A Weekend in Miyagi: Batty Bingo, Big Pumpkin, and Broken Promises

From the time of the quake, it has taken me six months to get to Tohoku as a volunteer, and nearly another month to write about the experience. I will not go into great detail as to why , except to say that not everyone is cut out to shovel sludge or clear debris for hours on end.  I have nothing but respect for those who can do the heavy manual labor that has been required in cities like Ishinomaki and Kessenuma, and even greater respect for those who have volunteered their time in Fukushima, where the risk to one’s own health is significantly greater. Though I don’t qualify as a Geezer (yet), I am prone to both “gikkuri-

Clearing gutters in Ishinomaki. Volunteering is hard and nasty work.

goshi” (throwing one’s back out) and water-on-the-knee.  Knowing that a recurrence of either would render me not only useless but a burden to any volunteer team, I’ve laid low and waited for a chance to do something in Tohoku that did not involve brute strength, and that would not conflict with my full-time teaching job here in Hadano City.  If you count fund-raising (I’m darn good at it!) , waving signs at demonstrations, blogging, and keeping the conversation going around me, I suppose I have been contributing all along, but it certainly is a strange feeling to be blogging about a place you’ve never actually been to. Mind you, this has not stopped any number of bloggers, but it was disturbing to me.  So when the opportunity came, I seized it with enthusiasm.

It was Linda who gave me the opportunity; she and her yoga group were headed to Miyagi Prefecture to put together a Halloween event for children, with the assistance of an NPO from Sendai. The storyteller, Jocelyn, had suffered a bad fall and was unable to go, so would I take her place?  Oh, would I!  Children?  Stories?  Just let me loose, I thought.  Stifling a pang of self-consciousness ( I would be the only group member not in the yoga school, looking and feeling significantly plumper than the other women), I signed on almost immediately: a commitment of two days and twenty thousand yen ( the equivalent of two hundred dollars) to cover the cost of the hotel, mini-van, and a faithful driver who would stick with us throughout the trip. There was really no reason NOT to go, and I looked forward to the weekend, choosing my costume and storytelling accessories well in advance.

On the morning of October 1st, most of us were up at four a.m., and everyone was assembled outside of Linda’s house right on schedule, by five forty-five. By six o’ clock, our mini-van had arrived and we had loaded up and were on the road, the van packed to the gills with candy, presents, games to be assembled at the event, costumes, and our overnight bags. It was approximately a six-hour drive, with two rest stops, and there was no dozing. We were eight women, wide awake and excited to be starting an adventure, and one silent but capable Ojisan (i.e. regular middle-aged guy) driver.  We were, in fact, so loquacious that the driver remarked in Japanese, “Man, it’s quite an experience to drive a van full of women. Whenever I drive a group of men, they’re asleep within minutes. The only time they talk is when someone’s cell phone rings; then they put on their so-called working face and talk to their boss or colleagues back at the company.  You ladies are powerful!”  We were pleased by that assessment at the time, but still unaware of how far the limits of our “power” would be tested in the next few days.

After the second rest stop, we approached Fukushima Prefecture, and continued smoothly along the highway into Miyagi. Of course, I had heard of the natural beauty of Northern Japan, but still it was an unexpected pleasure to find that it wasn’t just an advertising campaign; the mountains were gorgeous, the sky was a clear, piercing blue, and all along

Miyagi Prefecture: Mt. Zao on a sunny day.

the roads, rice stalks were tied neatly into triangular bundles. The National Park where our event would be held was near Mt. Zao, an area famous for both skiing and hot springs….and traditional wooden Japanese dolls called “Kokeshi”, as we surmised when we passed over a  bridge guarded by four large doll statues.  This was the countryside, with not a single high rise or shopping plaza in sight. As we were inland, there was no tsunami damage, and no visible damage from the quake. Was the lush greenery hiding radioactive particles??  There was no knowing , but daikon radishes were being sold at road stands for as little as ten yen apiece (ten cents!)….a bumper crop, or was no-one buying the produce?  I was not about to ask.

Arriving at the park around noontime, the parking lot was only half-full. The NPO had promised to arrange for a bus to drive a group of children from Minami-Soma City in Fukushima to the park to enjoy our program (Halloween games, stories, and presents donated from an organization in Lithuania); the idea was to give children close to the evacuation area a chance to experience the festivities of another culture in a beautiful natural setting. Many Minami-Soma children have not been outside for extended periods of time since March, and this was to be a one-day excursion for their benefit. We unloaded the van, met up with the director from the NPO, and learned that in fact the busload of children would not be coming. We did not fully understand why, but (being powerful women, and cool-headed as well) decided to roll with the punches. It was understood that we would go ahead and do our program anyway, as the park would be full of other families.

