Originally Posted By DlandDug This may belong in WE, but it does impact the Tokyo Resort. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/mass-anti-nuclear-protests-in-japan-mark-3-month-anniversary-of-quake-and-tsunami/2011/06/11/AGrKP3PH_story.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/...ory.html</a> EXCERPTS: >>Protesters held mass demonstrations against nuclear power across Japan on Saturday, the three-month anniversary of the powerful earthquake and tsunami that killed over 23,000 and triggered one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters. Streets in parts of Tokyo were completely jammed with thousands of chanting protesters, paralyzing sections of the city... Government reports released earlier in the week said the damage and leakage were worse than previously thought, with some of the nuclear fuel in three reactors likely having melted through the main cores and inner containment vessels. They said the radiation that leaked into the air amounted to about one-sixth of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 — double previous estimates.... At the Fukushima plant, hundreds of workers are still struggling to bring the crippled reactors to a “cold shutdown” by early next year and end the crisis. Radiation fears have forced more than 80,000 people to evacuate from their homes around the plant.<<
Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1 It's funny but I just don't think of Japanese people as the type who take to the streets en masse. I just think of them as quietly getting on with life and not wanting to be that cog that doesn't fit in with the rest of the system. Sounds weird but whenever I talk about my time in Japan, I always refer to them as being like the Borg. A collective that all work together for the good of the whole - individuals are not important.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***It's funny but I just don't think of Japanese people as the type who take to the streets en masse*** Well, this is certainly true. Which shows just how truly upset the people are over this crisis. I've also seen other behaviors from regular Japanese folks I'd never seen before and never thought I would. For example, displaced citizens in shelters literally screaming in the faces of TEPCO execs, telling them they suck and ordering them to get on the floor and beg for forgiveness. Hell, you didn't see close to THAT level of vitriol even from Southerners towards BP (they were angry, sure, but not "I'd kill you with my bare hands if I could" angry.
Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1 Any psych student would tell you that when a person(or population)is tightly controlled and repressed, when they eventually lose those inhibitions and lash out it is going to be more severe than when emotions are allowed to be displayed normally. To carry the Star Trek analogy, the Japanese are not Vulcans. Hell, even Vulcans are not Vulcans(as in, the common misconception is they have no emotions - they just repress them greatly)! There is just a very deeply ingrained idea that displaying of disproportionate passion is NOT seemly. It is very unhealthy.
Originally Posted By Mr X Bob, do you live in Japan? I don't think it's all that fair to make assumptions about their culture overall, NOBODY said they were Vulcans (least of all my wife and daughter!), and the emotional issues are more than front and center here in Japan today. We're ALL human beings, and the Japanese people have been pushed to the brink right now to say the least. My daughter is afraid to go outside anymore. Not because anything WE said, but because she saw news about Fukushima and the radiation danger...so, even living relatively far away, she's scared to join her friends in the playground. How Vulcan is that? In any case, YOUR opinion on what is or isn't "healthy" for a nation or a culture doesn't REALLY matter, does it? "How dare you!" springs to mind, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. What country do YOU live in? Perhaps if I did some research, I could tell you about how "very unhealthy" YOUR culture is, or might be. No?
Originally Posted By Mr X I should say, too, that I always write "they" but when it comes right down to it in this case it is "us"... I'm Japanese, today. My wife and child are Japanese, and I live here, and all of my friends and collegues are Japanese...so it's fair to say I'm living in the midst of this and I'M Japanese when it comes right down to it...at least it makes more sense than saying "they" and "them" right now (how can I, when my family is involved!? They are NOT "they" or "them" to me, they are "us", "together, and "we"). So I'll refer to Japan accordingly from now on. I live here, I'm family here, and WE are together.
