Category Archives: Great East Japan Earthquake

July 17th 2011

Leave a reply
So here I am again, finally, after more than a couple of months.  I have been wanting to send another update, but life is so busy and so normal that I don’t feel there’s much to say.
Anyway, I’ll give you a general update including some facts and figures I have picked up along the way:
Power stations / nuclear power
Now this is all interesting, because there has been a real backlash against nuclear power and even if it takes 20 or 30 years to develop alternatives, a lot of people are saying that they just want nuclear power to go away.  They will put up with it while alternatives are developed, but they want to know  that that is the general direction we are going.  I was a bit sceptical at first because you can’t just get rid of it, and anyway, decommissioning the things is the really scary part (apart from the really really scary part where they go into meltdown of course).
So, here are some facts and figures:
Number of reactors at Fukushima Daiichi that had meltdowns: 3
Number of reactors currently working in Japan: 18 (out of 54).
Hmmm . . . so that first fact came out a few weeks ago, and I remember reading the newspaper that morning before school, and stopping and doing a very good (if I say so myself) impression of a meerkat: suddenly sat up very straight, looked around, felt myself processing that monumental information.  Pardon?  What was that again?  3, you say?  And one melted down within the first 24 hours?  It’s scary now, but if we had all known at the time . . . I just don’t know.  That first week was stressful enough, I can’t imagine how we would have felt knowing that.
The second fact is having a big impact on our lives as we head into the summer heat and humidity.  Obviously, there is Not Enough Electricity.
More facts:
Recommended temperature to set air conditioners at: 28 degrees celsius (I think that’s low 80s fahrenheit).
Percentage of people who are trying to save electricity in their daily life: 75%.  (Shame on you the other 25%!)
Japan has a great number of ‘eco goods’, i.e. ecologically-sound items to reduce your impact on the environment.  Examples of this would be; carrying your own water bottle instead of buying some at the convenience store (‘my bottle’); carrying your own chopsticks (hashi) instead of using disposable ones (‘my hashi’); carrying a fan or wearing lighter clothing (‘cool biz’).  The latter means something like a salariman (office worker) in a Hawaiian shirt instead of white shirt and tie.  You don’t see much of that.  So this year we are all trying to do our bit, and there is still a lot of ‘Gambare Nihon!’ encouragement around – hang in there, Japan!  Chin up, Japan!  Even on the ANA flights I took last month they had changed the design on the coffee cups to read ‘Forward together as one, Japan’ (心をひとつに、がんばろうニッポン)
Earthquakes
Until a couple of weeks ago I would have been able to say, nope, no earthquakes here for ages.  But not so fast . . . we had a few quite big ones, but then they stopped again.  Nothing like what we had in March, but big enough that they would have been alarming before March.  Now they are just in the ‘did-you-feel-that earthquake?’ category.  Our new normal.
Tohoku
There are still thousands of people missing, and thousands (probably tens of thousands) living in evacuation centres or temporary housing.  People are still going to help, and next month a group of students and teachers from school will go to Sendai to help out for a few days. When I went into school today it seemed there was some kind of huge mailshot going on to raise more money too.  There are collection boxes in a lot of shops and although it’s not in the international news any more there is a lot about Tohoku and Fukushima in the news here every day.
People
In general we are all calm and well, but hot and sticky!  Some foreign residents left in March and came back but decided to transfer over the summer.  Some people never came back, but most did.  Despite concerns that there would be a big split between the people who stayed and the ones who left, I haven’t heard of any tension or problems.  Although there is a lot of information coming out about what really happened, life is just normal.  However, in school yesterday the teacher who sits next to me in the staffroom pulled out a hand-held geiger counter!!!  I thought I knew what it was but asked just to check, and then I asked him if we had ever been in danger and he said no, but if it detects any radiation at all it starts to make a clicking sound.  I just goggled at him when I saw it actually, it just seemed so bizarre that he had it on his person.
Yesterday was the final assembly at school; the students received their report cards and now we are done for the summer – except for all those summer activities that keep everyone busy of course.  There are various trips for year groups, clubs, volunteer work etc.  I usually go on the English Club trip but have been excused this year.  I leave for the UK on Monday and will be back on August 23rd.  As well as the UK I’m also going to France and the Netherlands, and after I get back to Japan will be going to Singapore for almost a week.  Lucky me!
If I am going to see you this summer; I can’t wait to see you!  I hope to catch up with as many people as possible.  If I won’t see you or speak to you on the phone; I hope you have a wonderful summer!  Re-charge your batteries and spend time with the people you love!

