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Mari Watanabe, the executive director of Oregon Nikkei Endowment, was on a bus in Tokyo when the earth began to shake. She was with the U.S. Japan Council, a delegation aiming to strengthen ties between the two countries. Though her meeting with the prime minister, scheduled for later that evening, was canceled, other meetings with corporate business owners marched ahead as planned.
Back in the U.S., images of Japan's northeastern region began to illustrate the tsunami's damage to property and agriculture, in addition to human loss. After the dust settled, another urgent threat emerged — explosions at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Next, temperatures dropped to near freezing as power was cut off to hundreds of thousands of households.
Mari Watanabe is back in Portland and will share her experiences from the last week. She'll be joined by residents of the Pacific Northwest who felt compelled to provide help to their loved ones and show compassion for a nation in need. And by business leaders and university students who have organized vigils, fund raisers and other events in response to the tragedy.
How was your business affected by the earthquake in Japan? How did you reach out to your loved ones there? Have you been inspirted to contribute to the relief effort and in what way?
GUESTS:
- Mari Watanabe: Executive director of Oregon Nikkei Endowment
- Serena Okawa: Japanese exchange student attending Lewis & Clark College
- Junki Yoshida: CEO of Yoshida Group
- Sho Dozono: Chief executive of Azumano Travel
- Linda Isako Angst: Lewis & Clark College assistant professor of anthropology
Tagged as: disaster · earthquake · tsunami
Photo credit: Nicholas Jaramillo / Creative Commons
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The Average American cannot distinguish a Japanese, Chinese or Korean by appearance, language or written script.
This is a major faux pas in these oppositional and competitive nations. Consider by GDP, China is #2 in the world, Japan is # 3 and Korea is larger than most EU nations. Two of these are important military allies. China and Japan are the #1 and #2 underwriters of our record national debt. President Obama characterizes the US-China Relation as the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st Century. All of them are major trading partners. At home, we are surrounded by their products, handiwork and craft.
Our ignorance is glaring if we presume to be a globally competitive and globally cooperative. Yes there are differences and to them the gulfs are as wide as the Grand Canyon. Maybe this is a reason why we are not successful exporters to Asian markets.
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You know something? I admit it...I can't distinguish between Japanese, Chinese, and Korean folks just by looking at them, but I can make a reasonable guess if I hear them talk. (I took two years of Japanese in college, but without the opportunity to use it, I've lost most of my skill in this area.) I can also make an educated guess as to which is which between the written forms of the respective languages.
Then again, I am not in a position to do business with the Far East on a frequent basis, so I am not ashamed of my "ethnic naivete," as it were. But I am always willing to learn.
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When the news of the earthquake and then a tsunami and then nuclear disaster rolled in, my first thought was for my safety and those near and dear to me. Then when it was clear the West Coast will be spared most ill effects of the tsunami and radiation, I felt a kind of guilt that I could think of myself first when other people are so devastated.
That’s when a couple of folks in my church concocted a plan to raise money for Mercy Corps, calling it Pennies from Portlandia. At first the plan was to make it a fundraiser for the church, but it quickly became apparent it could go community wide.
It is apparently better to give to organizations with a track record – like Mercy Corps – because money for specific relief efforts can become encumbered and ineffective. It is little wonder to me that the Portland area and Oregon has such an effective “locally grown” aid organization. Mercy Corps takes our ethos and ethic to the world, and we can take great local pride in them.
Pennies from Portlandia will put collection boxes throughout our community and all change collected in the boxes will support Mercy Corps – not just for Japan but for all the work Mercy Corps does throughout the world. The response from people who have been asked to help has been immediate. Already the effort has received donations of the boxes from Phoenix Media who also agreed to make a significant donation to Mercy Corps. Efforts have taken on the kind of grassroots energy that Portland is just so good at.
Giving money for relief is complex. When horrible things happen in the world, those of us in relative safety can just feel so helpless and powerless. It is a profound human inclination to want to reach out and help. But what can we do, really? Japan is a country with far more resources than many others.