“This first day will be our practice before the big event,” we told each other (the next day,

A riot of Cosmos blooming in front of the Visitor’s Center

more children were expected to be bussed in from Sendai–a couple hundred, we were informed), and cheerily began to set up. The park was a thing of beauty, with acres of lush green grass, shady wooded areas, well-groomed flower beds, and several well-cared-for traditional Japanese houses, complete with thatched roofs and verandas opening out into small garden spaces (this type of house design, I learned, is called an “Engawa”). All of us could have easily spent the rest of the day there soaking up the scenery and peeking into the houses, but our event was due to start within an hour.

Not knowing exactly what to expect or how many children would actually show up, we began choosing our spots and setting up for….Batty Bingo (Linda’s catchy name for Halloween Twister), Hunt the Pumpkin (orange ping-pong balls with intricately drawn Jack-O-Lantern faces, scattered about the wooded area for children to find and gather), Ghost Bowling,  a Trick or Treat corner, and my Storytelling.  From this point on, things became seriously busy, and I cannot report on what actually happened where, as I was immersed my own preparations, with barely enough time to throw on my many-pocketed Halloween

Here’s where I set up my story corner….

storyteller’s dress and clip on my fake orange braids. The lovely traditional house where I had hoped to do my storytelling was unavailable (again, no explanation), so I ended up on a bench in the woods, with a small leafy patch of ground for my audience to sit. The first group of children arrived (fresh from playing Batty Bingo), and plopped themselves down on the leaves in front of me; neither they nor I  knew what to expect, but I started right in, hoping for inspiration.

And really, children are children. If you can make eye contact and hold them in the spell of your words and smile, it does not matter where they are sitting, whether they know you or not, how old they are, or where they’re from. I used a book called “Big Pumpkin”, but only nominally, holding it up to show the hysterically funny illustrations while I improvised the story, mixing English and Japanese. Once the children began participating in the story, I began enjoying myself as well, egging them on with questions (“Who do you think is stronger: the Mummy, or the Vampire?” “What would you do next?”) and letting the plot line stray a bit. And so our two hours flew by, with group after group of small children running back and forth between the events, and an air of happy pandemonium. Occasionally, there was time in between groups to chat with parents and find out where

Not too old to enjoy dressing up. What a sweetie!

they had come from. The girl in this photo was from Ishinomaki; she was sweet, gentle, and uninhibited, sitting  with the smaller children to hear the story and eager to have her picture taken holding our Jack-O-Lantern.  A tsunami victim?  Possibly so, especially since she was with her grandmother rather than her parents; it was not our place to ask, however, and we did not.

By the end of the day, our group was exhausted (at least I was). Our faithful driver appeared at the appointed time to drive us to our Pension, and we sat back in the min-van to relax after a looong day. To my consternation, we did not seem to arrive at a Pension, but kept going farther and farther into the deep woods, up and up a twisting road ( Mt. Zao itself?) that was devoid of human habitation. Not to mention it was pitch dark. The driver cheerfully admitted that the Pension was “off the GPS” and he had no actual idea of where we were. If anyone else was troubled by this they did not say so, and I sputtered and fussed to Linda to calm my own tired nerves.

We did arrive at the Pension, of course, though it was–by anyone’s standards–way off the beaten track.  And dinner was abundant, and the company delightful!  We all indulged in something alcoholic as a reward for our day’s work, and I was particularly taken with the local wine. Forgetting my exhaustion, I downed a glass or two (did not guzzle, of course), and attacked my deep-fried river trout with gusto. Our mini-van driver, enjoying a tall bottle of beer, suddenly became talkative and animated, launching into a diatribe against–oh, dear–Americans.  Since he was directing his verbal tirade at me, I listened politely (matter of habit), not letting on that after the second glass of wine I had only a very general idea of what he was actually talking about. It must have been quite unpleasant, since several of the women in the group approached me afterwards with great concern, but truly, I was oblivious. I have a talent for letting the rudeness of strangers roll off my back, and this, combined with a pleasant inebriation, stood me in good stead that night.

Dinner was followed by a brief plunge into the Japanese bath–a true hot-spring-fed “ofuro”–which turned out to be hellishly hot!  Keiko-san, who took the plunge before me, was out in a flash, exclaiming, “I’m a boiled egg!”  Then into my blue flannel nightgown (Linda was surprised by this, but what can I say? I’m from New England), on with my eye mask, and I was out like a light till six a.m. the next morning.

