My story

My story is not very exciting, but I will share it anyway: I was sitting at home working on an abstract proposal for an upcoming Anthropology conference when I received an email from the US-Japan Fulbright Commission asking each of its grantees to writ...My story is not very exciting, but I will share it anyway: I was sitting at home working on an abstract proposal for an upcoming Anthropology conference when I received an email from the US-Japan Fulbright Commission asking each of its grantees to write in letting them know that we were safe following a large earthquake in Northern Japan that had struck just a few minutes prior. I was perplexed by the email and I actually ignored it at first, thinking that it couldn''t possibly apply to me so far south in Okinawa. At first I did not even connect the sirens blaring outside my window with the content of the email. An hour or so later I walked through downtown Nago to attend an event being held at the local museum, only to find that it was closed. On the way there my mother called to ask if I was alright and informed me that she and her husband had been evacuated from their home on the Oregon Coast in the middle of the night due to a possible approaching tsunami. It felt strange hearing details about this giant earthquake from my mother, half a world away, who was glued to the news and knew so much more about what was transpiring in Japan than I, a temporary resident of Japan, did. By this time I was alert and I realized that the ongoing sirens were tsunami warnings. (There were announcements being made over a loudspeaker but the voice was so distant and muddled that I could not understand what was being said.) There were other people walking calmly around, though, and traffic was moving along the coastline as usual so I figured I was safe. I called the researcher I was supposed to meet and he unlocked the door and let me in to the reception area of the museum, where about five lingering employees sat staring transfixed at the television. I cannot remember the specific images I saw, but I do remember feeling uncomfortable, almost voyeuristic, watching such incredible destruction taking place in virtually real time. The museum had been closed early due to the tsunami warnings, and many of the events of the next few weeks were canceled out of respect for the gravity of the situation (and, more practically, because certain key contributors were unable to fly down from Tokyo). I did notice that every single uncanceled public event I attended (talks, workshops, meetings, conferences etc.) in the weeks following March 11 began with a silent prayer (mokutou) for the victims of the disaster. I saw young adults running in relay fundraisers on Route 58, and I began to wonder what else I could or should be doing to help with the relief effort. I felt helpless and guilty but all I did was make online donations to the Red Cross and reply to the countless emails that poured in from friends and family asking my whereabouts. I tried watching the many Japanese news channels covering the 'story' just to stay informed, but I found the digitally rising death tolls and missing persons segments overwhelming. What was the point of listening to this kind of information when I was so far away? Was not compassion the only useful emotion I could generate, and did I really need to know the intimate and horrifying details of what soon came to be called the 'Higashi Nihon Daishinsai' in order to feel this? I was moved when the large banners of support reading 'Ganbarou Higashi Nihon' began appearing in public places. Okinawans are quick to emphasize the many spiritual, historical and cultural ways in which they are not Japanese, and this was the most overt, conscious display of affinity with Japan that I had seen during the year I spent on the island. In late March the US Department of State offered to pay the plane fares of any Fulbrighter who wanted to evacuate 'voluntarily.' The offer was initially only extended to researchers in the affected areas, but within a day or two of this announcement it was revised to include all grantees. I made the fairly illogical (perhaps even irrational?) decision to join this crowd of 'Flyjin' despite being thousands of miles south of the potentially radioactive zone around Fukushima. I left primarily due to family pressure and anxieties over what might happen to transportation 'if things got worse,' or if a strong wind carried some sort of nuclear side effect south, or... I now regret my decision to leave Japan at the height of the crisis, but at the time I felt like I had to do something. While I was back at Harvard colleagues from my department made comments like 'What an exciting time to be in Japanese Studies!' and 'I know it''s macabre, but are you taking notes??' I had not even begun to intellectualize the situation, and I knew then that I never would. I loitered in the US feeling aimless and disoriented for all of about ten days before the Department of State reduced the overall threat level and encouraged us to return to Japan. (I flew through Osaka just-in-case.) In the months that have passed since the earthquake I have returned to the US more permanently to write my dissertation. When I departed Okinawa in May 2011 I flew through Tokyo and the only change I noticed was that my hotel''s lobby was dark and there was no hot water during the daytime. Japan scholars have recently begun referring to the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster simply as “3.11” for shorthand, and this makes me incredibly uncomfortable. I think this is because of the obvious parallels with 9.11 (at least, for Americans), and I am not sure that the two events are really comparable despite the sudden, massive death tolls and a shared experience of destruction and loss. Denoting something so massive with a lone date also memorializes it in a way that still feels premature, if inevitable. Some part of me is still waiting for the moment when I will finally feel the full psychological and emotional impact of this tragedy, but can anyone? The truth is that I was spared any direct involvement and I suppose I should just be grateful.