Konnichiwa

March 11 - One Year On

The long silence is due in large part to our moving house. The last 1.5  to 2 years has been hectic. We had to decide whether to upgrade to a bigger place (then whether to just renovate or entirely rebuild), run through our finances, check out the various house-builders, check out various locations, fight to buy our current property (located in a popular area), try to get a mortgage, meet with the house-builders almost every single weekend for a few months, sell our old place, move things out of our old house to make it look bigger in the process of selling it, keep the old house spic and span every weekend for a month for viewers (a very tough job on its own with 2 kids), go though paperwork to sell the house, pack and move out, go back to old house to clean up on many, many days, sell the house, unpack at new house ......  And that is just the house bit. We also have full-time jobs and 2 kids. Anyway, I am glad to say the process is largely over (thanks to a friend and my sis/BIL who stayed over on 2 separate weekends which forced us to quickly unpack  - which would otherwise take us another year).

Is it worth it? Absolutely. We are a lot poorer now (lots of expenses involved when moving, esp taxes to government and then real estate agents). And are in bigger debt than before. But we are so loving the new house. Nothing like designing something to fit your lifestyle and taste. We feel so comfortable at home now, it takes great effort to get us out of the house. Whereas previously in our little mouse-hole, we were just raring to leave the house when we get up.

I will later post more on our trip to Tohoku at the end of last year later. At the post Ishinomaki - Part 2, the post started off with a pic of  huge advertisement. That advertisement is on an oil drum and there is big debate going on right now whether to preserve that or get rid of that. That oil drum was brought 300m inland by the tsunami. Some authorities want to preserve it as a reminder of March 11 but the residents say get rid of it "we don't want any reminders"!

I was just watching a documentary last night and it showed a hall in Rikuzentakata. We took photos of that hall but did not then know the history behind it on that day. The hall, which is 1km from the shore, has a very high ceiling - 35m from ground. In the documentary, it said 80-odd people went into the hall as it was a specified evacuation area. But when the tsunami came, the water just rose and rose. At the end of it, there was only a 40cm gap between the water and the ceiling. Only 3 or 4 people survived. I will post a pic of that hall later. Just thinking of people trying to cling on to something for their dear lives and then trying to stay afloat within that 40cm gap, wondering when the gap will actually close up, dodging the debis swirling and the forceful water, seeing the end of your life just right in front of you - it is all so harrowing. 

So our lives have been inconvenienced since March 11, 2011. We spend more time at the supermarkets examining labels, we go to various supermarkets for veges (for some reason, a lot of veges come from the areas near Fukushima), we subscribe to a water service (for Hawaiian water), we had to watch our electricity consumption last summer and it seems that we will have to do it again this summer. But watching those documentaries last night to commemorate the 1st anniversary, I am just thankful that our house is fine and we did not, on a personal basis, lose any family/friends to the disaster.  

To hear the panic of the people as they run to higher ground to escape with the tsunami right behind them. The panic as they searched for loved ones. The wailing when they find out loved ones have died. And all earthly possessions, including homes, are gone. There is so much to despair, for those who are directly affected by the quake/tsunami/nuclear situation. It shows us how fragile our mortality and earthly possessions are, esp for those of us who live in such natural disaster zones. 

There is now a lot of talk of Tokyo having at 70% chance of being hit within the next 4 years. So even as the government is busy cleaning up Tohoku and drawing up recontruction plans, it is also busy planning for the next big quake in Tokyo. On March 11, 2011, 5.15 million people who worked in Tokyo walked home, including myself and Tomo (would that be the entire population of Singapore and more?).  Studies show that if the big one happened in Tokyo, many of us would not even be able to walk home due to fires and collapsed buildings. So the government is now studying having companies store 3 days of food/drinks in buildings. I work in a fairly new building and come this summer, will be moving to a brand new building (supposedly having the latest in quake technology). So I think my workplace is relatively safe. But who knows? 