But the deeper truth is that we need to give, perhaps almost as much the people in Japan need to receive. We need to know that we are connected to one another. That we can and will care for one another. The deepest truth of all is that we are profoundly connected to one another. And we are all vulnerable. Major disasters remind us of that in a visceral way.
If you want to know more about Pennies from Portlandia or get collection boxes, please email pennies@teleport.com.
Rev. Dana Worsnop
Atkinson Memorial Church, Unitarian Universalist
Oregon City, OR
503.312.0401
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Early last November I spent five days traveling along the Sanriku coast in Iwate Prefecture, from Hachinohe in the north down to Kamaishi. Many of the small towns and fishining villages I visited are now destroyed, the survivors suffering through a lack of food, water, heating fuel and communicatioins.
What people are not seeing in the news from there is that this coastline is dotted with hundreds of small fishing villages and towns that are only now receiving outside aid and currently only accessible from air and sea.
This is a very remote part of Japan and tedious to get to in the best of times, with the coastal highway and rail line traveling right the coast, and with few access routes from the interior. The transportation infrastructure, therefore, is severly damaged so it is difficult to get aid to the earthquake/tusnami survivors.
I know that at least two places I stayed, a hotel on the coast in Tanohata and a Japanese inn (minshuku) right in the fishing harbor of Miyako, have been destroyed.
My purpose for being in this area in November was to explore it as a possible summer tour destination for the small group, countyside/eco tours I offer in Japan. It has spectacular natural beauty, warm and friendly people and lots of opportunities for outdoor activities, including adventure sea kayaking. Those plans are obviously on hold for now, but in the future I plan to return to Iwate Prefecture and contribute to the restoration of life and the economy there through eco tourism. I encourage eveyone to contribute generously to disaster relief in Japan.
Jack Sanders
jack@jacksjapan.com
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I travel to Japan to work with people and their animals 5 times a year.
The earthquake hit 30 minutes before my plane landed in Tokyo. Eventually we were sent to Sapporo and spent many, many hours there. I was able to get a ticket to Tokyo and join Japanese friends there. I had planned to stay as I had a lecture to deliver and a lot of work in the Hiroshima area. Then the nuclear incident developed. I decided to return home.
Now I am working to raise money for the animals and spend most of my working day setting things up and connecting with friends and working associates in various parts of Japan.
Lauren McCall
www.IntegratedAnimal.com
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I grew up in Portland, and my wife is Japanese, from the Kanto area some miles south of Sendai. Her sister currently lives 35Km away from the Daiichi nuclear plant. When the first explosion rocked the plant, she got in her car and drove to her parents house to be safe, but in the next few days as concerns grew both my sister in law and my mother and father in law came to the united states. My wife's parents are staying with us in Portland until the situation is a little more under control... In the mean time we watch the news everyday and send emails and call Japan often to check on friends and relatives and just to check on the situation as a whole. It is a terrible tragedy, and makes me feel powerless to help being so far away.
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Our company, Uncorked Studios, was following the disaster closely, and felt that we wanted to do something. We're a Portland based design and development company and we specialize in location based services.
In the last 5 days, we made a website to enable an unbiased source of radiation readings through both crowdsourced data and trusted partner sources.
http://rdtn.org shows a map of radiation readings throughout Japan.
BBC and Time have picked up stories about this. Thought Portland should know!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12803643
http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/03/21/crowdsourcing-radiation-readings-in-japan/
We welcome feedback at info@rdtn.org and @RDTNorg
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Her sister currently lives 35Km away from the Daiichi nuclear plant. When the first explosion rocked the plant, she got in her wall art car and drove to her parents house to be safe, but in the next few days as concerns grew both my sister in law and my mother and father in law came to the united states.
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This tragedy has been so difficult for my and my friends but at the same time, it's so encouraging to see so many people rallying together in order to help Japn with the relief.
Our band (The Slants) is launching a coast to coast tour collecting money for the American Red Cross. So far, we've raised over $30,000 for the earthquake recover by working with a group of Anime Fans to do a 24 hour podcast.With our upcoming tour, we're giving away free music for fans witha donation of $15 or more as well as doing numerous fundraising concerts.
