"Almost 25% of those who died due to illness or stress after 3/11 had disabilities" -AND- I want to know why they are using this photo with the story?

Caption: A woman prays at a beach in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, on March 11, 2019. | KYODO

Image and text from The Japan Times, 3/2/2020.

Nearly a quarter of those who died of illness or stress linked to the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the hardest-hit prefectures were people with disabilities, a Kyodo News survey released Sunday showed.

Disabled people accounted for 24.6 percent of total “disaster-related deaths” in Fukushima, Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, far above their 7 percent representation among the population as a whole as estimated by the health ministry.

It is also much higher than the around 14 percent who were aged over 65, many of whom died after the disaster on March 11, 2011, because of deteriorating health and living conditions in shelters and other evacuation facilities.

The survey, which targeted 42 municipalities in the prefectures affected by the quake, tsunami and ensuing nuclear crisis, was carried out ahead of the ninth anniversary of the disaster.

The number of people who died of indirectly related causes totaled 1,500 in the 32 municipalities that responded to the survey.

Of the total, 370 were people with disabilities, of whom 352 had a physical disability.

“Some couldn’t go to crowded evacuation centers and lived in physically challenging conditions, inside large vehicles or on the second floor of inundated houses, for example,” said Kazuhiko Abe, a Tohoku Fukushi University professor.

“Temporary housing was highly stressful, too,” Abe said, noting that many such facilities were not designed to accommodate people with physical disabilities.

The survey showed the lasting impact of the ordeal on such communities.

“We need to set up a framework so that disabled people won’t be left without assistance,” the professor said.

As of Sept. 30 last year, there had been 3,739 deaths in total across the country caused by stress or illness that was worsened due to the disaster, according to the Reconstruction Agency. About 60 percent of them were reported in Fukushima Prefecture, which was at the center of the nuclear crisis.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/02/national/disabled-311-earthquake-tsunami-disaster-deaths-survey/

This is what was waiting for me in my office at school after the recent earthquake in Osaka...

It could have been much worse as seen here. I went around and took photos of the damage in some of my colleagues' offices, especially those who are currently out of the country. Something for them to look forward to when they return (insert sad/sarcastic emoji here).

Link to news about the earthquake (The Japan Times, 6/18/18): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/06/18/national/strong-m5-9-temblor-reaching-lower-6-japan-scale-rocks-northern-osaka/

Link to "Osaka earthquake: Useful links and resources (The Japan Times, 6/18/18): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/06/18/national/osaka-earthquake-useful-links-resources/

My dissertation was damaged and an important teaching folder has disappeared. The biggest casualty was a souvenir from Germany.

My office now smells like old Hefeweizen...

UPDATE: "Local authorities say more than 6,000 structures were damaged in recent Osaka earthquake" (The Japan Times, 6/25/18): https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/06/25/national/local-authorities-say-6000-structures-damaged-recent-osaka-earthquake/

Interesting new content at Japan Focus: "On Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923" by Gennifer Weisenfeld

Image and text borrowed from Japan Focus (see full citation below). 

Caption reads: Taishō 12.9.1 Actual Conditions of the Great Tokyo Earthquake: Twelve Stories.

Disaster is an ever-present, and ever-timely, issue both in Japan and around the world. The triple disaster of 3.11 and its extensive media coverage are a vivid reminder not only of disaster’s critical and catalytic role in history, but the dynamic agency of images in mediating our experiences of natural or man-made events to produce that history. The 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, which devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures, was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Having marked the 91th anniversary of the quake on September 1st, we have an opportunity to learn anew from the media scale of this catastrophe, how different media produce modes of seeing, understanding, and, eventually, remembering. Only by analyzing contending visual responses within disaster communities and how they are codified into collective memory to form a national narrative can we ultimately understand how major events like the Great Kantō Earthquake—or 3.11—become history.

Disaster is an ever-present, and ever-timely, issue both in Japan and around the world. The triple disaster of 3.11 and its extensive media coverage are a vivid reminder not only of disaster’s critical and catalytic role in history, but the dynamic agency of images in mediating our experiences of natural or man-made events to produce that history. The 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, which devastated the major cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, as well as five other surrounding prefectures, was one of the world’s worst natural disasters of the early twentieth century. In terms of loss of life and material damage, with an estimated 140,000 deaths and countless homeless, it is still Japan’s worst national disaster. Having marked the 91th anniversary of the quake on September 1st, we have an opportunity to learn anew from the media scale of this catastrophe, how different media produce modes of seeing, understanding, and, eventually, remembering. Only by analyzing contending visual responses within disaster communities and how they are codified into collective memory to form a national narrative can we ultimately understand how major events like the Great Kantō Earthquake—or 3.11—become history.

Read and see more at the source: "On Imaging Disaster: Tokyo and the Visual Culture of Japan’s Great Earthquake of 1923", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 6, No. 2, February 9, 2015. http://japanfocus.org/-Gennifer-Weisenfeld/4270

Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters (JDA): New Content and Features for 2013

Announcement from H-Japan:

The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters has launched a new front page, along with new content and features that enhance the usefulness and accessibility of the archive.

The front page now includes:

Links to an overview of the archive, a list of partner organizations, and navigational help, available in both English and Japanese.

A stream of recently uploaded "Collections," or user-curated exhibitions of archived items.

New content includes:

A "Translate" button that allows users to add their own translations of item descriptions, in any preferred language.

Images and full-text news articles from the Asahi Newspaper Company’s English-language “Asia & Japan Watch” website.

Japanese headlines from a variety of other news sources such as the Jiji Press and the Mainichi, Yomiuri, and Sankei newspapers.

Japanese news broadcast videos from NHK.

New website content updated almost daily.

In addition, two upcoming features will be available in the early fall:

A bookmarklet that can be dragged to the browser toolbar to add content to the archive from any web page.