 

April 24th 2011

Leave a reply

First of all, Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Joys of Spring, Happy Sunny Sunday!  I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.

It’s been about 2 weeks since I last sent an update, and there’s been a long gap because, really, I don’t think there’s much to write.  (I know I always write that and then end up with a really long e-mail, but . . . )

At school we are about 3 weeks into the new school year, and everything feels the same as usual.  The timetable is the same as always, the only difference I can think of to the school day is that the students are supposed to leave the school by 4:30, when they are usually allowed to stay until 5:30.  Lessons and homeroom etc. are over by 3:30 so all this means is less time for club activities.  Teachers are allowed to stay as long as they would usually.  I’m not sure if we’re saving electricity or just getting everyone home safely and earlier.

The students are now allowed to bring their mobile phones (cellphones) to school; previously they weren’t supposed to, but of course they did.  Since about 150 students were stranded on March 11th and they all pulled out their phones to try to contact their families, the school has had to acknowledge the obvious, bow to the inevitable, and think of a new approach.  This means that all the students have signed a promise to turn their phones off at school and keep them in their bags, but they are allowed to have them at school.  A lot of the senior high school girls go to cram school after school and go home on the train at 8, 9 or even 10 at night, so I was always rather relieved they had their phones with them, and since March 11th I think everyone has really appreciated how technology has helped us stay connected.  So, we have a new rule.

However, the wonders of technology mean that the newer models of phones have an emergency function which makes a kind of high-pitched woop-woop-woop noise when an earthquake is detected.  In some models turning off the phone means the alarm is disabled, in some it will still sound even when the phone is off.  The reality of this is, in the middle of a lesson you suddenly hear the alarm from phones in bags, and then you have to wait 10 or 20 seconds before the earthquake hits, and that is a very strange time.  Everyone stops, I look at the students, they look at me, and we wait.  Now, for people in Tohoku, that 20 seconds could be life-saving.  In addition to the alarm, there is also a text message which tells you where the epicentre is and so you can know very quickly if you need to start to make for higher ground.  In Tokyo, though, we just have some time to get ready for everything to start rattling and swaying, and it’s just a very spooky feeling.  (My phone is 2 years old and doesn’t have this function.  I think I could go and have it upgraded but I’m not sure I want that sound woop-woop-wooping in the middle of the night.)

This brings me to the subject of aftershocks, which is really the only thing we are still dealing with in Tokyo.  They are frequent, daily really, and still large enough to be disconcerting.  Part of the ‘new normal’ I’ve mentioned before is just how accustomed we’ve become to such big quakes – but we need to get used to them because they could go on for a very long time.  The weird thing about them is, even after they have stopped, I still feel like everything is moving – apparently this is a common feeling, because the movement affects the inner ear.  Some people, especially in Tohoku, have to take motion sickness tablets to counter the effects.  I just feel wobbly for a while.  I continue to berate each aftershock, but I continue to be ignored!

The situation at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima is a long-term incident now and TEPCO has been forced / obliged to issue a timeline.  It seems that if they have everything turned off, cooled down and contained by the end of the year we’ll be doing well.  The radiation that was detected in Tokyo’s air and water is now either back to normal levels or undetectable, but the 20-km exclusion zone has been made into a legal requirement, since some people hadn’t left and some were going back sometimes to get things from their homes (can you blame them?).  They may be allowed back by the end of the year, or maybe they won’t ever go home.  It’s unbelievably sad.

There seem to be more lights on in Tokyo, and the big screens in Shibuya are on again.  I was there this afternoon and saw 2 demonstrations.  The first was outside the station, and was quite loud.  People were collecting signatures demanding that pachinko parlours close to save electricity.  For anyone who doesn’t know, pachinko is, according to Wikipedia:

Pachinko (パチンコ) is a Japanese gaming device used for amusement and gambling. A pachinko machine resembles a vertical pinball machine, but with no flippers and a large number of relatively small balls. The player fires a ball up into the machine, controlling only its initial speed. The ball then cascades down through a dense forest of pins. In most cases, the ball falls to the bottom and is lost, but if it instead goes into certain pockets, more balls are released as a jackpot. Pachinko machines were originally strictly mechanical, but modern ones have incorporated extensive electronics, becoming similar to video slot machines.

The machines are widespread in establishments called “pachinko parlors”, which also often feature a number of slot machines. Pachinko parlors share the reputation of slot machine dens and casinos the world over—garish decoration; over-the-top architecture; a low-hanging haze of cigarette smoke; the constant din of the machines, music, and announcements; and flashing lights. Modern pachinko machines are highly customizable, keeping enthusiasts continuously entertained.