Originally Posted By Bob Paris 1 I was referring to the common(in my experience)misconception held by non-Japanese people not living in Japan(and people who have told me they believe this), that as a culture, "The Japanese people are like Vulcans in Star Trek". Hence my saying above that in said conversations I flippantly used the "Borg" analogy instead. As I also alluded to above, it is ridiculous to refer to anybody as having "no emotions" and I carried on my previous/unknown to LP readers conversation here(my mistake)that "not even the Vulcans in ST are 'Vulcans' ", since they only repress their emotions. This is something I believe is unhealthy and I deduced that the outbursts YOU reported on MAY, in part be due to this. OF COURSE the tragic nature of the events would push people to the brink - that is also not in question. As for your impassioned remarks about solidarity, I don't know where that all came from but I suspect a LOT MORE is going on behind the keyboard there. I will leave you to deal with that in your own way.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I was referring to the common(in my experience)misconception held by non-Japanese people not living in Japan(and people who have told me they believe this*** I know. And I've joked before about that "Vulcan" thing, but these days it's no laughing matter (and I know you know this, and I didn't assume that you meant any harm by your message and I appreciated what you wrote man...don't get me wrong!).
Originally Posted By Mr X ***As for your impassioned remarks about solidarity, I don't know where that all came from but I suspect a LOT MORE is going on behind the keyboard there*** True enough. If you really don't know where it came from though, you shouldn't be commenting on the disaster here in Japan don't you think? ***I will leave you to deal with that in your own way*** I sure as hell hope not! Any and all support would be welcomed! By you, and other posters, and every and anyone else that wants to help Japan get through this thing! Yoroshiku.
Originally Posted By Mr X Bob, did I really write anything so terrible back to you up there? I re-read it just now, and (harsh as it was, that's a fair enough statement) I don't think I insulted you, but I think I did provide some food for thought for you. If my comments were insulting or wrong, please say so. I don't think they were all that bad...just direct and to the point...as you DON'T live in Japan, I think it's fair enough to point that out at the moment (though by no means does that mean I would discourage any points of view from beyond these shores...just suggesting that the vibe here is something difficult to comprehend right now but I'd LOVE to talk about it with my friends so I can get some understanding myself).
Originally Posted By Mr X "I don't know where that all came from" "If you really don't know where it came from though, you shouldn't be commenting on the disaster here in Japan don't you think? " I just wanted to make it clear that my comment was directly in response to this one; you wrote "I don't know where that all came from". For the record, all of my comments regarding Japan do come directly from the stress and tribulation that Japan is going through now. Some of it is obvious (tsunami, Fukushima victims, ect...), some is less so (the overall stress of all the Japanese folks I encounter on a daily basis, the dimmed lights, the shuttered escalators in the train stations, the threats of more to come on the news media, three fucking meltdowns, the kids wearing dosimeters in school...it all adds up)... So, I'll not say sorry for that direct comment to your direct comment because I believe what I wrote is true...but for the rest of my snappish reply I am very sorry Bob. I know you mean well, and wrote your comments in a kind and caring fashion, and I shouldn't have replied as vehemently as I did to you. My apologies to you for that.
Originally Posted By Bolna Mr X, there was an interesting article in my (German) newspaper this weekend about how the public opinion about nuclear energy is slowly changing in Japan. It mentions that while there was the experience of the suffering of those who had to live through the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was this concept that the peaceful use of nuclear power was something all together different. And that the experience that once again Japanese people have to suffer from radiation (they used a term for those affected: "hibakusha"?) makes a lot of people change their opinion and that is why suddenly there are protests which in the past never gained any national momentum, but were rather localised. Does that make sense? I wonder whether there is a bit of a panic that the trauma of 1945 will repeat itself?
Originally Posted By Mr X Bolna, are you German? You're living in Germany right? (sorry, I just want to get my friends/countries in line...and I didn't know that!...Germany is in the midst of some anti-nuke stuff, right?)... To answer your question, YES the Japanese are freaking out now because, quite frankly, they never even THOUGHT about the fact that nuclear power was the driving force on this island...obviously radiation worries from long ago are springing forward (perhaps irrationally, but still...)... I, myself, had no clue that Japan was so nuclear powered until these past few months...I just assumed the lights turned on "just because". lol. I'm NOT Japanese, obviously, but clearly the issue brings back LONG FORGOTTEN worries that a typical Japanese person never gave a second though to in many years... RADIATION is GOING to destroy a large part of Fukushima forever. That's not in question...it already happened. The bigger question is, how can Japan recover from this and help the displaced victims along with the tsunami victims (let's not forget THEM for a second!!!)... I don't know how, but I'm listening carefully to any and all suggestions!
