Hi BF Friends,

Thanks to Bianchigirll who posted my message above.

I have wanted to thank all the kind people on BF who have expressed their care and concern over the last few months.

Kobe wrote:It was a very difficult decision, and also very complicated. I was under the impression that radiation had stopped leaking from the nuke and going aerosol. I also considered the low contamination on the ground in Sendai itself, which is currently about 0.067 to 0.080 micro Sv per hour. Some places south of us have readings that are logarithmically higher.

The authorities keep saying that there is no threat outside the exclusion areas in Fukushima, but this has turned out to be not true. So-called 'hot spots' have shown up in areas that were once thought to be within tolerable limits. So it turns out that the situation is more complicated.

In some places that were once deemed safe, as well as being at some distance from the plant, school yards were monitored and found to be so hot that all the topsoil had to be scraped off. Now it remains piled up at the boundaries of the playgrounds with covering tarps because no one has figured out what to do with the stuff. Some schools have to close all the classroom windows for fear of contaminating dust. In the humid Japanese summer, conditions inside theses school have be intolerable. The Japan Times has reported that parents have demanded that air conditioning be installed. Fortunately, the summer break has come to elementary schools, so the pressure is off for a a few weeks.

Very high levels of radioactivity were found in drainage ditches in Fukushima City. It goes on and on.

Expert sources have told me that there is no reliable data on which to formulate conclusive projections on the future health of the young. A private initiative in Fukushima got a French team in to examine a number of children, and they all presented Cesium isotopes in their urine samples. And IMHO, contamination from even small amounts of fallout are distinct from natural background. There are some experts who seem to agree with this, but the government keeps comparing exposures and ingestion to X-ray exams and MRI scans. This apparent confusion remains an issue that should be explored.

Fukushima has launched a plan to monitor the health of its citizens for 30 years. Miyagi has no such plan, but then if the figures are to be believed, most of Miyagi is around the national average — that is to say the widening region that received contamination in the air. Fukushima and some adjacent areas are especially affected. And of course, the exclusion zones are dangerous. Miyagi is not receiving the same sort of attention as Fukushima, even though a mere borderline on a map separates us. Southern Miyagi may have issues as well, but who knows? A lot may be discovered from the Daiichi disaster — in terms of local conditions and in principal — things in regards to low-level radiation and its effects.

It will take months to secure the still leaking plant and years to complete its decommission. I will not take space here here to express my opinions about how Daiichi Fukushima was managed before and after the three meltdowns, except to say that I have nothing favourable to say about any of it.

If Daiichi burps up another plume, I will get my boy out of here very quickly with the same determination you saw in March. I'll remain here and keep servicing my contracts. At my age, the options narrow down to a finer point. Someone has to stay here to earn a crust.

It will be a very long time before Northern Japan recovers from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake — as it is now being called. I do not believe that it will ever be the same as before 3-11. It was never in the same economic health as the south of the nation before the quake. The hundreds of villages and towns on the coast were just getting by and making a living from the sea. Enough said there.

The very land itself is different. The coast is up to a metre lower than before 3/11 and subsequent tsunami. Many areas may never be inhabited again. I heard that one area in Sendai will be ruled out for habitation by governmental restriction.

No one who lives in Northern Japan can forget the appalling losses of so many thousands of families. The mood has changed. I guess that it may be similar to so many other places around the world — including America — where disaster has struck such as New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.

The situation on the coast is hard to explain to people across the waters. The shear scale of the situation makes it different than the Great Hanshin quake some years ago. And also, I just do not believe that the government will be as energized to rebuild the communities with the same express resolve it showed after that disaster. Tohoku is the outback of Japan — not even like Hokkaido. Only recently when car parts and electronics were suddenly not heading down south did the country begin to see the region in a more realistic manner. Hundreds, or more likely thousands of small contractors supply the industrial giants down south — mom and pop machine shops and the like. But also, big investments have been made in moving some higher tech facilities up here in order to boost the economy. Concerted efforts are being made to get industry moving again, and a lot seems to have been achieved so far.