The next day was…..phrasing things as gently as possible….not what we expected. This was the day that up to two hundred children were to be bussed into the park for our event. We had been told that not only was the park staff expecting us, but that we would have an entire large area to set up in and utilize for the day. Upon our arrival, we were again told that the children from the disaster area would not be coming. Not a single bus. Again, there was no explanation from the NPO director, who looked stressed- out herself and was not extremely communicative. Worse yet, upon entering the park, we were blasted off our feet

These two sisters stole my heart.

by loudspeakers playing cheery children’s songs at top volume. And what was this?  A giant stage set up in the middle of the park? And giant characters running about in costumes? Police cars and fire trucks parked on the lawn with “Dress-Like-a-Police Officer” photo ops for kids?  And no space set aside for our activities?  We were told that we could have “whatever space we could find”, and immediately broke up into groups to search for appropriate areas, preferably far and away from the giant costumed characters, with whom it would be difficult to compete.

The music was deafening, with speakers set up all along the central area of the park. I began setting up for storytelling (this day, I was able to use the porch of one of the old houses), but knew instinctively that any efforts to be heard over the aggressively-cheery music would be futile. In my pro-active American fashion, I went straight to the visitors center and pleaded my case in Japanese with an important-looking lady from the park. This had the opposite effect of upsetting the NPO woman (I should have made my case to her instead, it seemed) , who scolded me for “not having requested a perfectly quiet spot in the first place”.  The injustice of THAT remark caused me to bite my lip (when I wanted to howl) and say, “We don’t need PERFECT quiet. We need a REASONABLY quiet setting.” I returned to my area in a state of disgust, but–to my relief–the music was turned off in a matter of minutes, so I forced myself to simmer down and get mentally ready for the first group of Tohoku tots.  I could see them across the way, going back and forth between the Batty Bingo and the large costumed characters (I am truly sorry I do not have a photo of the characters, but I did not have that kind of free time), and knew they’d be headed my way soon.

The children at the park were excellent listeners…no troublemakers or smart-alecks in the lot.

And in a matter of minutes, they began streaming in: kids of all ages. Babies in strollers, whole families with grandparents in tow, toothless toddlers grinning up at me, and shy older kids sitting off in the back. They were excellent listeners, with no ill-mannered interruptions, rude comments, or pushing and jostling for space. Their parents took the time to speak with me afterwards, and I made a point of asking, “Where did you come from today?” The answers were varied, but all were from Tohoku. Yamagata, Aomori, Ibaragi, and Fukushima Prefectures were represented, as well as a family from the town of Natori (in Miyagi), which was devastated by the tsunami. I was taken off guard by the woman from Natori, seeing in my mind images of the monstrous wave rolling over the highway, but before I could say a word, my partner Keiko-san quietly responded, “Otsukaresama deshita”.  This can mean anything from the literal, “You must be tired” to a deeper meaning of,  ”You must have endured a very hard thing.”  I now know what to say to someone who has suffered a great loss, and I was glad to have Keiko-san  there to teach me by her example. After our own events were officially finished (we kept going through the afternoon), I strolled through the park, taking photos of some of the kids who I’d met at my story corner. They were happy to see me again, posed for pictures, and ran off again to join their parents.

And that was it. We packed up our things again, stuffed ourselves into the mini-van (it was easier this time, as we returned home minus several large bags of candy, and several boxes of coloring books and crayons), and started the long drive home to Hadano. Of course, the

These smiles made the trip worthwhile.

minute we were on the road, we had a “hansei-kai” or “summing-up” of the weekend. It was not what we had expected. We had not been met with graciousness and appreciation (except by the children themselves and their parents). There had been broken promises and poor communication. We had to ask ourselves if the trip had been worth the trouble and expense.  And of course, we agreed that it had. We had put together a fabulous event (it really was well-organized, with crafty and eye-catching hand-made games, energetic and experienced women running the show, and lovely prizes for the kids to take home), adapted to constantly-changing circumstances and setbacks, and fulfilled our end of the bargain with the NPO. While it was frustrating to not know why the promised busloads of children from the hardest-hit areas never arrived,  we accepted that the situation was out of our control, and knocked ourselves out providing a good time for the children that happened to be in the park that day.

I’m sure that there were a number of disaster victims among the people we met, but we’ll never know any more than that. That had to be okay, and it really was.  As one of the leaders, Setsuko-san, said, things in Tohoku are not running as smoothly as they are in Tokyo.  Our NPO was a small organization, and literally unable to keep its promises ( one of the directors, another woman mentioned, is himself a disaster victim, and suffers from insomnia and recurring nightmares); this was deeply disappointing, and I will always wonder what the story-behind-the-story really was, but we carried on and found ourselves energized and engaged by the children who WERE there. In the end, they were Tohoku children.  While they may not have lost homes or family members (though some assuredly did), they all lived through the quake. And  if that quake was a terrifying thing for children hours away in Kanagawa Prefecture, I can well imagine what it was like for children farther North.  I’m glad I was able to give them a story that made them laugh out loud and clamber to touch my Beanie Baby dolls (I brought the Witch, the Ghost, and the Black Cat).  Some children will soon forget, but others will retain happy memories of the crazy ladies dressed in witch costumes handing out coloring books and Hershey’s chocolates, and that’s enough for me. We counted over two hundred kids that experienced a mini-Halloween in the middle of Tohoku on a sunny weekend in October, and eight very powerful women who came away from the experience exhausted, but satisfied.