A presentation editor that will allow users to build interactive multimedia presentations out of materials in the archive.

We hope these updates enhance the content, design, and interactivity of the JDA. If you have any feedback or examples of how you have used the archive, please feel free to contact us.

The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters project is an initiative of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in collaboration with several partners. We aim to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of the digital record of the disasters as possible, to enable scholarly research and analysis of the events and their effect.

url: jdarchive.org

"Unclaimed predisaster photos seek home"

Photo and text from The Japan News, 7/15/13

Hundreds of thousands of photographs were recovered from areas hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, yet most of them still have not been claimed by their owners.

Because many disaster victims are far from having resumed their former lives, the photographs have largely gone unclaimed despite being put on public display. But while the victims have been struggling to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives, the visual records of their predisaster memories have been slowly deteriorating.

A team of volunteers has been tasked with holding such treasured belongings until their owners reclaim them. The team has been actively preserving the photos, such as by cleaning and digitizing them.

Yutaro Hashimoto, a 65-year-old tuna fisherman who visited a photo storage center in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, was overjoyed when he found a photo of his grandchild. Clutching the photo in his hand, he said, “I never dreamed that I would ever see this again. I’ll take good care of it.”

All his family members survived the disaster, but his house, which was located in a coastal area, was washed away by the tsunami, leaving behind only its foundation.

His 63-year-old wife, Kazuko, smiled and said, “It’s a blessing that even a single item from our house still remains.”

Self-Defense Forces personnel and volunteers delivered about 100,000 photos recovered from the debris to the storage center, which opened in January last year.

The center also stores other personal items, including trophies, medals, certificates of awards, school bags and professional certificates.

Four full-time staffers have been cleaning the items with ink brushes and other tools. So far, they have taken close-up shots of about 95,000 recovered photos as part of the digitization project. Of them, about 28,000 photos have been returned to their owners.

However, the center sees only one or two visitors a day. Though the volunteers visit meeting places at temporary housing complexes to return photos, only a small number of disaster victims actually visit the storage center.

One of the staffers said: “More than two years after the disaster, there are still many people who can’t think about things like photos yet. There are also people who can’t make it to our center because they are elderly or they live elsewhere.”

On Wednesday, the staffers launched a website where people can search the unclaimed photos.

In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, about 850,000 photos were recovered. But only about 120,000 of them have been returned to owners.

In many cases, the photos were buried under debris. The city government began a photo restoration project in July last year.

The cleaning and restoration work has been taking place at Omoide no Shashin Dejitaru Kokai Center, located inside a disposal site for disaster waste.

But only 10 to 20 people a month have visited the center.

In Sendai, about 90,000 of more than 250,000 recovered photos were returned.

Omoide-kaeru, a volunteer organization entrusted with the task by the city government, held an exhibition in March at a local facility, putting its collection of photos on display.

The volunteers inserted leaflets about the exhibition in brochures for disaster victims. At the center, volunteers used face recognition software to search for photos containing faces that resemble those of the visitors making inquiries.

During the 11-day exhibition, the volunteers succeeded in finding the owners of about 37,000 photos.

As the organization cannot operate an ongoing exhibition with the subsidies and donations which it receives, the next exhibition has been scheduled for August.

About 500 cardboard boxes containing about 160,000 photos have been stored inside a greenhouse lent free of charge by a farmer.

But the volunteers said the photos have been deteriorating, since the temperature inside the greenhouse tends to be high.

Kaori Nose, 38, the head of the organization, said, “Many disaster victims are still struggling to rebuild their daily lives. Sometime in the future, when it's the right time for them to recall old memories, people will want the photos back. Because of that, we plan to continue our activities.”

Preservation tips

Photos soaked in seawater can easily deteriorate with time.

According to Tokyo-based Fujifilm Corp., which has been helping with photo cleaning and preservation in disaster-hit areas, the surface of lab-printed photos is coated with a layer of industrial-strength gelatin.

The main component of the gelatin is collagen, which is extracted from the bones of cattle and pigs. As bacteria in seawater can break down the gelatin, printed photos may begin to degrade in as little as three to four days.

A company official said, “If a photo has been accidentally soaked in seawater, the best treatment is to wash it in warm water at 20 C to 30 C as soon as possible, and then let it dry in a cool place.”

The company provides detailed instructions on the process on its website.

Source: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0000374408

New Resource: Great Kantō Earthquake Japan, September 1923 Image Site

Announcement from H-Japan:

The Great Kanto Earthquake Japan of 1923 provides access to 199 images from a historical album of still photos captured destruction by the deadliest earthquake occurred on September 1st, 1923.

The project was funded by the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library and the National Research Center, East Asia Grant (NRC-EA).

http://digicoll.manoa.hawaii.edu/earthquake/

Teaching 3.11 in 2013

3.11 continues to influence and impact Japanese society and culture. This semester in Contemporary Japanese Culture and Globalization class we spent a whole week (two class sessions) on the subject. The complexity of the subject can be illustrated by the sheer amount of research and articles dealing with the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster. Here are a list of sources that we were only able to scratch the surface of:

Visual 3/11 Materials at VAOJ 

http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.jp/2011/10/visual-311-materials.html

Teach 3.11

http://teach311.wordpress.com/

Digital Archives of Japan's 2011 Disasters

http://www.jdarchive.org/en/home

Japan Earthquake at Nagasaki Archive

http://e.nagasaki.mapping.jp/p/japan-earthquake.html 

Beyond 3.11 - Stories of Recovery

http://www.nhk.or.jp/japan311/311-disaster2.html

Japan's 3.11 Earthquake, Tsunami, Atomic Meltdown at Japan Focus

http://japanfocus.org/japans-3.11-earthquake-tsunami-atomic-meltdown 

In the first class sessions students presented a timeline of the 3.11 events and discussed details of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster from the sources above. One student talked about his friend's experiences during the disasters and another student talked about his volunteer activities in the Tohoku.

