It is expected, because it is received. People faithfully separate their garbage into at least six categories, to be put out on different days of the week, and even different weeks of the month! Tokyoites already understand 「弱冷房」(weak air conditioning), and we only got elevators and escalators in all the train stations in the 1990s. That is significant because trains are how most people get most places farther than 5 km. People are prepared to use less when asked to, and take care of their own rain protection, and watch radiation reports, and attend to information about different kinds of food.

So if Japanese willingness to consider living with nuclear fallout seems a bit unbelievable, that is a sign that that the unbeliever is underestimating Japanese social and human capital. Until one has encountered a society where so many people are willing to do what is required (social capital) and the vast majority of people are capable as well (human capital), coping mechanisms Japan is willing to entertain might well seem martyr-like.

*A large after-shock even occurred as I was writing this post.

The Sakura Mystique

The Japanese custom of hanami (花見) is generally known in the outside world. It is when companies, families, and groups of friends bring their employees and members to parks to sit on a blanket on the ground and drink and carouse and have a basically raucous time. People become remarkably unruly and have a good time, drawing pictures on each other’s bellies, singing songs, and eating onigiri (rice balls) and drinking soft drinks and hard drinks, like sake. During hanami outings occurring on weekend days, children are part of the scene, and adults and children play together. But when you are walking innocently through the park or campus and you notice droves of people doing this, you know it is more than just the natural attraction of the blooming sakura that causes it; it is a cultural mystique that has developed around the sakura that makes people feel drawn to them.

During the sakura blooming season, there is usually a spot on the news about where they are blooming and how beautiful they look. Evening shows feature stories of old sakura trees that have been well kept through the centuries or that are in need of being restored by tree surgeons. The oldest one in Japan is purportedly 2000 years old, planted by Takeru Yamato in Yamanashi Prefecture (http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%A5%9E%E4%BB%A3%E6%A1%9C).

Sakura start blooming each year in southern Japan in latter March, and the line of blooming trees moves northward. This is called the “sakura line” or sakura zensen (桜前線). As of yesterday, this line moved into Fukushima, the southernmost prefecture of the whole Tohoku area, which has suffered incredible loss on the eastern Pacific coast, due to the tsunami that followed last month’s 9.0 earthquake.

On TV, locals working to rebuild their devastated communities were interviewed, saying things like “The sakura make us strong and reliable,” and “If they are blooming so genkily, it makes me want to do my best.” Yesterday the City of Koriyama held a hanami event for the roughly 100 evacuation zone refugees from Tomiokamachi and Kawauchimura, who are currently living in a local gymnasium (no doubt awaiting temporary housing to be built), and this was on national news. Evacuees suffer through loss and incredible inconvenience, but throughout Japan they are seen as celebrities, and nothing could be a better photo op than the hanami moment.

But all of this is not to say that sakura are not grippingly attractive. I still remember doing hanami in Akita as a kid, sitting on a blanket in the park, and riding in the passenger's seat as my dad drove us under majestically cascading Tohoku cherry blossoms. Unlike Tokyo, the sakura up North do not bloom in time for the new school year (April 1^st); they bloom in time to really enjoy them: Golden Week (a succession of three national holidays, May 3-5).

Is It Okay to Talk about Radiation? Or, どうぞ、ご冷静に

Why do people in Tokyo stay in Tokyo? Is it because they don’t know about the radiation danger? Are people not supposed to talk about it? Do Tokyoites despise non-Japanese who have left the country as traitors?

I somewhat wondered about those things when I was in North America during and after the March 11^th earthquake, preparing to come home to my work in Tokyo after a conference in Montreal and visiting my family in Bellevue, Washington. During that time I also had conversations with siblings in Oregon and Arizona and neighbors in Bellevue. 

What I have come to realize since coming home on April 3^rd is that of course it is okay to talk about radiation anywhere in the free world, but doing so means different things in different places. For instance, in Bellevue neighbors and siblings on the phone were deeply sympathetic—even more than I was ready for, because I hadn’t really accepted the reality of a disaster so severe back in Japan, but also because Tokyo and Tohoku do not look so far from each other on the map, even though they are hundreds of miles apart. At the conference I met a graduate student who followed up his deep sympathy with comments about how nobody should take this as a reason to give up on nuclear power.

