It's been one week now, almost exactly, since the quake that started all of this and, while eastern Japan has not recovered, here in the west of Japan we are still barely affected by the disaster. Despite all the fear of radioactive fallout, radiation levels hardly rose in Tokyo and are on the low end of normal here in the Osaka prefecture. Kansai Gaidai keeps this table updated and easy to see (although it's always about 24 hours behind) to try and keep the foreign students from panicking.
A lost cause if you ask me. The French government has pulled out all their students (except one who refused to leave) and most other European countries are doing the same. The US Consulate issued a travel warning for eastern Japan, and is providing free transport out of Japan to US citizens in Tokyo, but has not recommended that US citizens leave Japan altogether. However, when the US announced that they are providing this transportation out of Japan, people all over the world started to panic and even more American schools decided to bring their students home, even from Osaka and other unaffected areas.
It seems to me like this is a little late. This morning, power was restored to at least one of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, and it shouldn't be long before all the reactors have functioning cooling systems again. (Japanese Newspapers have not translated the news into English yet, and I'm a little wary of what any other country has to say about this, but here's a link anyway).
So why are so many schools terminating students' programs now? Why did these students have to stay in Japan this past week and deal with the anxiety and the stress of not understanding the media only to be taken home when things are getting better? It makes no sense to me. Everything is so normal here, it's hard to believe how bad things are in Tokyo.
If I listen to reliable news sources instead of my classmates I can easily remain calm, realizing that all I can do is wait and see what will happen. Unfortunately, most of the foreign students have not figured this out and are freaking out; many of them are choosing to go home, and seem to think the fact other people are going home is a reason they should go home too. It is like a contagious disease, all it takes is a few people going home to make the majority of the remaining students panic and think they should leave too. And the US Consulate's travel warning did not help, even though it never says anything about leaving western Japan.
At this point, most of my friends have gone home. Some intend to return after spring break, but others do not and some have not yet decided. I don't know which of my friends will be back to take midterms with me and which of my friends I will never see again and, for me, this is one of the hardest things about this whole situation. I know that things are a lot worse in eastern Japan but, for us here in Osaka, the thing that has had the worst negative impact on us personally is people's inability to control their fear. We are not directly affected by the quakes, tsunamis, nuclear fallout, rolling blackouts, lack of food and fuel or any of it. So why are people so scared? Why is everyone going home?
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| This data comes from the Ministry of Education of Japan (click on image to view larger) |
A lost cause if you ask me. The French government has pulled out all their students (except one who refused to leave) and most other European countries are doing the same. The US Consulate issued a travel warning for eastern Japan, and is providing free transport out of Japan to US citizens in Tokyo, but has not recommended that US citizens leave Japan altogether. However, when the US announced that they are providing this transportation out of Japan, people all over the world started to panic and even more American schools decided to bring their students home, even from Osaka and other unaffected areas.
It seems to me like this is a little late. This morning, power was restored to at least one of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, and it shouldn't be long before all the reactors have functioning cooling systems again. (Japanese Newspapers have not translated the news into English yet, and I'm a little wary of what any other country has to say about this, but here's a link anyway).
So why are so many schools terminating students' programs now? Why did these students have to stay in Japan this past week and deal with the anxiety and the stress of not understanding the media only to be taken home when things are getting better? It makes no sense to me. Everything is so normal here, it's hard to believe how bad things are in Tokyo.
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| Kansai Gaidai Japanese Garden at Night |
If I listen to reliable news sources instead of my classmates I can easily remain calm, realizing that all I can do is wait and see what will happen. Unfortunately, most of the foreign students have not figured this out and are freaking out; many of them are choosing to go home, and seem to think the fact other people are going home is a reason they should go home too. It is like a contagious disease, all it takes is a few people going home to make the majority of the remaining students panic and think they should leave too. And the US Consulate's travel warning did not help, even though it never says anything about leaving western Japan.
One of the things that surprises me most about all of this, is how it's not only Americans who trust the US government. Suddenly I'm aware that a lot of people are looking to the US government and -- even more surprising-- US citizens, for guidance. A few days ago, I was talking to one of my friends from South Korea, Sarah, and she asked if I was going home. I said no I was not, and that most Americans weren't (which was true at the time), and she said she wasn't going home either but, if American's started to go home, she would probably go too and she didn't think she was the only one who would have that response either. And one of my other Korean friends, Jung won, responded to my statement that most Americans were not going home by saying that "Americans are strong." Which really surprised me because I think of Americans as weak and easily scared. It seems like somehow the fact that I'm an American and I choose to stay in Japan is reassuring, although I don't know why. But, unfortunately, it's become significantly less reassuring after the US issued it's travel warning and so many other US students began to leave, either because they or their family's were scared or because their schools made them go home.
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