As Helen Keller syas, "The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker."Here's our plea for help to our fans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlzJKy_e3Sg
Regards,
Simon
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I spent three days trying to find out if a friend of mine who I visted in Ishomaki City years ago on the Miyagi Prefecture coast, and who now lives in Kesennuma, one of the towns that was obliterated by the tsunami, was alive. With the help of several people, I found her name on a survivor's list, and was able to contact her brother, who confirmed that she was alive. I was elated when I found out. I hope to do some fundraising for her, as I imagine she has lost everything.
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My husband has two half sisters in Japan, one lives in the Omori region of Tokyo and the other is from the city of Iwaki on the NE coastline. Iwaki is 100 miles south of Sendai and has been hit hard by the tsunamis. We are in contact with our sisters pretty regularly and were able to visit both in the summer of 2008. Last Thursday evening, March 10th as we were getting ready for bed, I looked at my world clock Tokyo time and said, "It's three in the afternoon tomorrow, the girls are probably at work right now". I did not realize until the next morning that it was at that moment, our sisters were rocked by the earthquake and our family in Iwaki was evacuated up the hill to an elementary school just before the first tsunami hit. My sister, her husband and two daughters escaped but lost their home and everything they own. Their car suffered a broken window but was in good enough condition to drive to Tokyo to stay with our other sister a few days later. They were extremely concerned about radioactive exposure since they were in close proximity to the nuclear plant explosions. Because of the gas ration, they were concerned they would not make it all the way to Tokyo, so they drove at night to avoid stop and go traffic of others leaving the coastal areas. Last we heard, they arrived in Tokyo just in time and are now facing the challenge of 4 adults and three teenage girls staying in a 600 sq ft. apartment and competing with other evacuees to find a new place to stay. They have no jobs, no extra clothes and are ovbiously pretty shaken up. We're hoping to send them what we can via fed ex and get funds transferred to help set them up with an apartment soon.
We have another friend from Iwaki who we just got an email from saying that he and his family are safe and were able to flee to Chiba.
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I would like your listeners to know about an event I am organizing, not only as a fundraiser for Mercy Corps/Peace Winds Japan, but also to honor and recognize the artistic and creative importance of Japan to our culture. I hope some of the OPB audience will be able to attend. Everyone is welcome !
Jane Beebe PDX Contemporary Art
ART FOR JAPAN
A fundraising event to benefit Mercy Corps' Japan relief fund.
Thursday March 24th, 5 - 9 pm
1100 NW Glisan Street, Portland, OR 97209
Each participating gallery will have on view and for sale art by represented Japanese artists and artists who feel they have been influenced by Japanese culture.
We will donate 25% of sales from this event to Mercy Corps/Peace Winds Japan.
Augen Gallery, Froelick Gallery, Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, PDX Contemporary Art, Pulliam Gallery and Nazraeli Press
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As an american who has lived Sendai for nearly a year, and in the Tohoku region of Japan for 2 years, the earthquake and tsunami have caused me to reflect on the time I spent in Japan a decade ago. I've followed the new reports each day, and spent time last weekend looking up the places I lived in Sendai to see how close they were to the ocean, and if those areas were damaged. From what I can tell, my friends that live there are all okay, but I'm still waiting to here from one friend. He hasn't posted on facebook yet since the disasters, and I don't have his phone number. As I just checked back now, someone posted on his facebook wall that he is okay. What a relief.
During my 2 years in Japan, I felt 4 earthquakes, all of which caused no damage. Small earthquakes are just a part of life there. I made many good friends and came to love the culture of Japan. For me, the culture shock coming home to the US was worse the the culture shock of going to Japan. I came to love so much about the people and their way of life, that it was hard to come back to the US and realize our cultures are so different. In the end though, we are all part of a large human family, and even though we are an ocean apart, I still think of and hope the best for my many friends struggling through the challenges brought upon them through the disasters.
Ganbatte ne!