Of course I was very curious, as I stretched out comfortably in a nearly empty airplane headed for Narita on April 3^rd, how people back in Tokyo were going to be about all this. Turning on the TV in my home in the West part of the city, I was brought to tears by the undyingly positive expressions of 頑張れ、日本！(Ganbare, Nippon—Hang in there Japan!) and 負けないで！(Makenaide!—Don’t give up!) and the constant coverage of every imaginable problem face by people in Tohoku, where I myself lived as a child.

I was still wondering whether it was safe to eat in the campus cafeteria, but when I asked a colleague with a student in his office, I was asked, “Oh, are you afraid of that? Well nobody has died yet.” The student added another positive comment, wearing a large smile on her face, so as to reassure any doubt I might have.

In fact, I have come to believe, most food is safe to eat and Tokyo is not soaked in radiation. If everything goes well in Fukushima things will stay that way.

But it’s all a different story when it rains. Some people look solidly unmoved in their expressions—eerily so. Weather reporters too don unusually cheerful tones as they announce it is going to rain. But when I was going to ride my bicycle to a restaurant to meet colleagues and graduate students, one colleague reminded me to try my best not to get wet. Another colleague reminded me that it’s the build-up of radiation that makes it dangerous. When I got to the restaurant, the graduate student in charge of the reservation told me with frustration that for no reason the restaurant told him they had thought we were canceling.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to go shopping, and I stopped by the osteopathic clinic (整形外科) on my way to the store. I put on a sturdy red REI rain jacket and carried an umbrella to protect my legs as I peddled my bicycle. When I arrived, people were at first wondering who I was as I took of my jacket. Immediately the discussion went into ‘radiation mode’. Apparently I looked like a red version of someone from the Fukushima nuclear plant. I was asked how to say 放射線 in English, and after responding, I was treated to about 5 attempted pronunciations of ‘radiation’ before receiving my osteopathic treatment. Later, after the osteopathic treatment, I came to pay my bill and I was asked if I was okay about staying in Japan, to which I answered, “Yes.” Strangely, I am asked that on both sides of the Pacific, and I said so. But, as I continued, I am more concerned about rain anywhere in the world right now than air in Tokyo. The problem in Seattle is young people play outside with no umbrella, not knowing there is radiation. In Tokyo everyone knows. This comment immediately evoked a reflective word about Japan’s responsibility to the world to stop the radiation, followed by comments about a family member who miraculously survived Nagasaki.

The streets were barren and the drug store I went to, where one must typically squeeze one’s bike into a small space between two out of twenty bicycles, yesterday there were three. Inside, it was also quite empty. The usually crowded register was operated by one clerk, trying to act busy between customers, few and far between. At the 99-Yen shop, where customers are usually expected to bag their own groceries, it was bagged for me. Everywhere, people seemed unusually friendly, but trying not to sound any more friendly than usual. Interestingly, news of worried Korean mothers laboriously carrying umbrellas for their kindergarten children makes headlines, but Tokyo’s very real self-consciousness is missing from the news.

Going out in public now seems sort of like it used to before there were many foreigners in Japan, but much more self-conscious. On TV, an evening magazine show interviewed Japanese language teachers and others who asked when all the gaijins are ever going to come back.

Online, one Japanese internet user asked how to find out how much radiation there is in the rain. The answer started with ‘Be reisei (冷静) please.” That is, don’t panic. Then the answer went on to reference some inconclusive information that downplayed the radiation, compared to background radiation. However, some people (in English) on the Internet argue that there is no background cesium, so it is therefore incoherent to talk about cesium in the rain as being no more than “background radiation.” Therefore, responding to a request for information by asking someone to stay reisei seemed unnecessarily dismissive--belying doubt, perhaps?

Likewise, a TV documentary focused on how we must get clear information out to people so that they can become reisei (calm). That all sounded psychologically intelligent, until I came to see that the documentary was portraying reisei as ultimately identifiable by the ability to purchase spinach from Ibaraki and unaffected areas of Fukushima, as well as sea food. If people could do that, you knew they were reisei. The opposite of panic should never be the dismissal of concern. 

So, is it okay to talk about radiation? Absolutely, but it always seems political. In North America, people have the luxury of talking about it somewhat hypothetically. Korea and China find it hard not to evoke the blame game with Japan. In Japan, where most people simply have nowhere else to go, one’s view of radiation is intimately related with one’s positive versus negative outlook on life. Japanese society is superior in its calmness and in people’s exquisite ability to cooperate in solving problems. I know of no place like Japan in this regard. In their preparedness for disaster, as well, Japanese out-do the rest of the world, I am certain of that.

