Japan

[greygirlbeast]

I've been experiencing a sort of mounting guilt over not having even mentioned the disaster in Japan since the 11th, when it began. As I said earlier, I have no friends or family or any sort of acquaintances in Japan. But I do have a friend who's girlfriend is in Tokyo, and when I spoke to her a couple of nights back, there had been no news...and I

Comments

[ext_392818]

I think it's a matter of perspective - Japan has been around for more than a few years - and frankly, it'll be around for quite a few more - one of the things that I've been working through is my anxiety over what has occurred, as in, in the broadest terms, "OhMyGod Japan got beat up by the earth, nothing will be the same!" - and that same thought carries with it all the things that Japan has offered to me, in terms of film and culture and anime and such - that sort of thing will still be around, and probably will still be - but it will be colored by this tragedy

[greygirlbeast]

Japan prevails.

For now, I would say it abides.

[stsisyphus]

And what's happened, is happening, and will happen, most of it comes down to science. Science and politics.

And if there were two more catastrophically combative disciplines, I'd have difficulty working it out. Maybe Science and Religion, but the latter has been frequently equivalent to politics anyway.

The bit that gets me is that I keep seeing these things that say, "oh, it's okay, the radiation is going out to sea harmlessly".

...Because the wind never shifts, and we don't pull holy shit fuckton of fish out of that water.

[miakodadreams]

It's been an exhausting week. My youngest brother works in Tokyo. He has a small ground-floor apartment in a suburb/city just to the north of the capital, roughly 200 miles or so from Sendai, and takes the train into town every day to teach conversational English to shopkeepers and salarymen and engineers. Many of his students have worked for TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Co.), the company that runs the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant experiencing the radiation leaks. He watches the news every day, compelled to search for the faces of the TEPCO engineers he's taught. Of course, the radiation gear obscures their faces too much, but he still can't bring himself to look away from them

[spank_an_elf]

This is going to sound awful, but I am glad you found the end of your novel before the crisis slammed into Japan.

The situation is paralyzing. It’s almost science fiction: destruction and more destruction laced with government lies and deceit.

[nokomis1339]

In the summer of 2001 I was lucky enough to be selected for an exchange student program and got to stay with a family in this tiny town called Osuka-cho (that doesn't even exist any more because it was so tiny it got broken up and all the pieces got merged into surrounding towns). It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and was one of the happiest times of my entire life. I ache for them. I want to go back and do something. Anything. But I can't, and so I watch and I hope.

~L~