The Riverside Yoga members…and me. Awesome women, all.

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Wisdom from my Grandmother: Pick up That Mess!

Wherever you live in Japan, everyone agrees:  there’s plenty to be angry about, and plenty to be

Fukushima children lined up for thyroid checks on October 10th (Mainichi Shinbun)

anxious about. Plenty of reasons to feel (at best) confused, and (at worst) betrayed. The past two weeks have flown by, featuring news stories such as FUKUSHIMA BEGINS CHILD THYROID CHECKS ,  STRONTIUM FOUND IN YOKOHAMA ,   CESIUM FOUND IN TOKYO ,  MINAMI-SANRIKU IN DANGER OF FISCAL COLLAPSE (NHK evening news), and RADIOACTIVE CLEANUP TO BE COVERED BY STATE . Each of these stories touched nerves, fanned anxiety, and evoked a mixture of sympathy and frustration in readers of morning papers and watchers of nightly news programs.  Bloggers report and opine, and comments fly fast and furious at the bottom of blog entries. There are those, of course, who don’t read the papers and adhere to strictly- entertainment TV….but even so, the news seeps in.  There’s really no avoiding it. Personally, I welcome it: compared to the vague reports following the March 11th disaster, there is now a wealth of information flowing from both home and abroad, translated into multiple languages, and folks are able to see the situation more objectively from a variety of different points of view.

Inevitably, among the constant barrage of stories and statistics, a single story will leap into my consciousness and stay with me all week, begging to be written about. I generally torment my co-workers and family for the next few days, demanding to know what they think about it, and if they think nothing at all, WHY? Then on the weekend, I’ll attempt to gather my thoughts together and make sense of it here.  This week’s troubling article was from Wednesday’s International Herald Tribune, a compilation of NY Times articles for overseas readers.

In “Japan looks overseas for future of its nuclear trade “,  Hiroko Tabuchi writes about Japan’s plans to continue selling nuclear power technology to developing countries, namely Vietnam and Turkey. “The effort is being made,” she writes, “despite criticism within Japan by environmental groups and opposition politicians. ” But here’s the paragraph that caused myself, and my friend Kimiko, to groan aloud: “It may seem a stretch for Japan to acclaim its nuclear technology overseas while struggling at home to contain the nuclear meltdowns that displaced more than 100,000 people. But Japan argues that its latest technology includes safeguards not present at the decades-old reactors at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant, which continues to leak radiation….Japanese officials argue, their nation has learned valuable lessons and has a good nuclear track record for withstanding earlier earthquakes.”

My father-in-law would scoff at the flawed logic of pompous politicians.

Oh, well,  I’ll love to turn the ghost of my dead grandmother, along with my still-living father-in-law, loose in the Japanese Parliament to hear them shoot THAT statement down. “Pick up one mess before you start another!” my grandmother would say, and shame them with her look of moral indignation.  ”It’s no use saying you’ve learned a lesson,” my father-in-law would say in disgust. “You have to prove it with action.” He would snort dismissively at pompous lawmakers, reducing them to babbling fools…..but that’s in my dreams. The reality is that it’s not just the central government involved here. Tabuchi’s article reveals that Japan’s top three companies-Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Toshiba, are all involved in some aspect of nuclear engineering, and are “more eager than ever to look overseas.” Well, simply put, that represents the husbands of some of my co-workers (Hitachi is one of the biggest employers in Hadano), and many other friends as well.  If you count guilt by association. Which I hate to do. In any case, I broached the subject with a friend whose husband works for the Hadano branch of Hitachi.

“Of course we know that Hitachi is involved,” she said. “Everyone does. But what can we do

Hitachi doesn’t just mean wide-screen TVs….

about it?”  Well, EVERYONE didn’t know, because I was still thinking of Hitachi in terms of vacuum cleaners and wide-screen TVs. What a mess. To what degree are ordinary citizens implicated in the corruption of the nuclear industry?  Should Hitachi employees quit their jobs, trade their briefcases for surfboards, and throw their retirement benefits to the wind? One former high-ranking TEPCO employee has done just that (see the video if you’re interested) , but that guy is definitely an exception.  I love my friends. Their husbands are great fathers, great spouses, and hard workers.  They’re not the real bad guys.  Just like the city officials who agreed to host nuclear power plants decades ago are not the real bad guys. Nor are the workers at the power plants, the majority of whom have been assigned their jobs by temporary employment agencies.  And yet, as Haruki Murakami said in his Barcelona speech, if we have remained silent in the face of corruption, we are implicated. It’s not a pretty picture.