I want to join in and say, “Ganbare, Nippon!” But that doesn’t make it a virtue to stay in harm’s way or to dismiss suggestions of danger, or block out the desire to live a long and healthy life at all reasonable costs. Talking about radiation should never be stifled by those in any country who want to make the case for the value of nuclear energy and view inquiry as opposition. Diablo in California is supposed to be ready for the highest magnitude earthquake deemed possible: 8.2. But when Tepco was asked why they had not planned for the worst-case scenario, they gave an honest answer: “But we did! A 9.0 was never supposed to happen!”

My point is not about the politics of nuclear energy, although nobody could deny the world’s current lack of preparedness for further disasters. My point, though, is that radiation is, and must always be, mentionable. And, as Mister Fred Rogers has written, “Whatever is mentionable is a little easier to bear.” A red rain jacket need not be an elephant in the room; it’s simply the best protection I can give myself. Whether you are in Japan, Canada the US or Korea, it should always be okay to talk about radiation. Nobody needs to blame anyone for being concerned or being trapped. We can accept each other and still pull out the Geiger counter. Information is valuable, but there are a lot of feelings that need to be addressed too, I guess.

Radiation is Scary, Isn’t It! (放射線怖いですね)

When I suggested to an American advisee of mine, who had equipped herself with a Geiger counter to check her food after shopping here in Tokyo, that she take the Geiger counter along to the store, she said she thought it would draw too much negative attention. But, I thought, Japanese customers and store employees are all free agents. They live with the same radiation risks that anyone else does. Why would they be offended? Might Geiger counters be bad for business? Maybe. But ethically, no one would deny the importance of knowing, and being Japanese should do nothing to change that basic human ethic.

So I tried bringing my own radiation counter (by the way, I didn’t realize it was not a Geiger counter, but an electromagnetic wave counter, so be careful what you buy that is advertised on Amazon! I have to go out and make another purchase now.) to the local 八百屋 (green grocer). When I pulled out my little gismo, I heard the store tender say to his colleague, “That guy is using one of those things for measuring radiation.” I turned and asked him, “Wanna see it?” and before long everyone in the store was gathering to see that the spinach was not irradiated at all (which of course I don’t know because I had the wrong gismo). The green grocer was really happy that I had brought this little devise as one of his customers retorted, “There you have it! See? These vegetables are all safe.” Well, clearly nobody was offended that I brought my radiation counter, but I better get a real Geiger counter and go back and give them some accurate readings!

But as I was leaving, the grocer who was giving me my bag of vegetables and taking my money said to me, ｢放射線こわいですね｣ (Houshasen, kowai desu ne—radiation is scary, isn’t it?). Why would he think anything else? He has to eat vegetables too. Yes, the act of measuring radiation at the green grocer is an attention getter. Some people might not like that sort of attention. But I feel we need to realize we are all in the same boat? What good would it do a grocer to make hand over fist on sales but die of cancer from eating the same irradiated food? When radiation is in food, nobody wants to eat it, and nobody really wants to sell that stuff either. Of course news of radiation is bad news, but bad news can be life-saving, so no intelligent person hates the messenger. When I get my real Geiger counter, I’m going back there.

Dochakumin

On March 11th, I happened to be in the US conducting my research, and watching with unbelief as the horrible events on my computer screen were unfolding an ocean away in Tohoku, where I lived my early childhood. My first reaction was a suspicion of media hype. As friends, relatives and neighbors kept approaching me with words of condolence, I eventually had to face the fact that the disaster was real.

My next set of thoughts were deeply patriotic toward Japan, but also non-plussed toward Western pundit descriptions of "needing to learn from Japan's tragedy." "From Japan's tragedy?" I thought. Why not from Japan's diligence and preparedness. Among these emotions was the thought that of all the countries this disaster could happen to, it happened to the one country that can take it (this is ultimately proving true, but I had not known the other half of the tragedy yet) -- a thought that made me well with pride in my association with Japan.

