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.