The first class session covered a lot of information and set the scene for the second class session featuring a guest lecture from my former student, Ryoko Higashi, who experienced 3.11 in Ibaraki prefecture. Ms. Higashi talked about the earthquake itself and the damage it caused to her work place and home. She talked about her lack of food and water and her eventual evacuation from the area. This was the first time we had an actual 3.11 survivor speak in class and Ms. Higashi's presentation provided a whole new perspective on the subject and was very much appreciated by all. Today for the first time we were able to move beyond questions of how and why to what we can learn from the experiences and how we can live our lives to the fullest from now on. Many thanks to Ms. Higashi and all of my students. 

"Filmmaker captures the 3/11 stress of Tohoku’s deaf"

Image borrowed from Studio Aya.

 Story from Japan Times, 3/10/13, by Tomoko Otake:

Nobuko Kikuchi, a 72-year-old resident of Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, couldn’t hear the emergency sirens that followed the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011.

Nor could she hear the public announcement urging people to evacuate to higher ground as a massive tsunami approached the coast of northeastern Japan’s Tohoku region.

Kikuchi is deaf. She owes her life to a neighbor who came to alert her. Kikuchi narrowly escaped the monster wave, which uprooted and washed away her house.

In another part of the city, a deaf couple who ran a beauty salon survived — though nobody came knocking on their door. After the quake, they smelled a “strange odor” and ran up to the second floor of their house. But after the tsunami swept through their house, destroying all the equipment in their salon on the first floor, the couple spent a lonely night alone. They had no information about the scale of the disaster or where they could go to get help.

Such horrific experiences of the Great East Japan Earthquake fill “3.11 Without Sound — There Were Deaf People in the Disaster Area, Too,” a 23-minute documentary recently released by deaf filmmaker Ayako Imamura.

Nagoya-based Imamura, 33, has made seven visits to Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate prefectures since the disaster, meeting and interviewing victims there.

Her film is a bitter reminder of how people with disabilities are neglected during disasters and denied access to the kind of information that can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Statistics on the number of deaf and hearing-impaired people affected by the disaster are hard to come by. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, which has a department serving people with disabilities, will only say that as of May 2011, 14 deaf and hard-of-hearing people in Miyagi Prefecture were killed by the tsunami/quake. A total of 736 others were confirmed to have survived. 

The ministry has no data for such casualties in Iwate and Fukushima prefectures.

In the film, Imamura cites a report by public broadcaster NHK that puts the number of fatalities among deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the three prefectures at 75.

Imamura, who has shot numerous documentaries on Japan’s deaf community, met and interviewed several deaf and hearing-impaired people in Tohoku, including Kikuchi, who the film focuses on.

In an interview filmed in an evacuation shelter one month after the disaster, Kikuchi breaks down as she explains she can’t hear any of the announcements on food rationing and other assistance — no one has thought to take her special needs into consideration.

She and her husband, Tokichi (who is also deaf), had no other way of keeping track of new developments than by watching hearing evacuees.

“If they see other people lining up, they would follow suit, assuming some aid item would be handed out,” Imamura says in the film. “It’s a huge form of stress for her, and she has no time to relax all day.”

Kikuchi regains some semblance of normalcy over time. She looks much better in August 2011, when Imamura visits her at an apartment-style temporary housing facility, into which the couple moved that May. Nicely coiffed and made-up, Kikuchi smiles as she teaches her granddaughter how to make key chains with colorful plastic beads. The temporary dwelling has the basic necessities — a TV set, air-conditioning and a yellow light to let the couple know when they have visitors. But then a hearing film crew member notices that a fishmonger has just passed — without bothering to tell the Kikuchis.

Imamura visits her again on Dec. 25, 2011. Kikuchi looks pleasantly surprised, showing off many donated sweaters that she was given at a Christmas charity event. But her expression clouds again — conveying to the filmmaker through sign language her feelings of insecurity about her future. Kikuchi says she doesn’t know how much longer the situation will continue. She tells Imamura she is alone now, because Tokichi was hospitalized the previous month.

Now that she’s finished the movie, which is subtitled in English, Korean and Portuguese, Imamura says everyone living in Japan should have equal access to vital information, regardless of disability or nationality. Tsunami warnings should be sent to all mobile phone users, she says, using handsets’ vibration setting to send emergency alerts to both deaf and blind people. Imamura says all public announcements should be made in simple Japanese and in various languages.

“There are many people in society — hearing people, hard-of-hearing people, blind people, people in wheelchairs and foreigners,” Imamura says in an email. “The message I want to get across in all of my films is that a society where all these people are able to live the life they want to live is a very rich one.”

Source: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2013/03/10/films/filmmaker-captures-the-311-stress-of-tohokus-deaf/#.UT1MKBnU5FR

Imamura recently lectured about her films at NPO Deaf Support Osaka (2/11/13).

Imamura Ayako Official Website: http://studioaya.com/english/index.html#profile

Related VAOJ posts:

"Aichi director records the deaf's stories" 

http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/01/aichi-director-records-deafs-stories.html

Filmmaker Imamura Lecture in Hirakata-shi 

http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.jp/2012/05/filmmaker-imamura-lecture-in-hirakata.html 

"Google to photograph street views of evacuated town in Fukushima"

From Japan Today, 3/8/11:

It wasn’t just the earthquake or tsunami of March 11, 2011 that shattered the town of Namie in Fukushima Prefecture; it was the subsequent radiation. Slowly creeping across the once fertile land, it ripped families from their homes and banished them to evacuation centers elsewhere. Today, nearly two years after the worse nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, the entire 86 square miles of Namie have been declared uninhabitable due to high levels of radioactive cesium. Even if families wanted to return, they can’t.

Amid this tragic loss, Google Street View is giving the people of Namie a chance to visit the town they were forced to flee.

