How heroes deal with Fukushima

It’s almost a year since the devastating earthquake and tsunami ripped a piece out of the hearts of the Japanese. When we arrived in Japan half a year ago, the Fukushima Daiichi plant was said to be stable on the path to a cold shut down and repairs to land, roads, buildings and houses in the areas affected by the tsunami were well under way. Still, there is an inhabitable zone for many years to come and the nuclear power plant is far from switching off completely. Many people continue to live in shelters, and a lot of people suffer in silence from the loss of their loved ones and fear of radiation.

I am only beginning to understand what is going on and how people deal with their fears. I try to learn the language to be able to talk to people in real life or on social media. Most of their stories do not reach the mass media on a large scale, and I have been wondering why.

I met a gallery holder the other day when I was searching for a possible exhibition space. He asked me when I had arrived in Japan. This is almost the first question people ask me and I think they mean: are you from before or after March 2011? And usually when I tell them that I arrived in August of that year, the standard response is: “I am really happy that you decided to come, more foreigners should do the same. It will be good for Japan”. This gallery owner seemed glad that I picked up on the subject and started to show me pieces of art made by artists that reflected on the earthquake and tsunami. What struck me most was that he saw no possibilities to show this right now in his gallery, as most people did not want to be reminded. All they want is to see happy paintings. Good artists are heroes and they are hardly ever recognised as such in their own time.

Then there is a blogger ‘Angama’ that I follow. He seems to be on the exact opposite of many Japanese. He does not suffer quietly and wants to express his feelings and shout about all of it. And so he does. He is a hero to many young Japanese and foreigners alike, who are unhappy with the authorities. He left the country and blogs about the government and the nuclear power company and how they withhold crucial information about the situation in Fukushima. He posts videos and you don’t have to be a trained psychologist to see that he is frustrated and scared. Very understandable and I can see why his blogs seem to be so negative. He complains that support for his work declines. So the only thing he can do is to make more noise.

In the forbidden zone, there is a heroic monk that gets attention in a different way. He decided to stay put and takes care of the abandoned animals. There are brave journalists that visit him and send the heartbreaking pictures to the rest of the world.

I was told a story about a woman who was so scared for radiation effects that she started to make food for her son herself, instead of letting him eat the food provided by the school. That way she felt, she was in control. The child also had to wear a special face mask, but he was the only one and other kids bullied him for it. When reactions go off balance, people don’t really understand and stigmatism happens. The lady decided to quit her job and leave her husband for the time being. She left Tokyo and now lives somewhere in the South. However, her fear is not over. Now she worries about her mother and husband who are still in Tokyo. They get frequent messages from her to take extra precautions and she warns them not to go outside on certain days because there will be a wind blowing from Fukushima to Tokyo carrying radioactive cesium. She follows the news and twitters about it daily. It’s her new task in life. One day I hope, she will be a hero to her son, but for now her real life is gone.

Regularly I read about people that gather in Tokyo to protest against nuclear power. They want a Japan without it and they want the government to find alternatives. Some demonstrations are fairly big and others smaller. The other day I passed such a demonstration. It was a group of approximately thirty people, and I spotted an old man standing with a sign. Most of the things that were going on were lost on me because of the language. Reading is much easier for me, mainly because I have time to translate it, or ask for help from my teachers or other English speaking Japanese friends. Anyway, the sign that the man was carrying was clear though: “No nuke – save our children”. If he was just tired or ready to give up, I don’t know, but suddenly the man put his sign upside down on the ground and set himself on a crate. I read his face and if I am not mistaken he was asking himself: “why are we doing this? It doesn’t make a difference”. 

It may not. These protests are so small and do not reach the world, not even the Japanese news I think. It is in the Japanese nature to resolve problems quietly and without much uproar. No blood involved in protests, no burned cars on the street, no damage to government buildings. So, naturally, it has no news value. It is actually quite sad.

Not everyone is worried though. There are people who support the farmers of Fukushima by buying produce from Fukushima prefecture. The prefecture is 1/3 of the size of the Netherlands and that’s a lot of farmland. Supporters say that not all of it is contaminated and they feel that especially in this time the farmers need their support. They call it Kizuna, the bond between the people that is vital for survival in difficult times. They are heroes.

And what about me? Why am I not worried? I am not trying to be a hero. I just practise common sense. When I was a young girl, I swam in a canal that ran along a landfill. In winter, the ice around the dumpsite would not freeze over. It was around 1970 and nobody knew what chemicals were dumped there. The buildings on my fathers’ farm were built with asbestos. He used to saw it to measure, while me and my brother watched and made huts with the leftover pieces. No one had a clue that it was dangerous. The path to our home was made of waste material from the Hoogovens steel plant. We called it ‘sintels’ and it was a cheap and strong way of making a dirt road suitable for heavy trucks and cars. It was mixed with bitumen and in summer it would melt in places and it was fun to play with a stick in the bubbles that formed. At the beach tar would wash up all the time and I loved molding it into little black figures. 

All in all I had a great and happy childhood, but maybe not exactly without health risks, but there was not much knowledge about these things at the time. So, now I am just realistic and am not worried about what other risks I take by living in Japan. I just see it as a valuable opportunity to learn about the many different people that inhabit our world.

The artists, the blogger and the other protesters, the monk, the worried mom, the people who support the Fukushima farmers: everyone is a hero in his or her own way. Like the artist who chooses his viewpoint to construct his image; it just depends on your perspective of life.