I found this very interesting video titled "Then and Now" about the people in the affected area. If any good came out of the disasters, it is that community ties are strengthening. Do watch it. (By the way, it features the school in Ishinomaki which I posted a pic of in the Ishinomaki post below.)

Then and Now from Paul Johannessen on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Trip to Tohoku: Ishinomaki (Part 2)

A fallen advertisement.

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According to Wikipedia, Ishinomaki is the town most badly affected by the tsunami.  It certainly was bad, but I am not sure if it is the most badly affected. I thought Rikuzentakata had it very bad, it was pretty much entirely wiped out. 

We went up a hillside that looks down into town. The right side of a canal/river was completely wiped out whereas the left side was damaged but not wiped out. The picture above was taken on the left side.  The picture below is of the right side.  Only a few buildings left standing.

And here is a close up of the right side.

As you know, many houses were badly damaged after the tsunami. So even if it had not floated away, it was pretty much a goner and uninhabitable. There was a system where if the owner of that house wanted the army/volunteers to help break down the house for disposal, they would put a special marking on the side of the house. When we drove through the tsunami-area, we saw some really battered houses, definitely uninhabitable, but they were not removed although the buildings in the surrounding area have been removed. I am told that for such houses, what it means is that the owner/family of that house entirely perished. There is no one around to put any marking. And without such marking, the government cannot demolish what is left standing. Here is a close-up of a badly damaged house that is still not yet demolished.

The primary school in this town was the most badly affected of all schools in the tsunami. The school was completely destroyed. The kids and teachers were evacuating when they were swept away by a 2nd tsunami wave, killing 75 of the 108 students and 10 of the 13 teachers. Below is a picture of this primary school.

What I thought was really eerie about this school is that its frontage is a graveyard.  Both the right and left of the road leading up to the school was all tombstones. And these tombstones were also badly damaged by the tsunami. See photo below.

The hill I mentioned is behind this school.  When the towns people ran up the only 2 staircases leading up the hill. It caused a bottleneck and not everyone managed to make it up. This is the one of the staircases, below.

How bad was the tsunami here? According to Wikipedia, it reached 10m high and travelled 600 m inland. Approximately 29,000 residents lost their homes.  All pretty heartbreaking stuff.

The earthquake shifted this city southeast and downwards, by as much as 1.2 metres in some areas.  The picture below is of the jetty which used to be above water pre-earthquake. It is now submerged in water due to the earthquake causing the land here to sink.

 

Our Trip to Tohoku: Matsushima (Part 1)

Matsushima, Miyagi

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We finally went to the tsunami-hit area. I think I mentioned before that Tomo did some volunteer work there in July.  The locals were saying to him - thank you for volunteering, but it would be just as good if not better if you brought your friends/family here to do some sight-seeing and drop some tourist money.  Tomo and I had always been curious and wanting to see first-hand the devastation and we wanted our boys to see it too. But were hesitatant to be tsunami-tourists as it seemed in bad taste to be gawking when so many were suffering. So after Tomo heard those words, he needed no further encouragement to bring us there.

We went during the long weekend in early October. Tomo had to be in Sendai for a business trip (his company lost a warehouse in Sendai to the tsunami). So the boys and I took the shinkansen by ourselves. We had quite an interesting encounter in the shinkansen. When we boarded, we could not find 3 seats together. At best, there were only 2 seats together but a salaryman had put his bag on one of the seats. So I was trying to get Taiga to sit down next to the bag and I am right behind him.  Taiga refused to be alone and we were having our little conversation in English where I was trying to get him to sit. The salaryman notices us and removes his bag. I thanked him in Japanese and told Taiga to thank him. Taiga thanked him in Japanese. And the salaryman said to Taiga - nihonjin datta (Oh, you are Japanese).  A simple phrase like "arigatou" is so telling as to where one grew up! I must say that the salaryman is quite different - he had a very nice friendly/kind smile. And he smiled often. Taiga must have felt comfortable with him right from the start. He normally clams up around strangers, but not with this salaryman. He told him that we were going to see the tsunami-area, does he know ultraman etc? He was talking non-stop about ultraman and goranger (another superhero) to the poor salaryman who is probably in his 50s.  The salaryman seemed to enjoy it and was amused.