The Street View project was requested by Tamotsu Baba, the mayor of Namie town. Baba explains in the video below, “By photographing the town and making those photographs publicly available, we can show the townspeople the condition of the streets. In addition, I want to show the world the true state of Namie.”

Photographing will take several weeks and Google hopes to make the images available to the public in the coming months. It seems that Namie, formerly described as “the forgotten town” in popular Japanese magazine, Bungei ShunjuI, will no longer be forgotten thanks to the efforts of Google and Mayor Baba.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/google-to-photograph-street-views-of-evacuated-town-in-fukushima

Film Screening: "Nuclear Nation"

Announcement from H-Japan:

Date: Wednesday, November 28th, at 18:30
Place: University of Tokyo, Collaboration Room 3 (4F), Building 18, Komaba Campus.
Film Length: 96 minutes. Subtitles: English. Trailer
Language: English | No registration required
Director: Funahashi Atsushi, Documentary Japan
Discussant: Sato Yoshiaki

Description
While the Japanese government announced that the Tohoku nuclear crisis has been "stabilized" in November of 2011, the 20 km no-entry zone around the leaking plant in Fukushima remains in effect. Today, over a year after the disaster, there are as yet no plans for the thousands of evacuated residents to return home.

Director Funahashi Atsushi's film Nuclear Nation tells the story of Futaba, a small town inside the Fukushima no-entry zone. Located just 4 km from the nuclear plant, Futaba was evacuated in the early days of the crisis, as the plant operator struggled to bring the triple meltdown under control. Over 1,400 residents were relocated to an unused high school in Saitama, where they faced an unknown future.

Nuclear Nation patiently explores the lives of the town's refugees, in their search for both justice and a way forward. Through extensive interviews with former residents and local officials, the film gives a history of the invisible nuclear economy in Japan that is both lucid and highly revealing.

In the tradition of the best of Japanese documentary cinema, Funahashi has gone to extraordinary lengths to depict the situation of the Fukushima refugees, to communicate their voices, and to interrogate the promises and contradictions of the government's energy policy at the level of everyday life.

We are pleased invite you to join us for this special screening, to be followed by a discussion and Q & A with the director.

Funahashi Atsushi is an independent filmmaker working in both dramatic and documentary modes. His first films — Echoes (2001) and Big River (2006) — were produced while Funahashi lived in the United States. After returning to Japan in 2007, he has directed Deep in the Valley (2009), Nuclear Nation (2012), and Cold Bloom (2012). Funahashi's work has received wide critical attention and screenings at numerous international film festivals.

Prof. Sato Yoshiaki has taught American Literature and Popular Music in the Department of Culture and Representation at the University of Tokyo, Komaba. His publications include The Evolution of J-POP (1999) and What Was the Beatles? (2006). A distinguished translator, Prof. Sato has translated Gregory Bateson's Mind and Nature and Steps to an Ecology of Mind into Japanese. At present, he is translating the completed novels of Thomas Pynchon.

For more information: http://utcp.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/events/2012/11/film_screening_nuclear_nation/index_en.php

"Documentary profiles children in post-March 11 Japan"

Photo and text borrowed from Japan Today, 10/10/12.

Communities in northeastern Japan are still struggling to come to terms with last year’s compound disasters. But what about the children of the region? Are they able to move on and look ahead to the future? That is the question behind the upcoming short documentary “Kore Kara” (meaning “from now on” in Japanese). 

The 30-minute film brings together profiles of children and teens living in Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture, one of the many areas that were hit hard by the March 11 tsunami. 

“Originally, the purpose of the film was to point out the necessity for more attention to children’s needs and counseling following a natural disaster,” says Tokyo-based journalist Kevin Mcgue, who is producing the film. “But after meeting some kids in the affected areas, we discovered they have a powerful message to share not only with other children in Japan, but with the world.”

The focus of the documentary changed to a more positive stance. Rather than having the children recount their traumatic experiences of March 11, 2011, the filmmakers asked them to talk about their hopes and dreams for the future. 

“Meeting these brave kids was an eye opener,” says director Ivy Oldford. “Most of the responses we got from them were different from what I expected—in a good way.” Having survived the disaster, many of the children express wishes to become nurses or rescue workers in order to help others.

Despite living in an area that is still rebuilding more than a year after the devastating tsunami, the children featured in the film urge a positive attitude. “I want people to treasure each day,” says a high school student in the film. “People want to put things off until tomorrow, but for some people ‘tomorrow’ didn’t come because of the natural disaster. So you have to value today.”

The filmmakers plan to make the documentary available with multilingual subtitles to schools both in Japan and around the world. They hope teachers can share with their students the powerful message that even the youngest members of society can overcome a natural disaster and see beyond to the bright future they create for themselves.

The filmmakers also plan to hold screenings in affected areas in Tohoku and in Tokyo. They are raising funds to cover costs relating to holding screenings and making DVDs and teacher guides at http://www.indiegogo.com/korekaraproject.

Screenings are planned for Tokyo in December and January. Screening dates will be posted on the Facebook page as they are set. For more information on the documentary, visit http://www.facebook.com/korekaraproject.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/documentary-profiles-children-in-post-march-11-japan

Filmmaker Imamura Lecture in Hirakata-shi

Ayako Imamura recently visited Hirakata-shi and gave a lecture about her filmmaking sctivities. She showed film clips from her work with deaf people in the Tohoku region affected by the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami. Deaf people were the last to know about the disaster as it was happening and had difficulties getting important information afterwards. They were also affected psychologically as they had no one they could talk to in sign language. The importance of communication in terms of sharing information, cooperation and emotional support was a major theme in Imamura's lecture. She talked about the ironic situation where able-bodied deaf people could not get adequate information and thus were unable to assist other people. On the other hand there were hearing people in wheelchairs and such that could understand the information but needed help themselves. Hearing and deaf people need to be able to communicate with one another during emergencies and in their normal life activities. 