In Tabuchi’s article, opposition party lawmaker Itsunori Onodera is quoted as asking, “Why is Japan trying to export something it rejected at home?” Well, obviously because the commitment to nuclear power has not been clearly rejected at home. It’s being “considered”, and that is quite a different thing.  Former Prime Minister Kan stubbornly attempted to commit the nation to a fast-track renewable-energy program, and was widely rebuffed for his hastiness.  Citizens interviewed on TV admit to having doubts about the safety of nuclear power plants, but think they are still a necessary part of the immediate future. Currently only one out of five of Japan’s  nuclear plants is still in service, due to safety checks and damage repairs since the quake; these reactors are technically “in limbo” rather than “out of service”.  The possibility/probability of their re-starting has not been rejected by the current government (they change so quickly), which now announces its intention to export its new and improved technology, complete with “lessons learned.”

With full de-comissioning of the  Daiichi damaged reactors still , according to anyone’s accounts, decades down the road, I would like to know what lessons have been learned. At the end of the summer, I read an article in the Mainichi Shinbun about the complications and costs of de-commissioning, and came away both humbled and appalled. Here’s what I learned:  In simple terms, the process involves cleaning (removing spent fuel rods and decontaminating pipes and containers), waiting (for the level of radiation to go down with time), and dismantling (the final stage, where the facility itself is taken down, and the site reverted to

Cheery-looking entrance to the no-longer-active Tokai Nuclear Power Plant

a vacant lot). Worldwide, only 15 nuclear power plants have actually been de-commissioned.  Japan has only had experience with de-comissioning one, and has not finished the process. That one is the Tokai Power Plant in Ibaragi, where the process of removing spent fuel began in 1998.  Dismantling of the facilities began in 2001, and workers have not yet begun to take apart the reactor itself. Projected cost upon completion?  88.5 billion yen.  Manpower involved?  563,000 people.  The next plant to be de-commissioned will likely be Hamaoka, the aging and controversial plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.  Experts from Hitachi predict the process will take thirty years to complete.

The point is that both Tokai and Hamaoka are “normal” de-comissioning projects, whereas Fukushima is anything but normal. Experts are divided on how long the process will take, how much it will cost, what measures will be most effective, and even whether or not the spent fuel rods can be removed at all. If they can, re-processing will be complicated, and storage sites will be equally problematic.  According to the three step de-comissioning process, work has barely begun, as TEPCO cannot begin to think of removing spent fuel while contaminated water must be constantly cooled and treated, and radiation levels are are so dangerously high that workers are only allowed to work short shifts in rotation. Meiji University expert in reactor engineering and policy Tadahiro Katsuta predicts, “…at least ten years just to determine whether it is possible to remove the fuel,” and a possible fifty years before the de-comissioning is complete. Best to not even attempt full de-comissioning.  Instead, entomb the entire site in concrete, he advises, and others in the field agree. Experts abroad  (as well as those at home, namely Kyoto University Professor Koide ) continue to ask, “Where is the corium?”,  fearing that the core of the reactor (a mixture of melted fuel and other elements) has breached the floor of the containment vessel and is sinking steadily toward the level of the water table, with possible deadly consequences.

As the Mainichi Shinbun article proclaimed, “…what we face is a great unknown to all of

The Fukushima Daiichi clean-up will be measured in decades, not years.

mankind”, and until the Fukushima Daiichi plant has been safely dismantled (or safely entombed) , the lessons have not yet been learned. Even then, environmental research must be continued to learn how the surroundings have changed (they can never return to what they once were) and adapted as a result of widespread contamination.  Of course, the thyroid checks of Fukushima’s children are just part of the medical and sociological research that must continue for decades as well.  It’s incredible to me that the former Prime Minister was condemned for “hastiness” in ordering the shutdown of the Hamaoka plant and in pushing his renewable energy program, while the current government is literally jumping at the chance to re-start negotiations for building new reactors abroad when their own very public disaster is still in a dangerously volatile state. “You haven’t cleaned up your mess!” says my Grandmother, glowering, “and here you go starting a new one!”  ”Don’t TELL me you’ve learned a lesson,” frowns my father-in-law. “Show me the proof!” As for me, I mourn for the terrible waste of time and resources involved–time that could be spend in invention and creation, rather than tearing down and decontaminating. How on earth did we manage to become dependent on technology so deadly that it takes nearly half a lifetime to render it harmless after it’s shut down?