We finally reached Sendai and met Tomo. Had a quick dinner of gyutan (cow's tongue) which Sendai is famous for and then crashed on the hotel bed.

The next morning, we headed to Ishinomaki.  On the way there, we drove past Matsushima. Matsushima is comprised of many little islands covered with pine trees (matsu=pine, shima=island).  It was quite scenic.

We also made a brief stop at Touna. The train station at Touna was flashed around the media as it was pretty much swept away by the tsunami.

I mention Touna because as we were walking around the train station (picture above of the "remains" of the train station), a man was pulling some plants off the ground. He started talking to us, saying he was pulling out herbs which is good for kids. We then asked him if he was around here when the tsunami struck.  He pointed us to about 5o to 100 m away and said his house used to be there. When the tsunami warnings came, he and his wife tried to get his elderly mum (in her 90s) out of the house to safety.  The mum initially agreed to leave the house but quickly changed her mind and decided to stay in her house. Because she did not want to leave, his wife also did not want to leave as the wife could not bear to leave the mum alone.  They were both upstairs.  He was pacing downstairs wondering what to do.  The water was flowing in to the house very quickly.  Before he could sort out what to do, the water had already almost reached the ceiling of the first floor and he was practically submerged in the water with his head sticking out (he had climbed his altar to get above the water).  He thought he was going to drown/die when the force of water tore the house away from the foundation and apart.  He then found himself floating in the open.  He said he was very lucky as near where he was floating, there was a telephone pole and there were 5 or 6 guys hanging off the top of the pole. When the rescuers finally came and got those guys off the pole, those guys told the rescuers to look for him - they had seen him floating around and they last time they saw him, he was still alive. And so the rescuers found him.  This was about 3 or 4 hours after the tsunami struck.  Many days later, the officials told him they found his wife and mum. They were still in the 2nd floor of his house but they had died. He told us that this train station, when the tsunami struck, the force of the water ripped out the metal and all the wood just floated up.  There are tracks no more. We thanked him for sharing his story and he waved us off.

Soon after, we came across this stationary train in the middle of nowhere.  

This train has not moved since the tsunami struck. Why? Because of the missing tracks! The tracks around this train are still intact but this train heads to Touma. 

As we drive around, we see tsunami tourists in tour buses and in private taxis! We saw this building which must have been a convenience store before.

 

My Little 'Hood

The good news is, opening very soon, a stone's throw from my new house - will be:

*drum roll* Ralph Lauren, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Michael Kors, Max Mara, Epoca, Paul Smith ......

 

Can life get any better?

 

The bad news is -  I can't buy that kind of stuff anymore.  I will be up to my eyeballs in debt paying off the mortgage for my new house.

 

C'est la vie? 

 

Japanese Kids

I am quite shocked at how unsupervised some Japanese kids are after school.

They go home, dump their school bags, jump on to their bicycles and meet up with friends. They then cycle all over the neighbourhood. That is not a terrifying idea if you stay in say, a wide-open English village or even Singapore with its wide pathways. But here in Japan, esp in and around Tokyo, where practically all corners are blind and by the time a car sees a bike zipping across the road it is already too late to stop, and where the only thing that separates a narrow road and a pathway is a white line on the road.

The routine for Kai is to walk home and the babysitter will be waiting at home for him. He then spends the rest of the day with the babysitter and Taiga either at home or going to soccer/music/English class. He has now realised that his friends go home and meet up again on their bikes. His friends tend to meet up behind our house and Kai asked if he could join them. I said OK but the babysitter has to hang around. The babysitter told me they played behind our house for 30 mins then they all wanted to bike elsewhere. Kai wanted to bike with them but the babysitter said no. And I have seen these 6-years old young fellas just zipping across the roads on their bikes, oblivious to the danger. There is no way I am going to let Kai join them, unless supervised. I do feel badly for Kai as so many of his friends are zipping around like that and he feels left out. Should I get my babysitter a bike so that she can follow him around? I say that half in jest only. The other mums must think my kid is too precious. And I am a weird foreigner!