This theme also plays out in Imamura's latest film, 珈琲とエンピツ ("Coffee and Pencil"), about a deaf surfer and coffee shop owner who is not only a master of the waves and java, but in communicating with all kinds of people as well. See details in the links below.

For more photos from the event:

Link to Imamura Lecture Photo Album: https://picasaweb.google.com/112208031958020045910/Imamura

For more information about Imamura's films:

Link to Studio AYA Official website (in Japanese): http://studioaya.com/

Poster borrowed from Seven Theater Website.

Link to "Coffee and Pencil" Official website (in Japanese and English): http://coffee-to-enpitsu.com/

The film is showing daily between now and June 1 at  12:30 and 14:00 at the Seven Theater in Osaka.

Link to Seven Theater website (for film schedule and theater information): http://www.theater-seven.com/2012/movie_coffee-to-enpitsu.html

Collaborative Film Project: "Japan in a Day"

Check out (and contribute!) to this interesting collaborative film project. Here's the description quoted from the Japan in a Day YouTube Channel:

Japan in a Day. One Nation. 24 hours. Millions of perspectives.

Japan In A Day is an extraordinary project to create the definitive self-portrait of Japan today, filmed by you on 11 March 2012, inspired by Life in a Day. It is dedicated, with our deepest sympathy, to those who lost their lives and those who are suffering as a result of the earthquake and tsunami that struck east Japan last year.

At 00:00 on Sunday 11 March 2012, Ridley Scott and Fuji TV invite you to capture the reality and intimacy of your day and to upload it here at www.youtube.com/japaninaday.

The resulting film will be a powerful and moving snapshot of Japan today, which will premiere in cinemas, and be screened around the world.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/user/Japaninaday/

Be sure to check out the Basic Rules tab for advice on methodology. Of particular interest:

It's generally OK to film in public places without permission. But in privately owned locations, make sure the owner of the location is OK with you filming there. We may later have to ask you to get the owner to sign a Location Release.

Don't shoot posters of a famous person or artwork or shoot brands or trademarks, such as cans of Coke, or famous manga unless you have the rights or permission to do so. If you do, we probably won’t be able to use your video.

Don't do anything stupid like breaking the law or not taking care of yourself or people you’re filming! Pay attention to your surroundings and your safety.

The Filming Tips tab has good advice (for this project in particular and/or filmmaking in general) as well:

Picture this

Filmmaking is storytelling: think about how to hold the viewers’ attention. Whether you’re filming you or someone else, the more personal the better.

Hold your shots long enough to establish them in the viewers’ mind. Avoid lots of panning and zooming – it will look messy and it will leave your viewers dizzy.

Don’t film yourself or your contributors in front of windows or other sources of bright light, unless of course you want them to appear in silhouette.

Make sure you know how to make your subject appear the right size in the frame, by having a trial run and reviewing the results. (Remember if filming on a mobile, to turn your phone around to landscape)

Loud and Clear

It’s really important that we can hear you properly. Pay attention to noises where you’re shooting which will interfere with recording sound. Try not to stand next to an air-conditioning vent or someone mowing the lawn! Outside be aware that a light breeze can sound like a gale when recording.

If you’re planning to move more than 3ft away from the camera during the filming, work out how you’re going to be heard. You could experiment with plugging a basic microphone into your camera.

Check the sound levels by making a short test film and playing back the sound. If it sounds distorted, you’re either too near the microphone or the sound level is turned up too high on the microphone.

It will be very interesting to see the various perspectives captured in this project - something to look forward to. I wonder about what will and will not be included and other aspects of editing/post-production. Still, this idea of collaboration is a step in the right direction towards a user-driven, participatory form of visual anthropology.

See recent related story at Japan Today: http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/fuji-tv-joins-forces-with-ridley-scott-for-japan-in-a-day-documentary-on-tsunami

3/11 as covered in Contemporary Japan and Globalization class

We had our 3/11 class last week and here I want to give a report of what we did. Four students offered presentations and had different topics within the very broad theme of the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear accident disasters. I began the class with a brief overview of the disaster – the usual facts and statistics. I then recalled my own surreal experience of feeling the quake, seeing the tsunami on live TV but not really being directly affected in Osaka. Other students who were here on 3/11 gave similar accounts. The disaster was far away and didn’t really impact our lives at the moment other than people recalling their experiences with the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and empathizing with the people of Tohoku.

MS gave his presentation on the media portrayal of the disasters in Japan and abroad. He had examples of perpetuations of Japanese stereotypes and reporting errors that made it difficult for viewers to have an understanding of the actual situation at the sites of the disasters and in other areas of Japan. The effect here at our university was exchange students being forced to leave Japan whether they wanted to or not.

We then turned to the Fukushima nuclear situation with a discussion of the Murakami speech questioning how Japan became so dependent on nuclear energy resulting in the current crisis, which he referred to as “our second massive nuclear disaster.”

http://japanfocus.org/-Murakami-Haruki/3571

We then watched the Nuclear Boy video clip from YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgEoRPsymkk

JM, a former member of the U.S. Navy who worked for 4 years on a nuclear powered submarine, was able to explain how the nuclear power plant works and questioned the extreme and scientifically unfounded concerns of the dangers of Fukushima. For him, the Nuclear Boy anime could not be more true.

JR gave an overview of the tsunami-affected area at the time of the disaster and how things have changed/improved in the last 7 months. DB discussed the disaster in terms of globalization – how a local area of 561 square kilometers resulted in the support and assistance of individuals, corporations and countries from all over the world.

I presented a sampling of the news from the previous 3 days: stories of nuclear decontamination, changing elections methods in Fukushima, donations for reconstruction, searching for missing victims, volunteer efforts in the affected areas, cesium detection on food, tsunami safety drills, protests of nuclear energy... The majority of Prime Minister Noda’s policy speech dealt with 3/11. So it seems as time goes on, the effect of 3/11 resonate all over Japan as well as abroad.

