REPORT FROM TOHOKU (Part 1)

REPORT FROM TOHOKU (Part 1) July 10-14, 2011 For four days during the week of July 10, 2011, I traveled by car through various parts of Tohoku, mainly in eastern Miyagi Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture. It was a life-changing experience, which I’m sl...REPORT FROM TOHOKU (Part 1)July 10-14, 2011For four days during the week of July 10, 2011, I traveled by car through various parts of Tohoku, mainly in eastern Miyagi Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture. It was a life-changing experience, which I’m slowly writing up from many notes taken along the way. A Japanese friend and I drove from Sendai to Matsushima, Ishinomaki, Onagawa, Kesennuma, Rikuzen-Takada, Minami-Sanriku, Ofunato, Koishihama, Miyako, and Kamaishi – and then back to Sendai via Ichinoseki and Hiraiiizumi. This is the first of several reports I shall be writing for the Japan Society of Boston and the Japanese Disaster Relief Fund-Boston, on which I serve.TRANSITION: RESCUE TO RECONSTRUCTION -- After meeting and talking with many people at refugee centers, local town offices, centers for volunteer workers from all over Japan and all over the world, it seems pretty clear to me that we’re now at a major transition point: from the first period when simple survival and rescue were top priorities to a second period of re-construction of all sorts. In most of the places we visited, the worst of the overwhelming debris, which had been swept by the tsunami of March 11 into all coastal towns and villages, has been collected into vast mountains of garbage and debris. Roads have been cleared and traffic is passable almost everywhere. The debris is slowly being trucked away to be used as landfill in the hills in some places, or landfill for coastal land-reclamation projects. Left behind is terrible stench in most places, dense swarms of flies and other bugs, and flocks of infernal black crows that swoop in to pick over the garbage. Reconstruction is clearly underway: reconstruction of life-styles, reconstruction of homes and shops, reconstruction of industries, reconstruction of an entire economy. In some places it is moving fairly fast (though life will clearly not seem “normal” for close to a decade…); elsewhere, reconstruction is progressing with agonizing slowness. Government bureaucrats have targeted certain larger towns for high-priority reconstruction efforts, but smaller towns will have to wait for years and years to receive significant government assistance. Large-scale aid from the Japanese central government is essential and it is being delivered slowly and is making important changes. But it is often provided coldly, rigidly, and with a high-handed manner by government bureaucrats. Disaster victims, earlier the subject of intense attention by the Japanese press and international media, are now made to feel as though they are nothing more than a troublesome temporary inconvenience – a distraction from the “more important” priorities of the central government. The offensive comments last week by Minister of Reconstruction Matsumoto Ryu brought an outraged response from the people of Tohoku and resulted in his being fired after only 9 days on the job. That seems typical of the bungling policies of the government of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, and it is bringing a rising tide of resentment throughout Japan. From the cold hard faces of government bureaucrats, there come little or no official expressions of consolation and sympathy for the victims, and their reconstruction efforts are being delivered with rigid insensitivity to local realities. The several visits by the Emperor and Empress to Tohoku were totally opposite in tone; their genuine compassion was deeply appreciated, and highlighted the contrast with the cold formality of the bureaucrats.Since the funds pf the Japanese Disaster Relief Fund-Boston are limited, it may make sense for this group – in its next round of grants – to target certain smaller-scale but meaningful reconstruction projects for support. As agreed at the outset, we cannot undertake large infrastructure projects – but we can offer vital help to some of the hundreds of small projects that are helping the people of Tohoku to rebuild their lives. Often these efforts are being led by volunteer groups that are now hard at work all over Tohoku. People are leaving the refugee centers for other types of temporary housing. Some of the new housing is not bad, but the move almost always requires traumatic adjustments in life-styles or social patterns of single families and whole communities. One fundamental issue is that though some of the comforts of ordinary life are returning, there are no jobs – and unemployment is corrosive. Not being able to work in Japan is morally and socially unacceptable – and the toll this is taking on young men and women, especially the breadwinners of young families, is obvious. There have been many suicides – and experts predict a rapid increase in the the number of suicides of young and middle-aged men who are profoundly frustrated by their inability to support their families. In this area of social support, counseling, employment innovation and the like, there are initiatives where even modest JDRFB support can make a real difference.* * * * *MSNBC MINI-DOCUMENTARIES ON LIFE IN TOHOKU – In looking for information, especially visual information, about what is going on in Tohoku right now, I’ve just come upon an excellent series of short video-documentaries, made for MSNBC-News by cameraman Jim Seida. Some of them run a few minutes long (eg, how fishermen in the port town of Miyako are beginning to rebuild their industry; a tour of a refugee center in a highschool in Miyako, led by an inhabitant who used to be a tofu-maker); some are as short as 30-40 seconds (a view of a group of disabled people launching a new community center; a visit to a refugee center by a volunteer dental hygienist teaching young mothers how to brush their infants’ teeth; a jr-high-school music class in Kesennuma, where the arrival of newly donated instruments allows the all-girl Dream Dolphins Band to spring back to life). The narration on these short pieces is generally well-translated commentary by the Japanese participants themselves, giving the series a great feeling of authenticity.(More to follow soon.)