I have said to Kai he can play with his friends, and I don't mind him going around the neighbourhood, but can he walk please? No biking. Or better still, invite all your friends to our house, I don't mind and will even provide snacks. So one Friday, a little friend called Yamazaki (they call each other by surnames!) came and played a few hours in our house. The next morning, at 9.30, our doorbell rang. Tomo looked at the intercom but could not see any face. The he noticed some hair peeking out at the bottom of the screen! It turned out to be Yamazaki. He came in and played for a bit. We had to go to our new house by 10 for a ground-breaking ceremony, it is a shinto ceremony with an altar and a priest in robes, the whole bit. We asked where he wanted to go next and if we could send him home. He never really gave us an answer, so we brought him to the ceremony with us! The ceremony has rituals, done individually. Like one by one, we had to step before the altar, bow, clap, clap, bow etc. He did all that too! When we finished, he still did not want to go home so we brought him to out house again. At 12, he said he needed to go to another friend's house, so Tomo dropped him home. As Tomo was turning his car around, he saw Yamazki coming out of his house again with his grandma nearby, and then he jumped on his bike and rode away. At 4.30, Yamazaki's mum called us and asked if he is still with us!

Then since the school holidays started, Kai met this 8 year-old boy, Ryusei, at a toy department near our house. This boy roams around from 10 each morning till 8 at night, equipped with a cellphone which connects him to his mum. One evening, I took over the boys from the baby-sitter at the station. The boys were playing with Ryusei. It was already late and the boys wanted Macs for dinner. Ryusei also wanted Macs and I landed up getting dinner for 3 boys!! It started raining and Ryusei had no umbrella. He called home and from what I could make out from the 1-sided conversation, his mum refused to come out and bring the umbrella. I think she asked to to just walk home. He went to a shop and got a paperbag. He wanted to cut out holes for the eyes. Kai brought Ryusei to his music school nearby where they could help him with a pair of scissors. I was getting quite horrified and was thinking either to walk him home or buy him an umbrella. In the end, the music school had a spare umbrella and they lent it to him.

The next morning, Ryusei was looking for a playmate. He went to the music school and asked them to contact Kai!!! The music school called my husband and he called Ryusei. Now that Ryusei had Tomo's phone number, he called him a number of times that day to make arrangements to meet Kai later in the day! Tomo said he was in a meeting and had so many calls from a little boy just to arrange a kids playdate.

Then a couple of days later, the babysitter was with Kai and Taiga around the station when they bumped into Ryusei again. This time he was with this mum who was shopping. Apparently, the mum had a few words with the babysitter where she said it must be taihen (difficult) to look after 2 boys. She then promptly turned around to say bye to her son and left to go home! So my babysitter was left with 3 boys!! And when Kai had to go for his drum class, Ryusei insisted on going in to the studio to play the drums too.

When I took over the boys from the babysitter 2 nights ago, Ryusei had found the boys and all 3 were playing together. For 2 hours, I was hanging around supervising. Then the boys said they were hungry and we walked towards the foodcourt. I was surprised that as we neared the food court, Ryusei ran up to a table and lo and behold, his mum was there - chatting with a group of mums!

Ryusei is a decent little chap but he is not aware of danger. During my watch, as he was halfway down an escalator, he decided to run all the way up against the flow. Or he would walk down the escalator on the sides. Or he would jump the last 4 steps of a moving escalator. Or he would push himself up on banisters. All things that I want my kids not to do. So there I was having little heart attacks over a boy who is not my kid and whom I hardly know. I would tell him not to do it. But at the same time, I am getting stares from other strangers probably thinking MY kid is so ill-behaved!

