FUKUSHIMA--Every Monday at 1 p.m., the cheerful voice of "Happy Chie" is transmitted over the airwaves here, continuing to soothe the grief and distress of victims of the March 11 disaster with her musings in local dialect and loud laughter.
FUKUSHIMA--Every Monday at 1 p.m., the cheerful voice of "Happy Chie" is transmitted over the airwaves here, continuing to soothe the grief and distress of victims of the March 11 disaster with her musings in local dialect and loud laughter.
Chie Ninomiya, 83, has appeared on Kattobi Wide!, a live program on Radio Fukushima, for the past 16 years. The two-hour program starts with Ninomiya reading from her diary.
"I am back at Radio Fukushima after a long break. The word 'tanoshii' (happy) is not on my tongue," Ninomiya wrote in an entry for April 4, when the program restarted after the Great East Japan Earthquake. "I appreciate phone calls from people worried about my safety."
Ninomiya, who lives with her son and daughter-in-law in Fukushima, escaped damage from the calamities.
"I thought it would be bad to my listeners if I wept. I wanted to brighten them up one way or the other," she said, recalling the first day after the earthquake.
Announcer Tatsuya Kagamida, 47, her partner on the program, was feeling saddened from reading letters from listeners.
"Hey, if you feel sad, just call me," Ninomiya joked to him on the program.
In May, a segment was created in the program in which Kagamida talked with residents who evacuated to temporary housing or outside the prefecture.
Not a day passed in the studio without Ninomiya wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
The evacuees said they wanted to return home or their families were separated.
"It's really tough," she groaned softly.
Ninomiya raised three children by peddling second-hand clothing or doing other jobs.
When she turned 60, Ninomiya began entertaining people at facilities for the elderly as a volunteer, performing as a "chindonya" musical sandwich man. Around that time, she was asked if she would appear on a radio program.
"I think God has given me the way I live now," Ninomiya said in her diary entry for June 7.
Ninomiya, who had knee surgery, has been receiving rehabilitation twice a week for several years.
On Sept. 12, she was not feeling well and did not appear on the program.
Listeners had been asked to tell what they thought six months after the disaster, and a large number of e-mail and fax messages poured in.
A typical message went, "I can hang tough because Chie-chan's familiar voice gives me courage."
A week later, Ninomiya returned to the program.
"Kaga-chan (Kagamida) and other colleagues said they were happy to see me well," she read from her diary. "I am happy to receive many faxes. They are the source of my energy."
Kagamida said Ninomiya's laughter has not changed since before the disaster.
"I am cheered up by her laughter, and I think listeners must be feeling the same way," he said.
In her diary entry for Oct. 10, Ninomiya wrote, "I put my hands together twice to express my gratitude to the moon. Nature offers us a blessing with its day-to-day changes."
In their letters, listeners have said newly harvested rice or peaches tasted good.
Ninomiya is looking forward to the day when both those who grow something delicious and those who eat it can smile again.
"I will make a more interesting radio program and keep working," Ninomiya vowed.