All the TV Commercials Are Gone
I love Japan. For many reasons. But the biggest one right now is how all the people here are handling this disaster. If this had happened practically anywhere else, after the tidal wave there would have been looting, massive panic, people trampling over small children in a rush to get to the airport to save themselves, and angry newscasters trying to blame anyone they could find -- "More people could have been saved if so-and-so hadn't been incompetent!" "Why wasn't the government ready for a disaster like this?!" "The government is deliberately misinforming the public!!" As a matter of fact, exactly the kind of stories the overseas press are trying to make up.
But here, everyone is staying calm. Of course the people up in Sendai are shocked and horrified. But they're not blaming anyone. And they're not using it as an excuse to misbehave. It's amazing. People are going back to pick through the remains of their houses -- ONLY THEIR OWN HOUSES. If they're looking in someone else's house, it's only because that person couldn't get down there themself, and they're going to give their stuff back to them when they get back to the shelter. The shelters are running out of food, medicine, and gasoline -- but they're not angry about it. They're just calmly asking for more. The Japanese Self Defense Force AND the U.S. Military are helicoptering stuff around as fast as they can, in and around dumping boron water on the nuclear reactors and hoisting people off of the tops of buildings, and everyone understands that. The shelters all say, "We'll do the best we can in the mean time."
Everybody who wasn't affected is pretty much staying where they are, trying to conserve electricity and donate money. Sendai has declared that right now more people won't really help anything -- unless said people have specific skills, the last thing they need up there is more mouths to feed. When they get a bit more organized and start actually rebuilding, then they'll accept random volunteers. But, for now, the best thing to do is donate money -- the people who know what's going on up there can decide what to spend it on. And the people down here are listening. Pretty much every store you go to now has a collection box. I've seen ten thousand yen bills in some of them, too! (That's like a 100-dollar bill! And there are several!)
I'd thought for a few days that the streets seemed darker at night since the earthquake, and I finally realized why when I saw a handwritten sign on the door to the convenience store -- all the businesses are turning off their big outdoor billboards to save electricity. Since the nuclear reactors are all offline, the whole country is low on energy -- especially in the North, but it's all connected. The less we use, the more they have. I know these stores are sacrificing a bit of business for this -- if you don't go close enough, it looks like the store is closed. But they're doing it anyway.
But the thing that impressed me the most is the TV. It's not just that the news programs aren't being sensational, are broadcasting only confirmed facts, and are cutting out the most shocking parts of the video footage (they cut out all the parts of the tsunami videos where you could see live people getting swept up -- I found out later watching American news on YouTube.) It's the fact that all the commercials are gone.
According to Dai, commercial sponsors don't want to be insensitive -- there's nothing worse than the abrupt switch from grandmothers weeping over the crushed remains of their houses to "Are you troubled by the way your sofa smells? Now you can just spray it clean with our new patented product!" So they pulled all their commercials of their own accord. The news broadcasts on the first few days were almost completely uninterrupted and commercial-free. Even now that regular programs are starting to return (by which I mean things like the weather forecast and previously-filmed dramas), most of the commercials are still gone. The TV networks are filling up all the empty commercial spots with public service announcements about recycling, volunteering, and helping old ladies up the stairs. It's the most adorable thing I've ever seen.
A worse thing couldn't have happened to a better country. Ganbare Nippon!
But here, everyone is staying calm. Of course the people up in Sendai are shocked and horrified. But they're not blaming anyone. And they're not using it as an excuse to misbehave. It's amazing. People are going back to pick through the remains of their houses -- ONLY THEIR OWN HOUSES. If they're looking in someone else's house, it's only because that person couldn't get down there themself, and they're going to give their stuff back to them when they get back to the shelter. The shelters are running out of food, medicine, and gasoline -- but they're not angry about it. They're just calmly asking for more. The Japanese Self Defense Force AND the U.S. Military are helicoptering stuff around as fast as they can, in and around dumping boron water on the nuclear reactors and hoisting people off of the tops of buildings, and everyone understands that. The shelters all say, "We'll do the best we can in the mean time."
Everybody who wasn't affected is pretty much staying where they are, trying to conserve electricity and donate money. Sendai has declared that right now more people won't really help anything -- unless said people have specific skills, the last thing they need up there is more mouths to feed. When they get a bit more organized and start actually rebuilding, then they'll accept random volunteers. But, for now, the best thing to do is donate money -- the people who know what's going on up there can decide what to spend it on. And the people down here are listening. Pretty much every store you go to now has a collection box. I've seen ten thousand yen bills in some of them, too! (That's like a 100-dollar bill! And there are several!)
I'd thought for a few days that the streets seemed darker at night since the earthquake, and I finally realized why when I saw a handwritten sign on the door to the convenience store -- all the businesses are turning off their big outdoor billboards to save electricity. Since the nuclear reactors are all offline, the whole country is low on energy -- especially in the North, but it's all connected. The less we use, the more they have. I know these stores are sacrificing a bit of business for this -- if you don't go close enough, it looks like the store is closed. But they're doing it anyway.
But the thing that impressed me the most is the TV. It's not just that the news programs aren't being sensational, are broadcasting only confirmed facts, and are cutting out the most shocking parts of the video footage (they cut out all the parts of the tsunami videos where you could see live people getting swept up -- I found out later watching American news on YouTube.) It's the fact that all the commercials are gone.
According to Dai, commercial sponsors don't want to be insensitive -- there's nothing worse than the abrupt switch from grandmothers weeping over the crushed remains of their houses to "Are you troubled by the way your sofa smells? Now you can just spray it clean with our new patented product!" So they pulled all their commercials of their own accord. The news broadcasts on the first few days were almost completely uninterrupted and commercial-free. Even now that regular programs are starting to return (by which I mean things like the weather forecast and previously-filmed dramas), most of the commercials are still gone. The TV networks are filling up all the empty commercial spots with public service announcements about recycling, volunteering, and helping old ladies up the stairs. It's the most adorable thing I've ever seen.
A worse thing couldn't have happened to a better country. Ganbare Nippon!