One of my good friends from college began taking Japanese language lessons more than a decade ago. He then up and moved to Japan and has lived there ever since. He sent around this email last night, which I am posting with his permission:
Update and Musings
greetings, all.
my father suggested i write to everyone who might be interested to know what was happening in japan when i left, and when [my father] suggests his boys do something, well, he usually means it.
first, thank you for your kind inquiries after my health. i am fine and have taken refuge in our family’s hometown, ye olde village of hingham, massachusetts.
taken refuge from what, you may ask. allow me to break it down for you using my experience as my only (and subjective) point of reference.
things in tokyo were as orderly as they could be, but there was a distinct sense that things were close to becoming out of control in terms of the nuclear power plant and in terms of day to day life.
i should say that i don’t know of a single building in tokyo that fell down due to the quake. we were spared the devastation one sees in the news.
as far as the fukushima plant goes, of the 4 reactors 3 were active at the time of the earthquake/tsunami. at the time i left, they had to cool down all three formerly active reactors but had just one pump to get cooling liquid inside. at one point, the man with the task of making sure the fuel in this pump doesn’t run out left his post to do something else and, sure enough, the pump ran out of fuel and the rods were exposed. then the pool of water at the fourth reactor, which hadn’t been a problem at the outset, caught fire. then the power company started saying they were going to reduce the number of workers at the plant, which the prime minister encouraged them to avoid.
i have total sympathy for the delicate nature of what the workers at the plant are doing, but it wasn’t a confidence inspiring situation.
meanwhile, life in tokyo was unpredictable. stores ran out of basic items such as bottled water, milk, eggs, bread, rice, toilet paper, paper towels, and so on. gas stations ran out of gasoline. the power company was not able to provide as much electricity as before and rolling blackouts were put into effect for the cities surrounding tokyo (but not in tokyo proper). the times for these blackouts changed from day to day and region to region and conflicting information was given. for example, tepco (tokyo electric power company): “power in area x will be shut off from 6:00 to 10:00.” 6 o’clock rolls around and the power is on. people in area x: “we thought you were going to turn off the power in our area and we closed our shops and businesses because of this.” tepco: “people have been effective at reducing their power consumption so we had more power than we expected and thought you would rather have your power than not.” people: (throw up hands). furthermore, trains and subways were running fewer trains a day and some had service canceled altogether. train cancellations were mostly due to rolling blackouts. in order to conserve power, shops everywhere turned only half their lights on, which created a strange bleakness. in summary, day to day life was not impossible but unpredictable and more challenging.
allow me to say a word about the quality of the news coming from japan. personally i felt the japanese news was fairly informative and forthcoming about the situation at the power plant. it lacked much of the wild speculation common in western news.
there is a wide gulf forming a language barrier between japanese and english. i don’t believe japan is being willfully deceptive in the way it is presenting information right now. japanese is by nature an imprecise and prevaricating language. certainly this situation calls for precision, particularly with radiation from the power plant posing a risk to other countries as well. however, i think people who expect japan to suddenly change its language/culture to respond to a demand for a western style of presenting information will be disappointed.ultimately, i hope my decision to leave tokyo will prove to have been totally unnecessary.
i hope this all makes sense.
Names were removed to protect the innocent. And, can I just say that my friend has impeccable grammar? Well, I just did.
Love you, buddy!
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
ABL, a friend of ours in Tokyo advised that anybody in her family who wasn’t working bailed out days ago for points south and west.
Punchy
I can only imagine how many 100’s of on-air orgasims John King and Katie Couric would have had spewing forth every crackpot’s prediction of sure death and utter calamity had even just 1 reactor in the U.S. suffered as much as a slightly-above-normal temperature reading. Give them 3 or 4 almost-certain meltdowns, and the camera lens is just covered in man sauce in 24 hours.
Poopyman
You know, regarding your friend’s comment about the innate imprecision of Japanese, I was going to quote Hirohito’s “the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage”, but I found and read his whole speech, and was struck by how applicable parts of it would be today.