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< I, myself, had no clue that Japan was so nuclear powered until these past few months...I just assumed the lights turned on "just because". lol. >>> I've always known Japan and France as among the more advanced nuclear power nations. That's part of what makes Fukushima all the more disturbing - if something like this can happen in Japan, it can happen anywhere.
Originally Posted By Bolna Mr X, yes, I am German and I live in Germany. Nuclear power has been a strongly debated issue here since the early 80s with lots of mass protests. It was one of the main factors why the German Green party started and then gained more and more importance. In 1998 they were for the first time part of a coalition government with the Social-Democrats and both parties together in 2001 found a formula how Germany would switch off all its nuclear power plants until 2022, it was a compromise with the electric power companies who wanted to keep them going for longer. We thought that that was the end of the topic, but then in 2010 the new conservative government changed that decision again and gave the electric power companies an additional 14 years to use their nuclear power plants. And then the horrible earth quake and tsunami happened with all the consequences at Fukishima. Public opinion immediately turned so much against nuclear power (how could one believe that it could ever be safe, if a nation like Japan, which we admire a lot as a very advanced nation, cannot prevent horrible things like that happening - that's the sentiment here). Last week the German government introduced the plan to once again switch off all nuclear power plants by 2022. 7 nuclear plant have been switched off since shortly after the earthquake, they will not be switched on again. It really was the only thing the government could do. They are already not much loved and the plan to add those 14 years had already created quite a new movement against nuclear energy. After Fukushima, it would have been political suicide not to get out of nuclear energy as quickly as possible. We will have to invest a lot of money into modernising the electric grid and in renewable energy. There is a lot of debate about the costs and about the danger of black-outs. But so far it seems that Germans are prepared to pay for it. The one thing that baffles a lot of people here is how the Japanese who had to suffer from the atomic bombs could rely so heavily on nuclear energy. Here the movement against nuclear energy had one of its roots in the movement for nuclear disarmament. And if I understand that correctly, nuclear disarmament has always been an issue which is of importance to the Japanese. I can only imagine how horrible all these events must be for the Japanese. Especially those who still have memories of the worries about radiation. I often think that the whole of Europe must have been hit with post-traumatic-stress-disorder after 1945. And sometimes you really can tell how much it affected the older generation. For example when the first gulf war started in 1990, a lot of older people went and bought masses of canned food, always had their bath tub full of water because they were afraid that this war was so close to home that it could start to affect us. The Japanese generations who lived in the 40s surely have similar ghosts that still haunt them - and have passed them on. Even though we are very much into our own debate about nuclear energy here in Germany, I can assure you that there is a lot of compassion for the Japanese, whether they were hit by the tsunami or Fukushima. And even though a lot of people are happy that we finally have a solution for our nation that is generally accepted, nobody is happy about how we got there. It is so sad that things had to go terribly wrong somewhere!
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I've always known Japan and France as among the more advanced nuclear power nations. That's part of what makes Fukushima all the more disturbing - if something like this can happen in Japan, it can happen anywhere*** No question!
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Originally Posted By Bolna Mr X, the question really is: can you ever plan something that is so safe that nothing can ever harm it? There have been reports here how the Japanese government had wanted to raise the the safety requirements, especially with regard to tsunamis, but Tepco was so succesful to lobby against it that they dropped it. Also, just as you said, the one reactor was already so damaged by the earth quake that the tsunami did not matter. The one thing that is mentioned here quite a lot: no insurance company would ever insure a nuclear power plant. They know that the risk is too high to insure. But the people are supposed to pay for the damage it can cause?