Yet because Japan has not clearly rejected nuclear technology, there is actually very little contradiction in its determination to export.  As long as the great majority of citizens remain uncommitted or silent, the government will move ahead with its own agenda. This is the burning question that I think about all the time now: Will enough ordinary citizens finally break their silence and take charge of their own future? It’s hard to know at this point.

Roger Pulvers thinks a volcano of anger could erupt….

It is a hopeful sign that many Japanese young people formally described as “..meek, mild and manageable”  have found  ” ..a renewed awareness in themselves and a belief that they should be doing something to redress the pain and ills their country is experiencing.” (Japan Times, Roger Pulvers, Oct. 8).  Pulvers, an author, playwright, theatre director and professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology believes that the country is ready for an eruption of major proportions.  ”Conditions are Ripe for the Volcano of Japan’s Betrayed to Erupt Again” read the heading of his article, which traces a bit of the history of discontent and protest in Japan. Pulvers compares the current state of Japan to a volcano, appearing “..smooth, peaceful, uneventful and unchanging on the surface, while underneath growls the rough heat of anger…..The Japanese people may be placid and obsessed with decorum on the surface, but the cycle of generational change and the build-up of national anger-especially in those sections of society that feel betrayed-is never something to be taken lightly.”  He sees hope in the nation’s young people, who are skilled in social networking and bursting with potential energy.

It’s certainly long past time for college-age students in Japan to begin thinking independently and taking risks. I sent my own son back to the US for college (not that he wasn’t champing at the bit to be gone himself) precisely because I did not want him to living at home in his twenties and spending his part-time job money on electronic toys,

Handbag ad showing sweet and well-accesorized Japanese college girls.

cigarettes, or beer. I know that not all Japanese students do this when they hit the age of twenty, but plenty do.  I will send my daughter abroad as well, as she will be happier wearing jeans and t-shirts to school every day, rather than doing “oshare” with make-up and accessories, as Japanese college girls do. I want them both to live independently, make their own decisions, and bail themselves out of tricky situations rather than calling home.  Japanese college students might risk missing the last train home if they drink too much and forget the time, but otherwise they have fairly cushy lives, requiring very little in the way of sacrifice. This is because ( their parents will tell you)  they suffered terribly in high school studying day and night, and are now taking the reward they deserve. Whatever–it’s not the life I wanted for my own children, and I’m relieved that they made no fuss about studying abroad after living in small-town Japan since their Nursery School days.

Hopefully, Professor Pulvers is right, and the self-absorbtion and limited world view of the college-age students I see around me is morphing into something better and stronger.  It has been refreshing to read the blogs of college students who have volunteered in Tohoku since the quake; many of them have been deeply affected by the people they came in contact with and have returned again and again to continue helping. Most refreshing, of course, and most impressive, has been coming in contact with the hunger strikers–the four young people (plus one who joined halfway through) who camped outside of the METI offices in Kasumigaski for ten days, taking nothing but water and salt. They weren’t concerned with their dress or appearance, or worried that this time away from college might affect their future careers. They were angry, yes, but their anger was under control, and constructively channelled.  My daughter and I took a day to visit them, and I still marvel at their maturity, communication skills, and powers of determination. So I’ll end tonight’s post with a very well-made video clip of the four young people who represent hope for the country. Do take a look, and imagine things from their perspective. They do not want their generation involved in cleaning up a mess it did not make, but they will have no choice. The most they can do is attempt to make that burden lighter for their own children by fighting to bring the era of dependence on nuclear power to a close.

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Replace that Roof? Or try the Mysterious Blue Gel……

The sign on the building says it’s a church.  It’s a Baptist Church, actually, in Fukushima. The assembled group of Japanese and Americans are (according to the caption on the website), “standing safely on the porch of their newly decontaminated school”. The church serves as a Nursery School for a group of small children who spent five months inside after the March 11th disaster. Well!  Here are the kids, standing outside (looking both solemn and a bit bewildered ) , with the adults behind them looking downright exuberant. Did some sort of miracle occur here?  I found this photo accidentally while doing a Google search for photos of decontamination efforts in Fukushima, and my curiosity was immediately piqued. Of course, that happens repeatedly during the course of a single day, and many detours, in fact, lead to nothing of significance. Having followed the detour (gotten off the known entity of the paved road and onto that dirt road leading to…?) , I’m usually left with mixed feelings of satisfaction (“Well, now at least I know where THAT road goes. “) and regret (” Oi, oi, but what a waste of time!”)  This time, however, I dug right in, feeling certain that I wouldn’t regret the extra twenty minutes. And I didn’t. The website on which the photo was posted described a project initiated by a company in Honolulu, Hawaii to introduce their relatively new (proven and tested in the last two years) miracle product to the radiation-ridden communities of Fukushima City.  Company representatives travelled to Japan this past summer and volunteered their time in “de-contaminating” the church/ nursery school,  donating both their manpower and large amounts of their product (called “DeconGel”) at an estimated value of $250,000.

