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.