Japanese Schools

(Just realised that Typepad has an app for the iPad, am checking it out now)

Kai has been in a Japanese elementary school for 4 months now. And it is soooo different from a Singapore school. Here is how:

1. We do not buy school textbooks before school starts. Apparently, the school will provide it. Maybe they have provided, but I have yet to see the textbooks. All I see are photocopies given to the kids, in dribs and drabs. For most part, the photocopying is quite good. But at times, it hurts my eyes.

2. I go through Kai's assessment sheets now and then to see how Kai is doing. He is doing alright so far. In Japanese schools, when you give a right answer, the teacher will circle the answer! When the whole page is correct, the teacher will draw a flower over the page!!! (I will try and get a photo)

3. There were a few times when Kai got simple stuff wrong. Like when the questions asks how many flowers are there in the picture and Kai writes 2 when it should have been 4. I have asked Kai to explain his mistake. He says it is hard to see the other 2 flowers. And I totally agree. The photocopying is really blur and fuzzy at times, hard to make out the other 2 flowers. I really think the education board can do better than that. Really not fair on the kids.

3. 1 teacher teaches everything! Yup. In Singapore, we have one teacher for maths, one for English etc. Not here. So Kai sees pretty much the same teacher day in day out for 1 year. I understand the system in Australia is like that too.

4. The exception to the above is the English teacher, who I understand is from the US. But I also understand that the system here is such that the US teacher does not directly teach the class. It all goes through that 1 teacher who teaches everything.

5. The other exception is the "international teacher". And guess where is Kai's international teacher from? From Singapore! Would you believe it, in our suburbs far away from the usual haunts where international families usually stay. Kai went up to her and told her he is half-Singaporean, haha. Must have shocked her to hear this little Japanese boy speaking Singaporean-accented English and claiming to be half-Singaporean.

6. A big shocker for me is that there is no set time-table. I think most schools around the world have a weekly time-table. Not here. Everyday, Kai has to write down in his notebook the classes for the next day and pack his bag accordingly. I am not sure if this is how they do it throughout primary school, or if it is only for the first few months for the 1st graders.

7. There are TOO MANY parent meetings. I went to the first one, could not follow what they were saying and refuse to go to the others. Truly, it is a waste of time as mums sit around debating who is to do what. Forget democracy. The class teacher should just assign and rotate assignments. For some assignments, no one wants to volunteer and we sit around looking down for many painful silent minutes as we literally wait for someone to volunteer. Other assignments are so popular that we have a few mothers fighting it out. Know how they settle these fights? Scissors, paper, stone. Seriously. I don't volunteer as I am working. And working full-time. In the city. Not around the school area. But we still have to attend these meetings anyway.

8. Now and then, the teachers will visit the house to speak to the parent. These are scheduled visits. For one week, school will let off early and the teachers will go from house to house. For a working mum, it is a real hassle when school lets out early.

9. We had our house visit in May. This is an epic occasion for most households. The mums will have planned buying the fancy cakes from the fancy patisseries, will have brought out the best china etc. We had Tomo running home all hot, bothered and sweaty. No cake. Regular cups. Not sure if Tomo even remembered to offer some water. I am not sure why the teachers visit the homes, my guess is to see the home environment. Hopefully, the teacher will be pleased to see that we kept it real - messy house, toys strewn everywhere, 2 days worth of plates and cups in the sink, dust-covered TV .....

10. PTA meetings are held in the school. Yet again, the kids are let out early. (You wonder when the kids really study when they are so often let out early for this meeting or that meeting). The funny thing is, the mum has to go to school for the PTA whereas the kid is let out early and has to go back home. What does this mean? That the kid goes back to an empty house. Even a first grader. I thought we understood wrongly and had Tomo call the school to confirm. That was the first PTA I attended. We asked whether Kai could stay in the school, hang out in the playground. The response - he has to go home. Even when there is no one at home? Yes. He just has to wait at home till the PTA has ended.