Events ultimately turned in the other direction as the nuclear reactors began their meltdown, and the whole world became impacted. The immediate issue at that time was what the countries of the world were to do in advising their people. Countries like France immediately called its citizens out of Japan. Countries like Bulgaria moved their embassies out of Tokyo. The US, for its part, announced a larger evacuation zone than that officially given by the Japanese government. Now, perhaps, we were seeing the other side of Japanese crisis management, namely denial. Why couldn't the Japanese government quickly recognize at least the possibility that people living farther than 12 miles from the crippled reactors may be in grave danger of deadly radiation? Certainly they had no evidence these places were safe.

Before returning to Tokyo I struggled daily with the issue of whether it was safe to return to my home and work there. My family in the US was hosting a relative from Tokyo, but she eventually returned to Tokyo as soon as her international school restarted. I was scheduled to return to Tokyo on April 3rd, just in time for the new school year at my university. In many respects the timing for the nuclear scare was providential, sandwiched as it was between two fiscal/academic years, but now decisions had to be made and life had to go on in Tokyo.

During that time in latter March, the word "dochakumin" (people fastened to the land) entered my vocabulary. My family's invitation to other Japanese relatives to come to our place in the US was answered by the explanation, "we are dochakumin, after all."

Coming back to Tokyo, I was again deeply moved by the daily pathos one was showered with in every news presentation, sprinkled with constant messages of "ganbare!" (do your best) and "makenaide" (never give up) and apologies from Tokyo Electric Power Company for all the inconvenience they had caused.

As the stories have unfolded, however, I have come to see why Japan will certainly rise once again to its feet: they are dochakumin. That is, it is never good enough to resettle victims from the nuclear (not to mention tsunami) disaster. People love their homes and wish to stay. Their ancestors' spirits are thought to remain in graves located nearby. The sense of grounded belonging is immobile. Now that the Japanese government has finally expanded the evacuation zone, they are severely scolded by locals and by the media at large, but why? Because it took them so long to say so? No, it is because the government gave up. People wanted to still stay in their homes and blame the government for making them leave at all.

It is a deeply troubling scene to see the lone farmer who, breaking the rules, stays with his cows who are starving in the evacuation zone. There is no revenue to be had from them, as their milk has already been condemned, but the farmer interviewed on NHK explained that he made is money from them, and he was even fed by them, he simply could not leave them there to die. So he stays in the irradiated zone and tends them alone. 

Many people refused to leave their homes even after being told to stay inside at all times, and plenty of farmers have hesitated to leave their farms even after their towns were slated for evacuation. People have been allowed to send one family member back for belongings, but some have complained they could never retrieve what they needed without more family members going along.

Thousands of people live in evacuation sites at schools, awaiting placement through a lottery system into temporary quarters that are being built. The grief over leaving their homes seems more intense than if it only had to do with losing everything. There is a deep sense of belonging to the land.

This is precisely why Japan will quickly rebuild. The people belong on their own land. The fishing village of Kesennuma has been covered in news stories describing how rebuilding the fishery should be the first step of recovery. People are willing to live in large school gymnasiums while they work if they can simply get a job. The people of the destroyed town see little hope of recovery unless they can quickly re-employ the young fishermen, so they focus on rebuilding that.

Through this disaster, Japan has discovered a new function for its civil defense force. More than in any other previous disaster, they are being dispatched to the disaster zones to remove rubble from the ground, as well as located the dead floating in the ocean. Up until yesterday, I had not heard of any movement to recruit volunteers from outside of Tohoku for the rebuilding. I attended a presentation at the Institute for Asian Cultural Studies at ICU addressing the prospects of volunteerism. Interestingly, out-of-region volunteering has not been organized on a large scale, although churches and other organizations certainly have sent volunteers, particularly drivers with loads of supplies. But yesterday NHK announced that over a 10-minute time slot 600 volunteers registered to participate in a volunteer program, and of these 200 were chosen. The interest in volunteering has never been so high in Japan, I feel.

I am sure these volunteers are feeling the sense of patriotism I myself have caught. They love their land. They are not nationalists. They simply love their land and know it is the right thing to do to go and help. People know radiation is bad for them, but some intentionally buy vegetables grown in Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma and Chiba to support the agriculture that remains.

Worse disasters may still be on the way. But if they can be averted, Japan will write the book on how to recover from nuclear disaster. Of this I am quite certain. Whether, as has been suggested to me by a Canadian acquaintance, Japan's after-the-fact model of crisis management results in contributing to the world a cure for cancer twenty years from now, remains to be seen.