Comrade Mary
Wow — thanks for the letter. I’m seeing reports elsewhere from people who have left Tokyo either because a) they were scheduled to leave anyway for a conference or a family visit, or b) because they want to go somewhere a little safer for their kids and will say so, point blank. Many of those in the first group talk about how guilty they feel, even though they know they shouldn’t feel like this. On the one hand, it’s as if they’re deserting, but OTOH, they’re helping reduce the drain on local resources.
I also found this little video designed to explain the emergency to kids. It’s weird, scatalogical, perhaps not totally scientifically accurate, but strangely touching, as well. Ladies and gentleman — Nuclear Boy! (Japanese with English subtitles). “It would surely ruin everyone’s day if he pooped.”
EDIT: I swear to God I didn’t know who was going to post right before me.
WarMunchkin
@Punchy: I’ve been using the phrase “disaster porn” a lot recently.
geg6
My friend Dawn and her two boys are, as of last night, still in Masawa. Travel has been very difficult, if not impossible. Communications have only been slightly better. Her parents and her ex-husband are both working every angle they can to get Dawn, Alex, and Zach out of there. I’m hoping beyond hope to get a message this evening from JD, her ex, that they are on a plane home.
Any BJers who want to send positive vibes, they would be much appreciated.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Punchy:
With the GOP it is not always clear whether they want Americans to suffer and die in spectacular fashion or whether these things are merely the accidental and unfortunate byproducts of the things they truly do want. With our news media on the other hand, there is no doubt.
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
Bear in mind that if the site must be abandoned, there are approximately 11k fuel assemblies in storage that must be kept cool (for up to a decade), in addition to the 600 or so that are in the reactors.
Brachiator
Shelter from the Storm:
One of the few bright spots in this tragedy has been how the Tokyo Apple store helped keep lines of communication open for many people:
Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy
Also TEPCO has mentioned that it is possible for the fuel assemblies in #4 to achieve criticality should they melt down.
daveNYC
@Poopyman: I actually thought about the Feynman quote about learning Japanese.
freelancer
You may, but they’ll take my SHIFT key when they pry it from my cold dead hands!
Poopyman
@Comrade Mary: it’s OK, Comrade.
@daveNYC: Ha! That actually says a lot about Feynman. I love Feynman. Wish I could have had him as prof.
Angry Black Lady
@freelancer: i also adhere to the “i’m too good for capitalization” thing. it makes me feel e.e. cummings-esque.
Just Some Fuckhead
What’s the news here? You have a friend? :)
PeakVT
as far as the fukushima plant goes, of the 4 reactors 3 were active
6 reactors, though units 5-6 are slightly separated from the other 4 by about 3000 ft. Units 4-6 were down. Units 1-5 have Mark-1 containment; unit 6 has Mark-2.
/pedantic details
JenJen
That Hokusai print hangs over my fireplace in the living room. I’ve adored it since I was a little girl.
Marc McKenzie
@Angry Black Lady:
ABL, thank you very much for this. As someone who has had a life-long interest in Japan (but who still has to get his dumb a** over there!!) this has been one of the best posts on this site.
The MSM over here…really, they seem to be more doom and gloom, and could give a s**t about giving out FACTS.
jprfrog
I am a musician who worked under a Japanese conductor for 27 years. He never really learned clearly to express what he wanted in English, which made those 27 years somewhat more difficult than otherwise, and when he sat with audition committees (he had the only vote that ultimately counted) he could be maddening. I heard from people who spoke Japanese that his Japanese was not all that great either (he was born in China and didn’t see the home islands until he was 10, and his first care-giver was probably a Chinese (Mandarin-speaking) amah so that was the language he was first exposed to*, but they also acknowledged that the Japanese way of speaking (not so much the language itself but the way it is used)was not conducive to clarity.
Given the Orwellian contortions of the MSM’s language (let alone the outright falsifications of the Wingnuttery) we may be approaching that state in American English as well: e. g. radical reactionaries become “conservatives”; proto-fascists become “patriots”, and torture is “enhanced interrogation” (funny…that’s almost an exact translation of the term used by the Gestapo for the same methods).
*Music-followers can probably guess who I am talking about.
@Jenjen: That print is on the title page of the first edition of the score of Debussy’s “La Mer”; I have known it for almost 60 years.