One particularly sad note: It was found that a lot of the babies and young children who were killed in the tsunami — many never to be seen again — were lost along with their grandparents. The south gradually came to realize that the north is still quite traditional. Families still tend to live as three generations in the same household. This is true for a lot of my students. Perhaps the tendency to think of Tohoku as populated by provincial hicks has been modified. And their resilience and stoicism has attracted attention both here and around the world. The Emperor and Empress have been up here to pay their respects thereby beating out the politicians who have mostly stayed in Chiyodaku, Tokyo in order to fight and squabble in a power struggle that followed the disasters.

It has been announced that it may be three years before the coastal railroad can once again connect all the towns and villages that have been blasted or scrapped off the coast line. In Japan, the loss of hundreds of kilometers of coastal rail is of special significance because it is part of daily life ... going to work, to school, shopping, checking in on the old folks at home, and so on. The increased number of buses plying the national highway is palpable.

Many, many thousands are still living in shelters. Some are migrants. Local governments have cut government subsidies with the reasoning that recipients have either recieved contributions from abroad, getting help from the red cross, have received payments from, TEPCO or are living in community shelters. A controversy is in the making because none of these people have enough at hand to rebuild their lives no matter what aggregate sums they may receive. And there are so many unemployed, as their jobs were swept out to sea or tossed inland as rubble.

Thank all the gods for the Japanese Self Defense Force [JETAI]. Despite all the other fumbling and blunder at the highest levels, they and the countless volunteers — Japanese and foreign — have made such a huge contribution. The spirit and resourcefullness of the locals has not been defeated either. But some are more vulnerable than others.

As for our family — we are lucky and OK. Like most homes in Sendai that were beyond the tsunami's reach, ours shows scars from the huge earthquake, but it is intact. I am back at work. My son is in middle school — a member of both the chorus and the school's tennis team. My wife is tutoring and has planted some vegetables using soil that was packaged before the nuke blew its top. We try not to stand out in the rain. I don't train on the bikes in the rain, nor do I use the Yamaha to get to work in downpours. Who knows where a storm was boiling around before it came here? Not me anyway.

We watch where our food was produced, such as avoiding milk that might have come from more contaminated areas. Recently it was discovered that contaminated beef had been distributed and consumed up and down Honshu — north and south. This has become something of a scandal. Also, I have been swatting up on the effects of low-level radiation. I have sought out opinions from scientists, medical practitioners and engineers. (Their opinions vary.) We are employed, well-housed, busy and taking life as it comes.

People in Sendai have become phlegmatic, but it is easier for those who do not have younger children. When you crunch the numbers, they are reassuring, but only if you are optimistic about the model and the formula that is used. My physician simply says, "I don't know." — despite his being a caring, serious practitioner and a scientific contributor to his specialization. Life is not without risk, and all of us here know that better now than before. The Japanese culture is adjusted to disaster, but I don't think that the individual is ever quite prepared.

My family belongs to the majority that remains healthy and unscathed. Nevertheless the scars on the local society will remain, and the effects are still actively being felt. Just last week a Japanese American left the area after teaching here for over twenty years. His income was nose diving, and there was no way to pull it up despite his traveling hundreds of Kms between jobs. His reluctant repatriation is a direct result of the disasters. This says so much about what has happened here. Many foreigners have left, but not because they wanted to.

Oh yes ... and the earth still moves around from time to time. When it starts, we never know if it is going to amplify and go crazy, or fade away.

All the support that I have received from BF members over these months has been encouraging and very heartwarming. it helped a lot in some very unnerving days. And I am very grateful for belonging to such a great group of friends.

Lenton/Lorne

Edited Sat. July 23, 11:23 P.M.

PS: In answer to a question: the pic above I believe was taken late in the day of March 11. The next day, I got out on my Simplon SS and got into the rice fields flooded by sea water by using the smallest of local roads. (I had to flush off the mud when I returned home.) The fire in the harbour was still billowing dense smoke exactly as you see here. I have photos of the same thing, but taken from the ground.