11. This is the other thing that really gets to me. Kai's English school is a 3 min walk to the left of the school. Our house is a 10 min walk to the right of the school. His English class starts 30 mins after school ends. We had Kai walk to English school directly from school. The teacher gives us a call and says Kai cannot do that. He has to walk home first then turn around and go to the English school. Even if he has no time to hang around at home. Why, we ask? The schools says that if he walks to English school instead of home, they cannot take responsibility. Now, that is a very curious statement. So if he walks home and something happens along the way, the school will take responsibility? Like touch wood, he gets into an accident on the way home, we can sue the school? It is not like the school has a lollipop man at the crossings to look after kids. So if anyone out there who reads this knows what this means, please let me know.

A Quick Update

OK, I have been saying for weeks that I will be updating this blog. So here goes: 1. Kai came down with "ringo-byo"(literally, apple sickness) in early July. I googled it to learn more amount this mysterious sickness which I have never heard of. It is known in the English-speaking world as "slapped-cheek" disease and "the fifth disease". Still never heard of it before. All it did to Kai was give him very rosy cheeks, like apples. Oh, and if he is exposed to the sun, his skin will be very itchy. It did not keep him away from school as once you show signs of the disease, you are no longer infectious. But infect he did, as Taiga got it next. 2. Two weeks back, Taiga came down with mumps. Was absolutely miserable. He got his revenge back on Kai. Kai came down with mumps yesterday. Absolutely miserable (but still manages to play Wii or Playstation all day). 3. Kai's mumps caught me by surprised. I thought he has been immunised. I know we are late doing his immunisations but we rushed to catch up earlier this year and the doc told us in April that he is up-to-date. 4. Tomo went to Tohoku over the long weekend in July to volunteer to clean up the area. That will be a separate blog post with photos. Hopefully up soon. 5. After the earthquake, some expats permanently left Japan. Those that did not permanently leave in the immediate aftermath, are looking to leave now. They are all hoping to be working at new jobs outside of Japan by January next year. I am going to have quite a few friends leaving. Sigh. And everyone wants to go to Singapore! The irony of it for me.

More Earthquake-Related Stuff

 

In the above footage, the car is in Sendai area and about 3km from the sea. It is amazing how fast the water came in and floated the car. As the driver was shooting the footage, he was wondering when would be a good time to leave the car. He finally did it and managed to swim to safety. He is interviewed in the footage. Never mind if you can't understand the Japanese commentary, just watch it for the amazing speed of the water.

In other earthquake news, Tomo and I have been wanting to go the the stricken-areas out of curiosity and also to help.  There is a long weekend coming up in July and the Singapore embassy is organising a group of volunteers to head there. Because of our kids, we both can't go. Probably only Tomo will go.  I have thought about bringing the kids there. Good for them to see what suffering is like. But they will probably just get in the way of the volunteers and also health/sanitation conditions there are quite a concern these days. So best they stay home. Apparently, now that the cold weather is over, that stricken-area is stinking really badly from the rotten fish that were washed inland from the sea as well as from the fishing industry's warehouses that were smashed by the waves. Flies everywhere.

Although I do not personally know of any volunteer who got injured whilst helping, I did read in news reports that bones have been broken and nails stepped on. So it can be quite hazardous for the volunteers too.

A friend did go up during Golden Week to give legal advice. Due to the condition of the accommodation (or lack of it) around the stricken-area, he had to stay about 2 hours away. The 3 most common questions, in order, concerned: (i) debt (loans/mortgages etc), (ii) inheritance and (iii) what the government is doing to help. As for mortgages, if I recall correctly, there is an amnesty/grace period of 6 months. Obviously, this is not enough given the circumstances. Not sure what is being planned when this period expires.

It is now a little more than 3 months since the earthquake/tsunami. Although many Japanese have been complaining that the debris is still not completely cleared, I think great progress has been made and it is certainly an achievement given the physical scale of the disaster. The other problem hindering the clean up is the lack of space to dump the debris.  This website has got great pictures showing the current stated of the disaster area, with some before and after pics. Do check it out.