I was extremely happy with the presentations and the discussions they generated. What was missing, I feel, were personal and ethnographic accounts of victims and eye-witnesses. We were able to read about such experiences but to actually hear from people who were directly affected would have added so much more. We did what we could with our distanced experiences. 3/11 is a major influence in the changing Japanese society and culture. I congratulate my students for their desire to study this subject and their efforts to make sense of the disasters and the repercussions that follow.

Visual 3/11 Materials

Next week in the Globalization and Contemporary Issues course we will devote an entire class period to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of 3/11. That is not to say we have not been discussing the topic yet. 3/11 has impacted almost every subject we have taken up. Even the topic of Japanese baseball we covered today (the season was postponed - out of necessity and respect - and eventually modified - more day games to save power).

How will we try to take on 3/11 in the classroom? This is the concern of many teachers and anthropologists. David Slater at Sophia University has been active in organizing a workshop in Tokyo or Sendai next summer tentatively titled "Teaching the Crisis: Materials, Pedagogy and Research for 3.11." Announcements for this have been posted on many Japan-related listservs.

There is also a blog set up to assist in teaching 3/11 materials. From its own description:

Teach 3.11 is a participatory resource to help teachers and scholars locate and share educational resources about the historical contexts of scientific and technical issues related to the triple earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in Japan.

Link: http://teach311.wordpress.com/

There is also the massive Harvard's Japan Disaster Archive. Its own description:

The Digital Archive of Japan's 2011 Disasters project is an initiative of the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University in collaboration with several partners. We aim to collect, preserve, and make accessible as much of the digital record of the disasters as possible, to enable scholarly research and analysis of the events and their effect. We hope that the records preserved will be useful both in the near term as a source of direct information about the disasters, as well as long into the future as scholars seek to understand the events of March 11, 2011 and their impact on Japan and on the world.

Link: http://www.jdarchive.org/?la=en

This post is a haphazard attempt to organize some of the material on 3/11. In doing so I find myself keep adding more and more. I fear I have lost any sense of structure. So I am going to stop with what I have now (even at the expense of mentioning the increase in sign language interpretation and news sources for the deaf as a result of 3/11 - remember seeing the sign language interpreter at the early press conferences? I'll save this for a future post...)

Here are sources that include photos, videos, first hand accounts, blogs, articles, etc. Please feel free to add more sources and/or comments/advice about the upcoming class session.


Japan Focus' Guide to Resources on Japan’s 3.11 Earthquake, Tsunami, Atomic Meltdown

Japan Focus has several articles on the 3/11 conveniently organized at the following link.

Link: http://japanfocus.org/Japans-3.11-Earthquake-Tsunami-Atomic-Meltdown

A Summary of News From Japan: After the Earthquake and Tsunami

Photo caption: Japan Burning After Earthquake 2011. This source is what is says - a summary. 

Link: http://onemansblog.com/2011/03/16/a-summary-of-news-from-japan-after-the-earthquake-and-tsunami/

Japan marks 6 months since earthquake, tsunami

Here's an update as to how things have progresses in the last 6 months from The Frame at The Sacramento Bee.

This combo image, the initial destruction and progress of cleanup after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami is seen in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, in northeast Japan. The top photo, taken March 14, 2011, shows Japan Self-Defense Force personnel search for victims near stranded fishing boats and damage from the tsunami. The middle photo, taken June 3, 2011, shows a temporary dump set up in the same area, while the bottom photo taken Sept. 1, 2011 shows a stranded ship still sits in the area after the debris were removed. AP / Kyodo News

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/photos/2011/09/japan-marks-6-months-since-ear.html


Colin Tyner's blog posts on The Great East Japan Disaster

[The posts] exhibit my series of posts on the Great East Japan Disaster (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai). I pasted together as one electronic document. All of the links to the articles and pictures appear as on the day that I wrote the piece.

Link: http://colintyner.wordpress.com/the-great-east-japan-disaster/


MSNBC Photoblog

A Japanese tsunami survivor stands in front of messages displayed on the wall of a relief center in Rikuzentakata, in Iwate prefecture on March 22. The twin quake and tsunami disaster, Japan's worst crisis since World War II, has now left at least 9,079 people dead and 12,645 missing, with entire communities along the northeast coast swept away.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42144324#.TqdzMk8z9FQ


Conveying the Sadness in Japan’s Stoicism

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder lives in Japan and was able to capture some great shots to document the 311 disaster and after effects.

Link to a slideshow of his 311 photos: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/conveying-the-sadness-in-japans-stoicism/?emc=eta1


Japan Quake Shakes TV: The Media Response to Catastrophe

By Philip J Cunningham at Japan Focus: A discussion and description of the Japanese media coverage of the earthquake. Includes several interesting YouTube clips.

Link: http://japanfocus.org/-Philip_J_-Cunningham/3506


JPQuake: Journalist Wall of Shame

Lots of examples of how the foreign/western media has provided "sensationalist, overly speculative, and just plain bad reporting" of the events.

Link: http://www.jpquake.info/home 


Debris from Japanese Tsunami Could Hit US

Video from NBC Nightly News via MSNBC.

Bringing Photography Into Life-- After 311 Japan Quake




Documentary: 311

Announcement from H-Japan:

311, Directed by Mori Tatsuya, Watai Takeharu, Matsubayashi Yojuu, and
Yasuoka Takaharu, 2011 / Japan / HD / 94 Minutes

311 is one of the first documentaries completed about the March 2011
disaster in Japan and focuses not just on the destruction and human toll,
but also, in a self-reflexive fashion, on the fundamental problems of
media attempting to report on such suffering.