Because gambling for cash is illegal in Japan and Taiwan, balls won cannot be exchanged directly for cash in the parlor. Instead, the balls are exchanged for token prizes, which can then be taken outside and traded in for cash at a business that is nominally separate from the parlor, and may be run by organized crime (yakuza).

This last fact is interesting, and what they don’t say is that some pachinko parlours are owned, or are believed to be owned by North Korean interests, and therefore playing pachinko may in some way support the regime there.  Some of the placards at the demonstration were pictures of Kim Jung-Il grinning and clutching a wad of cash, I suppose the implication being that by playing pachinko you are draining the grid of power and being unpatriotic at the same time.

I have mixed feelings about the whole close-the-pachinko-parlours idea.  I have only been in one once, taken by a friend who loved it, and it was truly a vision of hell.  Because of all the little metal balls, the noise is deafening.  On top of this they play very loud military music and it’s full of cigarette smoke.  I am not a fan of gambling, loud military music, or smoking, but for some people this is how they spend their weekends, this is how they relax, and while life is very much back to normal (well, our new normal) here, I think we are all a bit tired and stressed and if people want to play pachinko to unwind, I think they should be allowed to do it.  Of course, I must also add that I have no idea how much electricity is being gobbled up, and if it is really guzzling a lot then maybe they need to find a way to reduce that.

The other demonstration was a march, here usually referred to as a parade, against nuclear power.  I have seen smaller ones, but this was the biggest I had seen so far.  They had a smallish police escort, and some were whole families.  Many of them carried sprigs of the same yellow flower, but I don’t know what it was.  Their placards called for an end to nuclear power, and they were intent on making their own music or sound as they walked.  Most of the time this meant drums, spoons on bottles, this kind of thing.  I did see one man with a pianica, which I enjoyed because it is such an odd instrument.  Apparently (thank you again Wikipedia) it is the name Yamaha gives its melodicas, but they are bigger than the melodicas I saw in the UK.  These are quite large and have a hose attached for blowing into, so you can put it on a desk and play the mini keyboard.  Imagine a regular melodica and some bagpipes had a baby and you’ll have the general idea.

I have mixed feelings about this demonstration too.  I would not have ever called myself a fan or advocate of nuclear power, but at the same time, fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases and renewables just don’t seem to be able to supply energy in the amounts we need.  Nuclear power isn’t going away, but maybe we shouldn’t build 6 in a row like they did at Fukushima Daiichi, that seems with hindsight to have been a bit daft.  I had hoped that all this effort we have been putting into saving power would make us realise that we don’t need all those lights, but some are back on.  A lot of escalators are still off, but the lighting is certainly not as dim as it was.  The real test will come in the summer, because we can’t use the air conditioning as much as we usually do, there is definitely not enough power for that.

Tohoku.  As far as I know, the situation there is not really any different.  Many thousands of people are still living in temporary shelters, and with the start of the school year some had to move from school gyms to other places so the children could go back to school.  It seems to have been handled well in some places, in others not so well.  Thousands of people are still missing, and the government has changed the law so a missing person can be declared dead after 3 months instead of 12.  This was to speed up the process of getting financial aid to surviving family members.  I found out recently that it’s illegal to bury a body in Japan, you can only bury ashes.  With the great number of people who died, and the infrastructure in those areas being so damaged, there has been no alternative but to bury people in mass graves.  At a later date these remains will have to be dug up and cremated, but for now it just can’t be done.  More heartbreak for the people left behind.

Despite the fact that most of Japan is completely safe and I think now all the embassies have said  there’s no reason not to visit, tourist numbers are down.  I read this article a few days ago:

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110417002740.htm

It’s particularly frustrating because everything is so normal here, it’s hard to understand why people aren’t coming – but then, the  foreign media was so irresponsible, maybe the view is different from outside Japan, even now.  It’s also sad because the Japanese economy really needs to get moving again and tourism would help.

Since March 11th, I have been amazed by how everyone has been so calm, so friendly, and so supportive.  A lot of people seemed to go out of their way to make a connection, even for a minute or two.  I have often been reminded of something that I have had to help translate at school, something that is part of the school’s philosophy but is actually something quite old.  In Japanese it is ‘ichi-go-ichi-e’, and while I have had to translate it at school with varying degrees of success, I found this explained it much better:

Ichi-go ichi-e                                                                                                                               You may think that the traditional art of Sadou (茶道) is a strange place to glean lessons that can be applied to various aspects of our daily lives, but the simple practical lessons from the Zen arts run deep and wide. Ichi-go ichi-e (一期一会) is a concept connected to the way of tea; it expresses the ideal of the way of tea. Roughly translated the phrase means “one time, one meeting” or “one encounter; one opportunity.” In the way of tea we should respect the host and the others in the garden and the tea room and honor the moment as if it were a once-in-a-lifetime gathering. That is, we should cherish every meeting for it will never happen again. Ichi-go ichi-e is a reminder that each tea ceremony is unique even though the elements are familiar.

