My compliment to the Shinagawa ward!

Today I had found out for the first time what actually the height is of the place I am living. Actually I cannot talk much about height or being much above sea level, because we are just 2m above. In the past I had not seen any of this kind of easily understandable signs in the street, like shown in the picture below, but recently the ward I am living in Tokyo Shinagawa had been proactive and signed quite a bit of the Shinagawa area closer to the Ocean. Having all this talks about finding new earthquake faults – especially the one’s connected to Mount Fuji – forces everyone to truly consider the worst case scenario of another bigger earthquake looming in the near future. Instead of panicking, I truly appreciate the Japanese proactive approach of trying to prepare for the unthinkable.

After having moved to Shinagawa almost 3 years ago, I became more aware about the interesting environment I am living in. Few minutes walk away there is the old route to Kyoto: Tokaido (東海道 East Sea Road), which was the major road from old Edo Tokyo to Kyoto. In one of the walks in my neighbourhood I came across the two pictures showing the vast reclaimed land from 1912 as shown in the top small picture and then compared to 1995 below. You can actually see the darker clusters close, but not too to close to the sea, where the Todaido road was heading south towards Kyoto. Contrary nowadays Shinagawa has become a busy place with lots of new land created for offices, homes and some production plants. Just within 80 years it seems to me a completely different world.

Although in the worst case scenario a Tsunami might be reaching the area I am living, still for me it is a truly cosy place to live. Thanks Shinagawa ward to keep us prepared for the non-preparable worst case event!

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A helping hand is badly needed in Japan

Today I stumbled upon some further news that makes me again speechless. Personally I had been impressed about growth of kizuna (絆, Japanese word meaning “bond with others”) after the disaster of last year. So many people were volunteering or just simply trying to make life easier for everyone. Now as time has passed it seems that quite a bit of people are falling through the cracks, even though Japanese society still values and practices kizuna.
According to an article of Mainichi Shimbun in the aftermath of the last year’s disaster a government-subsidized free telephone consultation service was started. In the meantime due to increased social problems the line got so overloaded, that only after 20 attempts on average a person can get to talk to a consultant. About 20,000 calls are received per day, but only about 1,200 of them get connected. Based on the Mainichi Shimbun article this 24h service is called “Yorisoi (staying together) Hotline” and is operated by the Shakaiteki Hosetsu (social inclusion) Support Center. Calls about issues like poverty, unemployment and bullying are supported. In the meantime 38 call centers located throughout Japan were created.
Most shocking for me is that based on the information from Mainichi Shimbun about 70 percent of problems concern basic needs of a human being: Poverty and solitude, with many of the callers in their 30s to 50s. Examples are: “I lost my house after I became unemployed,” “There is no point in living” and “I just wanted to talk with someone.” While there is in the media the bashing of Namapo, reading these cited examples hurts my heart. A man in his 30s had lost his job, applied for welfare, but when calling for help at this hotline, he said: “I have no money and haven’t eaten anything for days.” Due to the worn out voice, the consultant judged right that the man was in a life-threatening condition. Contacts then from a local support center delivered some food to the caller. The man was truly grateful, especially as “no one had helped me before even though I consulted some offices.” The overview below shows the common reasons why someone is calling the support center (graph from Mainichi Shimbun)

Other support function are:
- 20% of consultations are about suicide (link to previous article on this blog)
- 6% of consultations are about violence against women and sexual issues.

It hurts me that the Japanese society, who is known globally for friendliness has ended up at a stage where so many people are starving, lonely, unheard… simply left on their own. I am left wondering how many people are falling through the cracks and no one in their environment might even know.

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What a bleak outlook from Japan inside out!

Last weeks had been rather discouraging for me, because it seemed to me that in general news have become so bleak in Japan. Instead of what could be done, from my perspective the common mood is how bad the situation in regard to Japan got and that it might get worse. Where did the optimism or hope go? So far I had assumed that I must be wrong, but I stumbled today upon a recent poll done by the Pew Center’s annual Global Attitude Project (700 telephone interviews between March 20 and April 12). According to the Asahi Shimbun the poll showed widespread pessimism: Some 78 percent of the people are unhappy with the direction of the country, and 93 percent perceive the economy to be in a bad state. This figures are shocking for me and I am at loss with words.
Last year after the disaster Japan was more optimistic. Most people hoped this awful tragedy could be turned into something positive: 59 percent believed the disasters would make Japan stronger. Now a year later only 39 percent still hold that view and almost half of the population 47 percent believe the disaster has made the country weaker.
Furthermore the general public has a very low opinion of the government and the media. Only 12 percent see the central Japanese government as having a positive influence on the country, while present Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is viewed positively by only 30 percent. As for the media, only 34 percent see a positive impact, while the majority with 63 percent have a dark outlook. For me interesting is that instead of seeing increased grassroot activities, the general public is expecting others to take the way. Based on the comment of Asahi Shimbun:

“In the wake of the disaster, distrust of the government and mainstream media has grown amid the perception that authorities were not being forthright with the public – and that the media outlets weren’t doing enough to investigate or hold authorities accountable.”

Interestingly I have heard this viewpoint quite often this year in discussion with Japanese. I find a lot of people yearning for change, but when I ask directly about what they have done on a personal level I get a confused look back. It seems commonly understood that it is better to wait for a “leader”, who will tell what is best to be done next. Starting on a personal level seems out of question.
I hope a taxi driver was recently joking when he asked me to lead Japan to change. I strongly believe if Japanese society wants lasting change it has to come from within and not from an “outsider”. Time has moved on and a Black Ship will not make any changes these days.

Brought to you by Sibylle Ito (伊藤シビル)

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Interest for Japan is increasing!

Recently the interest in topics related to Japan has been increasing… or this is what I had thought. Last few weeks I had been really surprised and happy to find that overall the access from outside sources to this blog had increased a lot. Over night it had quadrupled. I was even assuming that Japan was moving up on the global popularity list and interest in regard to business with Japan was regaining its previous strength…
I had been wrong. By a lovely reader of this blog I had been informed that my articles are published one to one on a different site. I had no idea, nor had I been informed previously. Quite many of my articles of this year were copied several times at Japan Blog.
I had emailed and added comments to my articles, but no response. Should I be angry because someone just copy pastes my thoughts to their blog? Or should I be happy that I am perceived as so good, definitely worthwhile to be copied word by word? Right now I am simply considering the last one, because I must be truly amazing

If ever Japan Blog bothers to consider my side of the story: How about informing me that you are copying my articles word by word? I just consider it fair.

Brought to you by Sibylle Ito (伊藤シビル)

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