Light within ourselves

Sanshuyu  (cornus officinalis) bloom soft yellow flowers from March to April.

They are used in Chinese medicine and tea. 

The language of flowers: endurance, continuation, bravery, or modest happiness

Human beings are not superior or opposed to nature but a part of nature:  heaven, earth, and all the things both animate and inanimate, are embedded in one.  People can't help but feel deep resignation in the devastation caused by enormous power of nature. 

(a month ago)

(a week ago)

On this record powerful earthquake and tsunami, I've confirmed what I had believed:

We, human beings, have light within ourselves even when immersed in the darkness.

Sanshuyu bear red fruits in autumn.

Thank you, my Friends and everybody who has stopped by, for your heartfelt thoughts and prayers via comments or e-mails.  I also really appreciate warm helps and supports stretched out from the world.  I do believe the reconstruction of Tohoku (northeast Japan). Below is what I’ve been thinking as one of Japanese who live far away from the stricken Tohoku.

It’s almost impossible to perfectly predict earthquake but possible to minimize damages.  Japan has made preventive measures like strict building code, reinforcement of the old buildings, or making dams in the affected region.  However,  sometimes power of nature far overpowers. I hope this experience be a lesson in the land of earthquakes.

Torment of the victims has been increased by radiation threat at Fukushima nuclear power plant.  Although it was caused by earthquake and tsunami, it is a man-made disaster.  Since Japan is the only country against which nuclear bombs were dropped,  Japanese have had deep ambivalence about the use of nuclear power even as peaceful use.  And besides, building nuclear plants is a big challenge because there is almost no place in Japan that is safe from major seismic events.  Nuclear plants must have been constructed with the highest focus on mitigating seismic risks.  However, no one has been able to predict this scale of earthquake and tsunami. I wonder if we can say it can't be helped. 

I’ve been watching the consequences holding my breath.  At a time like this, it’s quite difficult to let anxiety go, but it’s important to believe in people who are working frantically, almost without sleep, risking their lives in the dangerous zone, and many other workers who are deeply committed to help and recover.  It’s also important for us ordinary people to go on our lives, never forgetting smiles, tolerating inconveniences, while cooperating anything we can do. 

Another disaster is caused by rumors.   This can be caused by careless mass-media.  Those who know well about radioactivity and the mechanism of nuclear plants don’t seem to be unreasonably afraid, while there are those who overreact with psychological shock, and in between many people try to maintain self-control.  While I’ve been watching what's going on, I've depended on the information from the website suggested by some experts and learned it won’t be as bad as feared overly.

Media often report like this “.... a hundred times amount of radiation higher than the normal level.....”   This sounds abnormal and alarming, but the fact is it is not still hazardous to our health .  Actually the amount of a hundred times is  5 to 15 micro sievert (“micro sievert” is 1/1000 of “milli sievert”) depending on the area.   We will be exposed to, for example,  190 micro sievert radiation by a round-trip flight between New York and Tokyo, or 50 micro sievert by a chest X-ray examination.  Large amount of radiation can cause illness and death, but we shouldn’t panic in reasonably small release as the consequences are not likely to be disastrous. (Not perfectly safe but not disastrous.)  As a result of this man-made rumor disaster, people living around Fukushima got to be isolated and left behind from relief supplies.

I participated in the session of my English Reading Group last week.  Now we are reading  Wind, Sand, and Stars (Terres des Hommes) by Saint-Exupery, my all-time favorite.  The story touches essentials as a man: pilots challenge limit of their strength and live their full potentials in their very harsh conditions.  I see the same human spirit in the people who are now working in adversity with courage, strong sense of responsibility, and resilience.  I also see it in victims who still have light in their heart even at the depth of the worst sadness.  I find many heroes: town civil servants who appealed to evacuation to the last moment and got swallowed by tsunami, firefighters who kept spraying water to a nuclear plant where dangerous level of radiation fills the air, to name a few.

On more positive note, Fukushima nuclear plant situation is getting better with partial recovery of electricity, which leads to fundamental solution to the plants' cooling system.  (Knocking on wood.) The whole situation is constantly changing.  My great concern is people suffering losses in the stricken area, ... so heartaching, .... but on the contrary there are times I feel encouraged by them to see their attitude.  The way to recovery has just started: traffic routes are being improved, shelters under construction, aids both financial and manpower from all over Japan congregating Tohoku.  When people get together and strive towards reconstruction, Tohoku people will surely get back on their feet, like Kobe, my hometown, got revitalized after its devastation from Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Thank you for reading.

Yoko