I’ll get back to that story in more detail, I promise. But first, let me explain exactly why I was trawling through photos of decontamination efforts in Fukushima.  It began with an excellent article from the Economist, entitled “Hot Spots and Blind Spots” (October 8th). The article described the predicament of Iitate Village, located 45 kilometers Northwest of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant; technically outside of the 30 kilometer evacuation zone, the village was showered with cesium when the wind blew to the West after the hydrogen explosions, carrying radioactive particles farther than anyone had anticipated. Although the central government  recognized the area as a “hot spot”,  villagers were not

Iitate Village resident listens to the mayor explaining the evacuation plan. (AP/Kyodo)

immediately urged to evacuate. Months passed before the village was finally determined unsafe and it’s nearly all of its 6,ooo residents evacuated.  I remember watching several NHK news reports focusing on the villagers and their emotional struggle to accept the loss of not just their homes and farms, but of their community and the traditions that had kept it alive and given it meaning for generations. The Iitate villagers had no choice but to scatter, taking refuge with friends or family in nearby prefectures, or taking temporary refuge in evacuation shelters.

The story continues: as of September 30th, the central government has lifted its advisory warning for towns between  20 to 30 kilometer distance from the Fukushima plant, and a decontamination plan has been announced , to cover 2,419 square kilos of soil (an area larger than greater Tokyo).  Iitate village is also scheduled for decontamination, and efforts have begun to cleanse the land in anticipation of its inhabitants’ return. This was reported on the nightly news as positive proof of the progress being made in Tohoku and reduction of the level of radioactivity in general.  Decontamination measures are now in full swing, and including the removal of cesium-laden dead leaves

Fukushima City: decontamination by pressure hosing…..does it create still more problems?

from forests and cesium-laden sludge from drainpipes and gutters, the removal of the first 5 centimeters of topsoil from playgrounds and farmland, and “pressure-hosing” of houses in urban areas. This top-to-bottom hosing of houses is being taught in do-it-yourself workshops, and pressure hoses are flying off the shelves in Fukushima.  All good? Well, listen to what Kunihiro Yamada, Professor of Environmental Science at Kyoto Seika University has to say on the subject. “The water cleaners” he states, “wash surface dirt off but then that tainted water goes into sewers and can contaminate rivers, thereby affecting farm goods and seafood.  If people in highly populated areas were to begin using water cleaners, we may end up finding people forcing tainted water onto each other. ” Well, yes, that does seem to be the logical conclusion, and it’s a wonder that we need a PhD to tell us what public officials should have foreseen in the first place. Well, what about scraping off the top layer of soil then?  This has so far proved to be the most effective method in reducing the amount of cesium; unfortunately (and again, quite logically), winds blowing dead leaves from the wooded mountains of Iitate deposit their offerings squarely atop the newest layer of clean soil, thus re-contaminating the land, and undoing any previous work.  Is the only answer, then, to cut down entire forests?

You live in Japan? Better check where your shrooms were grown.

Heaven forbid.  Yet the forests in Fukushima are deadly repositories of radioactive cesium, from leaves clinging to the branches to the shiitake mushrooms, thriving and unharvested, which attach themselves to wet fallen tree limbs.

Still, the council chief of Iitate, Chohei Sato, hopes that families with young children will return to the village, declaring, “The revival of this town depends on the children returning.” As of this month, however, many families are choosing not to return to the former evacuation zone areas; as a mother, I certainly would not. Even the Economist correspondent, reporting from Iitae, admitted to feeling, “….strangely reluctant to inhale.”

Yesterday’s Mainichi Shinbun also featured an article that sparked my interest and explained the complications involved with decontamination in laymen’s terms. Entitled “True Radiation Contamination Still a Long Way Away”,  the article contained an interview with Professor Yamauchi, a radiation metrology specialist from Kobe University, who describes radioactive cesium as existing in three states: dissolved in water, loosely bonded to organic materials such as moss and leaves, and tightly bonded to rock ( think: roads, gutters, cobblestones….or roof tiles).  According to Yamauchi, cesium bonds so tightly to substances like roof tiles that power hosing has only a very limited effect in reducing the level of radiation of the house (and only serves to transfer those particles that are washed away into the water itself).  ”To bring the roof’s radiation levels down,” he postulates, “there’s probably no other way than to replace the roof.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

An unauthorized landfill site in Fukushima City.