See more information in the flyer below (click to expand):

VAOJ Posts on 311

A distant view from Osaka...

March 12

March 22

March 28

It seems we have more than enough to get started. I am looking forward with great anticipation to our class and how we will organize and discuss 3/11. Again, I beg for comments and advice.

"Look-alike dolls comfort bereaved"

Photo borrowed from The Daily Yomiuri, 9/22/11, Edition T, p. 3.

This story strikes me as... different to say the least. I would like to hear more about this practice. Informed comments are most welcome. Story from The Daily Yomiuri Online:

Mika Sato has found that two dolls resembling her 6-year-old daughter, who died in the March 11 tsunami, have helped soothe her emotional scars.

"It was like my daughter came back to me," said Sato, 36, recalling the day earlier this month when she received the two dolls from the nonprofit organization Tamezo Club.

Omokage bina are dolls that resemble people who have passed on. They are made by craftsmen who work from photographs of the deceased person.

Since early August, Tamezo Club, a welfare services organization, has been donating them to people who lost loved ones in the March 11 disaster.

While studying the photographs, the craftsmen work carefully to make the doll's facial expression, hairstyle and other features capture the character of the person they are a tribute to. Creating a single doll takes about one month, according to the organization.

Iwatsuki Ward is known for hina doll production, and local hina doll makers have been cooperating with Tamezo Club on the donation program.

The group plans to offer 1,000 dolls in total. Thirty-six dolls have already been given to bereaved relatives, the group said, and requests have been received from people who want dolls to remember not only children, but also parents and grandparents who died in the disaster.

Yoshihiro Okuyama, 62, a Tamezo Club representative, said, "I hope people keep the dolls close to them, and that the dolls give them emotional support."

After reading about the program in a newspaper, Sato - who lives in the hard-hit city of Ishinomaki - contacted the group and asked that they create a doll modeled after her late daughter Airi.

Airi and four other children from kindergarten in the city died after a school bus carrying them was engulfed by the tsunami. Airi had always looked after her sister and shown great character, Sato said.

Some time after the disaster, Sato found a notebook in Airi's desk, in which Airi had written a birthday message for her mother:

"Dear Mom,

Airi will help you at home.

Mom, I really mean it.

I really love you, Mom.

From Airi"

The two dolls, which were delivered to Sato on Sept. 11, each is wearing a gentle smile. Their straight black hair falls on their shoulders.

"The big, round eyes look exactly like Airi's," Sato said.

"I've been given these hina dolls that look like you, Airi. I have to take good care of them, don't I?" she said while stroking the head of one of the dolls.

Tamezo Club is currently accepting requests for omokage bina dolls. The organization is also seeking donations from the public to help raise funds needed to make the dolls.

Source: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110921005479.htm

UPDATE: Recommended source from a colleague...

Schattschneider, Ellen.
The Bloodstained Doll: Violence and the Gift in Wartime Japan
The Journal of Japanese Studies - Volume 31, Number 2, Summer 2005, pp. 329-356

"Photos a worry for disaster volunteers / Exhibition space lacking, battle against time to reunite goods with owners, kin"

From today's Daily Yomiuri Online:

Dressed in funeral attire, a woman at a temple in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, opened the photo albums on display one after another, studiously looking at the images of family gatherings and children's school sports festivals.

The temple was hosting a photo-display service for bereaved family members of victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, just one example of how volunteers are trying to reunite photos and other items with their owners or kin.

...

Volunteers and local governments in devastated areas have faced difficulties working out how to treat unclaimed photographs and other items.

The volunteers collect photos on behalf of local governments, which are too busy managing shelters and confirming residents' safety. They then clean the photos, removing sea water and mud, but in many cases, they cannot find the owners. It has also become increasingly difficult to secure space to display photos.

Some volunteers have begun attempts to display items in unusual areas--such as the temple in Rikuzen-Takata--and make image databases so that people do not need to be physically present to view the photos.

...

Before using the temple, the group had exhibited items in a hard-to-reach mountain area, which slowed the the return of photos to their owners. Thus the organization decided to exhibit photos and other items in more popular locations in attempts to reunite unclaimed items with their owners.

The municipal government of Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, is attempting to convert unidentified photos into a database with the cooperation of Tokyo Gakugei University.

The government is looking into ways in which people can search for photos without being physically present, and is considering displaying photos on the Internet to combat an increasing lack of physical exhibition space.

...

A volunteer organization storing and displaying photos for identification from disaster-hit areas in Iwanuma, Miyagi Prefecture, was distressed to receive a notice from its city government in early July.

The notice said it would no longer be possible for the organization to store and display such items at the public gymnasium after Aug. 21. and after this date, events to reunite owners with lost items would have to cease.

The government explained it needed to resume normal use of the gym despite more than 30,000 photos being unaccounted for. It would consider how to best dispose of the items, including incineration.

The volunteer organization lodged a protest with the government and has had its use of the gymnasium extended until the end of August.

While helpful, volunteers say the temporary reprieve is not enough. "Even now, about 20 persons a day come to the gym trying to find lost photos," said a 30-year-old male volunteers.

Although the city government has decided to store the remaining photos, officials admit to difficulties.

"Keeping the photos indefinitely is impossible, but out of consideration for the disaster victims, we can't dispose of them that casually," said one official.

The city government of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, has worked toward storing such photos in freezers to prevent their image quality from worsening.

Some photos were covered with fungus while others had deteriorated because of high temperatures and humidity.

...

In late March, the central government said in guidelines given to local governments that photos and spirit tablets are different than jewels and cash and have no intrinsic monetary value.

But the guidelines also said such items "may be of value to individuals." They also mentioned taking disaster victims' feelings into consideration: "It is desirable to store [such items] and create opportunities for them to be returned to their owners."

About some local governments' planning to dispose of such items, a senior Justice Ministry official said: "If local governments make concerted efforts to return goods to their owners by openly displaying them or other means, and notify people in advance of their potential disposal, they should not face any legal ramifications."

