The death of trust
Last yearfs triple disaster\earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown\has shattered Japanese faith in many of the countryfs institutions
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ON MARCH 11th, the first anniversary of the day that turned her world upside down, 13-year-old Wakana Yokoyama will be performing a rice-planting dance for her fellow villagers. It will be a happy occasion, because she will be with old school friends she rarely sees any more. But it will be tinged with sadness, too; because although there are still villagers, there is no longer a village.
On that bitterly cold day a year ago Ukedo (pictured above) took the full force of the tsunami. It killed about 180 of the villagefs 1,800 residents, including two of Wakanafs grandparents. Some might have been saved, but when the first of three reactor buildings at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant blew up, the authoritiesf focus shifted to evacuating the living rather than searching for survivors. Wakana, her family and thousands of others were ordered to drive to evacuation shelters which, although farther away, were directly in the path of the plantfs plume of radioactivity.
Wakana now lives in Koriyama, a city 60km west of Fukushima Dai-ichi. She attends a new school without any of her old classmates, and may go outside for only three hours a day because of lingering radiation. As time slips by, it is harder to stay in touch with others from Ukedo, where she grew up breathing the salt smell of the Pacific coast. But her eyes light up as she talks about the folk dances she performs, which are hundreds of years old. Keeping alive the traditions of a village she may never live in again is a strange responsibility for a child, but it is one she understands.
The more edifying part of the story of Japanfs response to the disasters of 3/11, as it is known, is one of individual burdens borne, of traditions reinvigorated and of communal self-reliance. It is not the whole story. A whopping 14.3 trillion Yen ($175 billion) has been approved in four extra central-government budgets for recovery from a disaster that killed more than 19,000 people and made about 325,000 homeless. The governmentfs Reconstruction Agency, which co-ordinates the way ministries spend money for rebuilding towns and villages, did not open its doors until February 10th, 11 months after the disaster.
So those dislodged from their homes have been thrown back on their own resources. Their response is part of what Hakuhodo, one of Japanfs two foremost advertising agencies, dubs gOperation Meh: a growing embrace of autonomy in a country that has traditionally operated through a subtle form of groupthink, with challenges to authority well hidden.
Thanks in large part to the spirit of self-help, a lot of the more obvious damage was cleared up quickly. Immediately after March 11th the tsunami-hit coastline looked like a Dali painting, strewn with the skeletons of buildings, crumpled vehicles and overturned ships; now there are neat roads and traffic lights. But the sunken roads are still liable to flood, and there are almost no houses or shops. The sheer expanse of the emptiness is shocking.
Operation Us
The public cannot fail to notice the contrast between official sluggishness and the emboldened efforts of people doing things for each other.
Read the rest at the jump:
http://www.economist.com/node/21549917
Last yearfs triple disaster\earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown\has shattered Japanese faith in many of the countryfs institutions
[image]
![[image]](http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/images/vbimghost/20194f5d5379c57b8.jpg){kind=link}
ON MARCH 11th, the first anniversary of the day that turned her world upside down, 13-year-old Wakana Yokoyama will be performing a rice-planting dance for her fellow villagers. It will be a happy occasion, because she will be with old school friends she rarely sees any more. But it will be tinged with sadness, too; because although there are still villagers, there is no longer a village.
On that bitterly cold day a year ago Ukedo (pictured above) took the full force of the tsunami. It killed about 180 of the villagefs 1,800 residents, including two of Wakanafs grandparents. Some might have been saved, but when the first of three reactor buildings at the nearby Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant blew up, the authoritiesf focus shifted to evacuating the living rather than searching for survivors. Wakana, her family and thousands of others were ordered to drive to evacuation shelters which, although farther away, were directly in the path of the plantfs plume of radioactivity.
Wakana now lives in Koriyama, a city 60km west of Fukushima Dai-ichi. She attends a new school without any of her old classmates, and may go outside for only three hours a day because of lingering radiation. As time slips by, it is harder to stay in touch with others from Ukedo, where she grew up breathing the salt smell of the Pacific coast. But her eyes light up as she talks about the folk dances she performs, which are hundreds of years old. Keeping alive the traditions of a village she may never live in again is a strange responsibility for a child, but it is one she understands.
The more edifying part of the story of Japanfs response to the disasters of 3/11, as it is known, is one of individual burdens borne, of traditions reinvigorated and of communal self-reliance. It is not the whole story. A whopping 14.3 trillion Yen ($175 billion) has been approved in four extra central-government budgets for recovery from a disaster that killed more than 19,000 people and made about 325,000 homeless. The governmentfs Reconstruction Agency, which co-ordinates the way ministries spend money for rebuilding towns and villages, did not open its doors until February 10th, 11 months after the disaster.
So those dislodged from their homes have been thrown back on their own resources. Their response is part of what Hakuhodo, one of Japanfs two foremost advertising agencies, dubs gOperation Meh: a growing embrace of autonomy in a country that has traditionally operated through a subtle form of groupthink, with challenges to authority well hidden.
Thanks in large part to the spirit of self-help, a lot of the more obvious damage was cleared up quickly. Immediately after March 11th the tsunami-hit coastline looked like a Dali painting, strewn with the skeletons of buildings, crumpled vehicles and overturned ships; now there are neat roads and traffic lights. But the sunken roads are still liable to flood, and there are almost no houses or shops. The sheer expanse of the emptiness is shocking.
Operation Us
The public cannot fail to notice the contrast between official sluggishness and the emboldened efforts of people doing things for each other.
Read the rest at the jump:
http://www.economist.com/node/21549917
![[image]](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/05/panasonic-tokyo-hotaru.jpg){kind=link}