  Now waaaaait a minute! Hold everything!                                        Here’s where my head started to spin, envisioning full-to-bursting bags of roof tiles, joining the bags of radioactive grass clippings, moss, soil, leaves…..and don’t forget the radioactive sludge!  And don’t forget the radioactive water, still building up in the tanks of the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, as well as in enormous “Mega-Floats” positioned ominously along the coastline (As a sidelight, a Japanese news station today released a short video of Fukushima workers spraying large amounts of that radioactive water from reactor tanks into nearby shrubbery, in an effort to prevent possible overflow from the tanks of reactors 5 and 6. TEPCO spokesmen stated the water was “not significantly contaminated”, and would affect no damage on the surrounding environment. But that’s another post in itself). Is it any wonder that Nobel Prize winning author Kenzaburo Oe compared the current situation of Japan to a science fiction story in his recent speech at the Sayonara Genpatsu demonstation rally in Tokyo? There must be a light shining somewhere in all this murky mess (I thought, as I trolled the internet, looking for photos of power hosing and such)……and then I stumbled onto the photo of the happy gang in front of the Baptist Church.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           The

Check out the miracle sticker-gel!

company from Honolulu is called CBI Polymers. They use polymer-based decontamination technology to deal with radiological, nuclear, and chemical threats. Now there’s a career your great-grandmother never could have imagined. Their product, DeconGel, is promoted as “green”, being water-soluble with a neutral PH level. It looks like blue slime. As I understood from the article accompanying the photo, DeconGel acts as a giant peelable sticker. Brushed on with a squeegie-like implement (that part looks fun), it dries solid, trapping radioactive particles as it hardens. Finally, peel the whole thing off (that looks like fun, too) and you’ve got a radioactive sticker to dispose of. Much more compact than a bag of roof tiles, I’d say. The company promises that nearly 100 percent of the radiation can be removed with this gel, and the Fukushima Nursery School geiger counter readings proved that. The headmistress, overjoyed, immediately let the children out onto the newly-cleaned playground for the first time since the quake, and a short video (you can see it on the above link) shows them frolicking about outside in their adorable school uniforms. You also get to see this awesome gel being applied, which is more interesting than you’d imagine. Oh, and as a final note, the Hawaiian-based company who invented the gel won an award from the US government this past summer for their work in Fukushima, and in Hungary as well. 

In the end, peelable stickers will not solve the whole problem. Think of the estimated cost of just that one project, and imagine the hundreds of other Nursery Schools in need of decontamination. And then wind will blow, water will flow, and previously decontaminated areas will be re-contaminated. But something like these stickers may in fact be a practical solution for the moment. When the Mainichi Shinbun article mentioned that Professor Yamada ( he who scoffed at the effectiveness of power hosing ) and his project team are currently working to develop “cloth-like adhesive stickers to affix to roofs”, I thought, “That’s been done! Get the guys from Honolulu back!  Or else hurry up and figure this out for yourselves!”  At least they’re on the right track.

Prof. Kodama: a hero who gets his hands dirty, too.

 In any case, what is painfully evident from the latest attempts at decontamination is that the efforts are too little, too late, and too short-sighted. Tokyo University  Radio Isotope Center’s  Professor Tatsuhiko Kodama (hero of the anti-nuclear movement since making an impassioned speech to the House of Representatives this summer ) has been doing weekend stints in the Fukushima town of Minami -Soma, teaching parents and local officials how to decontaminate homes and nursery schools. He recently stated to the Japan National Press Club, “The decontamination I’ve done is a type of emergency measure to protect children and pregnant women, and not true decontamination….Permanent decontamination requires the knowledge and technology of experts and corporations, and a massive amount of funds. It must not become an interest-driven public project.” In other words, do-it-yourself power hosing will not change much in the long run, and could lead to a false sense of security-just as dangerous as the invisible radiation particles themselves.  Your average Japanese citizen is not only skilled in scrubbing and scraping, but (I believe) takes some sort of moral satisfaction from the process. This time, however, citizens cannot  scrub away the damage that’s been done.  Japan must invest money, and work round the clock to discover new and creative solutions to the puzzle/nightmare of nuclear contamination.

Let me end with words from Professor Kodama’s book, entitled  The Truth about Internal Exposure: “We have contaminated our country’s earth, this irreplaceable inheritance from our ancestors that we had been charged with and must pass on to our children. However, if humans are the ones who contaminated it, then we humans should be able to clean it up again. ” I would not call Kodama Senseii pessimistic, yet his hope is tempered with a dose of reality. We “should be able” to clean it up (rather than “will be able”) leaves room for hope, but is still plenty sobering. That’s about as accurate an assessment as you’ll find these days. Good night, all.  If you’ve learned something from this post, please pass it on, and I thank you for doing so.                                                               

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