Tokyokie
@daveNYC: I studied Japanese for several years before moving to Japan, but all that you learn in most Japanese courses in the U.S. are the most polite forms of conversation. So I’d go around using them and because I sounded so darn polite, ordinary Japanese assumed I was extremely cultured and therefore knowledgeable of Japanese, so they’d respond with slang forms that utterly confounded me. Within days, I was scared out of using Japanese in public unless absolutely necessary. (Being able to read several hundred kanji characters, however, proved most beneficial in reading train signs and the like.)
And what the original post says about the deliberate imprecision of Japanese is true as well. I did a lot of work as a copy editor for English-language operations of major Japanese news media, and we’d always want to reduce translated stories to subject-verb, only to be told it had to be modifier-modifier-subject-modifier-modifier-verb-modifier-modifier. It tended to be frustrating.
Arclite
Thanks for this post. My wife’s family is in Tokyo and we have gotten some updates, but it’s nice to hear a different perspective.
Arclite
@daveNYC: I lived in Japan for many years and learned to speak the language. You really have to let go of your American-ness and “become” Japanese in order to truly learn the language. It’s not just words and grammar but also culture, actions, feelings, food, lifestyle, and so many other things. I assume this is probably true of any language, but it’s probably easier to go from English to a European language not only because the language is more similar to English, but the culture is too.
Catsy
@Poopyman:
It comes mainly from the fact that in Japan, directness and absolute statements tend to be equated with rudeness or casual speech, while indirectness and hedging (prevarication, as said friend put it) are considered much more polite.
@daveNYC:
That Feynman blurb is funny and essentially correct, but I wouldn’t describe it as using two different words–more like using different tenses, affixes and auxilliary verbs depending on the desired level of politeness or formality and to whose actions you’re referring. But it ends up amounting to the same thing, I suppose, especially with the distinctions between words like kureru, morau, itadaku and ageru, for example.
Ming
thanks, ABL — illuminating.
alwhite
@Fuck U6: A More Accurate Measure of the Total Amount of Duck-Fuckery in the Economy:
YES! this is one point I have not heard anyone mention yet. If they lose any one of those 6 sites they lose all 6. I had no idea it was that much fuel but really – if they lose all 6 we may be looking for places to put 100+ million people.
Trentrunner
“Impeccable grammar” maybe..but I guess fuck-all when it comes to capitalization.
Sorry, just a pet peeve with the kids today.
joel hanes
the first good news I’ve heard since all this began:
they’ve brought outside power into #2
not yet hooked up and running pumps, but it’s a start …
vanya
@jprfrog:
“they also acknowledged that the Japanese way of speaking (not so much the language itself but the way it is used)was not conducive to clarity.”
Thank you,that’s exactly right. It has nothing to do with the “nature of the language,” it’s cultural. It’s possible to be very direct and precise in Japanese, just like any language, it’s just that Japanese tend to find such speech rude, or even offensive in the wrong context. Japanese engineers can be very precise and Yakuza bosses, for example, can be quite blunt. There are a lot of myths about Japan, mostly propagated by the Japanese themselves.
I would also say that the American media has been fairly responsible compared to the European media. The sober German press has been scaring Germans about the certainty of horrible nuclear disaster since the day after the quake. The French aren’t much better.
Mike M
I’ve learned several different languages from Arabic to Japanese, and in each case, the underlying culture “shows through” the language. In English, for example, we are very concerned with fine distinctions in time and there are many sophisticated forms of tense as a result. In contrast, Japanese commonly uses only the present and past tenses (there is no future tense), and you need to use more words than English if you want to be more specific about time. Yet as others have mentioned, there are many different levels of politeness and you always have to keep in mind your relationship to the person to whom you are speaking. A different verb form or a completely different word may be needed depending on whether you are speaking to your boss, a male buddy, a relative, a child, or even an animal. As you gain in language skill, you need to be quite careful because people unconsciously assume that you understand the culture and it therefore becomes much easier to unintentionally offend someone. In fact, there is a series of books that cover “Minimal Essential Politeness” for English speakers of Japanese.