Read the whole story: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110815004170.htm

"Newspaper Photo Books Focus on March 11 Quake-Tsunami Disaster"

From NSK News Bulletin Online, July 2011:

A number of newspaper companies, including those from areas hardest hit by the March 11 mega-quake and tsunami, are publishing books of news photographs about what is being called the “worst disaster in a thousand years”.

In the disaster areas, many newspaper subscribers have made bulk purchases of such photo books to send them to acquaintances outside the areas in the aim of getting others to appreciate the severity of the damage.

Officials at newspaper companies say the photo books are drawing high acclaim from readers for preserving a record of the disaster in the familiar medium of the newspaper.

...

The Yomiuri Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun, both of which are leading nationwide daily newspapers, each published a special bound-volume issue of their newspapers covering the mega-quake and tsunami. The Yomiuri also released an A4-size, 418-page bound-volume issue on April 23, titled “The Great East Japan Earthquake: A Month-Long Record.” The book features reduced-size copies of front pages, national news pages, city news pages and some feature pages from the Yomiuri’s last daily edition of each day in the one-month period after the quake struck on March 11. Yomiuri officials said they expect the specially bound-volume to be a collectors’ item that would be used as a reference guide to the full scope of the disaster.

Read the whole story:
http://www.pressnet.or.jp/newsb/

"Posters convey victims' hopeful messages"

Image borrowed from "A Beacon of Rebirth Poster Project."

From The Daily Yomiuri Online, June 14, 2011:

Posters that feature devastated residents of Kamaishi and Otsuchicho in Iwate Prefecture and carry messages of hope, inspiration and determination to recover have attracted people's attention.

The posters, produced by a 32-year-old advertising company employee in Morioka and others, have drawn reaction from overseas after they were introduced via the Internet.

On a visit to Kamaishi at the end of March, the 32-year-old man was moved by his encounters with people who had not abandoned their hope for the future even after losing everything. He decided to start the "'A Beacon of Rebirth' Poster Project" to inform people in other parts of Iwate Prefecture of their positive attitudes.

He asked his cameraman friend to take photos of the devastated people in Kamaishi and Otsuchicho against a background of debris. Based on interviews with the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the man and his company colleague came up with slogans and included messages from victims to accompany the photos.

At first, the posters were displayed only at izakaya pubs and other locations in the prefecture. However, when the friend publicized the project on his Twitter account, messages from Internet users flooded in, including many from those who said they were moved by the project.

The man and his friend started a Web site at once and began to sell posters featuring the people of Kamaishi in sets of 13 at a price of 3,675 yen. They received more than 500 orders for the B-3 size posters by e-mail not only from within Japan, but also from overseas, including China and the United States.

The pair have also decided to translate the messages into English by August and sell the posters overseas. All of the profits will be donated to disaster relief funds.

Takeichi Kimigahora, 33, who works for a marine products company in Kamaishi and aims to revive scallop fishing in the coastal Sanriku district in the prefecture, appears in a poster with his message of hope: "Don't give up! My scallops call out to me."

Kimigahora said, "I want to promote scallops in Sanriku for people I knew in the fishing industry who were killed in the disaster."

The message carried with a photo of Ryoichi Sasaki, 44, who clears rubble for a building maintenance company in Kamaishi, says, "Making memories, even out of mud and dust."

"All I wanna do is play ball, please...god." This message comes from Yuta Furusaki, 14, a third-year student at Kamaishi Higashi Middle School. He lost his baseball glove in the tsunami, then later received one as a donation. "My school was destroyed, but I'm glad if my message conveyed to people overseas how much I enjoy playing baseball," he said.

The posters can be found on the Web at: http://fukkou-noroshi.jp/

Link: http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110613004853.htm

Photography, Video and Visual Journalism: 1) Conveying the Sadness in Japan’s Stoicism, and 2) 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake

Photo by David Guttenfelder/Associated Press; image borrowed from The New York Times' Lens Blog.

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder lives in Japan and was able to capture some great shots to document the 311 disaster and after effects. 

Link: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/conveying-the-sadness-in-japans-stoicism/?emc=eta1

Here's another documentation, in e-book form.  Text comes from the Amazon.com product description.

In just over a week, a group of unpaid professional and citizen journalists who met on Twitter created a book to raise money for Japanese Red Cross earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. In addition to essays, artwork and photographs submitted by people around the world, including people who endured the disaster and journalists who covered it, 2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake contains a piece by Yoko Ono, and work created specifically for the book by authors William Gibson, Barry Eisler and Jake Adelstein.

“The primary goal,” says the book's editor, a British resident of Japan, “is to record the moment, and in doing so raise money for the Japanese Red Cross Society to help the thousands of homeless, hungry and cold survivors of the earthquake and tsunami. The biggest frustration for many of us was being unable to help these victims. I don’t have any medical skills, and I’m not a helicopter pilot, but I can edit. A few tweets pulled together nearly everything – all the participants, all the expertise – and in just over a week we had created a book including stories from an 80-year-old grandfather in Sendai, a couple in Canada waiting to hear if their relatives were okay, and a Japanese family who left their home, telling their young son they might never be able to return."

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of the price you pay (net of VAT, sales and other taxes) goes to the Japanese Red Cross Society to aid the victims of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. If you'd like to donate more, please visit the Japanese Red Cross Society website, where you can donate either via Paypal or bank transfer (watch out for the fees, though!) or the American Red Cross Society, which accepts donations directed to its Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami fund (but only accepts donations made with U.S.-issued credit cards).

And of course, if you like the book, please tell your friends, and tell them to give generously as well! Thank you! Japan really does appreciate your help! 

Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Aftershocks-Stories-Japan-Earthquake-ebook/dp/B004VP3KHK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302544589&sr=8-1