Unfortunately, much gets lost trying to go the other way. I’ve noticed that in NHK World English broadcasts that the translators can be quite literal, a practice that tends to strip out any nuance in the original language and in the process, makes the translation oddly vague. As an engineer who has worked with Japanese counterparts for some two decades, I’ve become much better at understanding these subtleties, and as a result, I sometimes finding myself screaming at the screen during a simultaneous translation of a press conference complaining “that’s not really what he means!”
So yes, Hirohito’s famous speach about the Japanese surrounder sounds odd and convoluted when translated directly into English, but I have no doubt that the Japanese people knew exactly what he meant.
trollhattan
@jprfrog:
The born-in-China tidbit cleared up any doubt. Fascinating story. You’re right, we ‘murikans don’t do nuance but we sure can do code.
Nellcote
@Brachiator:
Awesome story, Thanks!
sean
Been living here in Tokyo for 16 years, about. The hyperbole flying around has been pretty insane. The day-to-day bits of daily lie are still going on, a little more confidently as time goes by. While there are some locals who are loosing it over this nuclear event, by far the greatest noise is coming from the foreign community. The worst part is time I have to spend reassuring family & friends back is the US, who hear nothing more than doom & gloom. To put matters into a little perspective, there was an M7 quake in 1896 in the same are where they had 38 meter tsunamis (~125 feet).
So things could have been significantly worse. Here in Tokyo where the effects have been minimal, we are all thankful. But all the rumors running around DO NOT HELP.
Prasad
Not only America but also other countries should help Japan to recover that country early
DBrown
I’m very uncomfortable with their statement about the pump operator and that being a major cause of the system failure – that needs to be confirmed and even then, not sure it is completely accurate without more information and cross confirmation of motivations.
I’ve learned some good lessons on careful detailed study of problems before stating conclusions (thanks to BJ and some posters) and realize that not all is as it appears when more detailed and abstract technical details are not known or easily available.
DBrown
aLwhite:
Relative to the long-term plans by the Japanese experts and government, no one can know until they decide on actions and release those decisions but it is impossible for this situation to be come like a Chernobyl class accident – completely different core and fuel assemblies so an accident that could spread significant and wide-ranging radioactive contamination over significant areas is impossible. This is true even if the reactors where “Abandon” in place with just a cap system – something that I do not believe would occur or even be considered by the Japanese.
My guess for worst case is that the “lost cause’ reactors would be well “entombed” and that could led to ground water issues in time but little atmospheric venting or danger to the surrounding area and frankly, I just can’t see them giving up but that would be worst case.
More likely, this will go on with very limited (but locally dangerous) venting until they really get cooling up to speed in a manner that tends to reduce venting. Then the radioactive releases will fall allowing better cooling leading to better control and more cooling. Then the situation will be more rapidly brought under complete control (and not necessarily as fast as we would like) so the site will be, in time, be cleaned up.
As far as I understand the physics and dangers of these reactors, it appears to have zero chance to be a major threat to “greater Japan” and very little chance that even temporary dangerous levels could hit Tokyo. My limited knowledge and best educated guesses – others with better knowledge or more details may differ but those are my best guesses on what could/would occur.
DBrown
One thing that puzzles me is why they are using water dropped from helicopters … it mostly misses because of the “forward momentum” of the water. rather, with all the snow nearby, why not take ten tons of heavily packed snow and drop that onto the reactor via helicopter. That would fall with a very well known trajectory and landing on the reactor upper works, could both “cap” and as it melted, pour water exactly where needed? A few loads of this packed snow would create not only the required water the reactor needs (and feed it faster as heat levels increased) but it would slow the release of radioactive gases (both by its physical “capping” and by absorption.)
With the area’s cold temperatures (the snow would survive for long periods for both transport and as a cap), nearby snowfields, this would appear to be the better option rather then “liquid water”.
tom p
My neice is staying for now. She and the other refugees with her are being kicked off the air base tho because it is ramping up relief efforts and need the space, so they are moving to a hotel. She is a person of faith and feels that God placed her in Sendai at this time for a reason, so she needs to stay and help, unless things reach a “point of detrimental chaos”
Paul in KY
@DBrown: I’ve been thinking ‘why only 2 helicopters’. I know they have many more. Is it because only 2 crews would volunteer to do it?
I would have 50 of them going.
tom p
A short video about them from DVIDS.