(By the way, the subtitle for the movie “Forrest Gump” in Japanese is ichi-go ichi-e. I suppose this is because the Forrest Gump character appreciated every moment and every chance encounter without a thought of being anywhere except where he was at that moment.)

I think that a lot of the experiences we have had since March 11 could fall into this category.

So as I said at the beginning of this e-mail, today is Easter.  Ash Wednesday was March 9th, just 2 days before the earthquake and tsunami that started all this.  It has a been a strange Lent, marked out by other things, but it has also felt right that we go through this during such a time.  I found the following on the Archbishop of Caterbury’s website soon after, and I have saved it for today:

This year’s Easter will be a very special Lord’s day. It will be a precious time when we take a new step toward hope, like a small shoot growing up amidst the rubble.

This was written by Rev. Prof Renta Nishihara, an Anglican priest and Vice President of Rikkyo university.  Our school is affiliated with Rikkyo, which is also called St. Paul’s.  Every year half the graduating class enter the university and our headmaster used to be the headmaster of the boys’ junior high school.  Our deputy head’s husband is an administrator at Rikkyo, and while she was co-ordinating everything at school on March 11th, her husband was helping to turn the university into a shelter for thousands of people who couldn’t get home that night.

You can read the whole article here:

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/895/archbishops-prayers-for-the-people-of-japan

So I am finished and it has been another long e-mail.  While I have written a lot what I would like you to understand the most is that really, life is very ordinary here now.  I think I have written so much because I like thinking about everything and love this city so very much, and I want everyone to know that we are fine, we are more than fine and while it has been difficult it has also been a huge privilege to be here, to see so much goodness.

The sermon I heard today was about ‘little resurrections’ and I feel that every day since March 11 has been a series of such ‘little resurrections’.  Sometimes it’s stressful, and I know I need more sleep than usual, probably because I am not sleeping as deeply as before.  I think it’s also easy to be affected by other people, and when someone you know is anxious it’s easy to absorb that feeling.  But, and it is a big but, we are getting there.  After March 11th we put one foot in front of the other and just kept going.  We couldn’t say we knew it would all be OK, and that first week was really awful, but we thought it would be OK in the end.  We’ll still have aftershocks for a while, we’ll still have news from Fukushima for months to come, and the people in Tohoku will need support for years before their lives resemble anything like what they had before and some things will be in their hearts forever.  But today it has been a bright sunny day, Tokyo was crowded, and it was all good to see.

April 8th 2011

Leave a reply

I haven’t sent an update for about 10 days, and a couple of days ago I started to think about sending another one; I wonder how much I actually have to say, but I thought that last time and ended up writing a lot, so I’ll see what I can do this time:

First of all, you have probably seen the news that late on Thursday evening we had a large aftershock, the largest since the magnitude 9 earthquake 4 weeks ago today. It was originally reported as a 7.4, but I see it is now measured at 7.1. For anyone familiar with the Japanese scale, it was a strong 5 in Miyagi, a 3 in Tokyo. It was in the same area as the original magnitude 9, and immediately we had the tsunami icon in the top right of the TV screen on BBC World, and they went back into overdrive reporting facts with their usual disregard for degrees of meaning. One reporter referred to the ‘panic’ after the last quake and that sent me to the website to complain, once again, that some of their people have no idea what they’re talking about. This particular woman wasn’t even here 4 weeks ago.

Anyway, at the time of the earthquake I was doing some washing up, and did what I have done a few times recently when we’ve had a rather large aftershock; I stood in the middle of my living room, watching the TV and my beloved Mac swaying and the freesias nodding vigourously and said bloody. stop. it. now. The earthquake took no notice, of course, and carried on for quite a while – apparently about a minute. That is much shorter than the big one, but if you have experienced earthquakes then you’ll know that they’re usually shorter and a minute seems like a long time when everything is rattling around you!

Since the BBC got very yappy and up on its hind legs within a few minutes I called my parents to tell them everything was OK, watched a few more minutes of the BBC then had enough and turned it off. I know from talking to other people that it’s a common reaction now to limit how much news you watch, and I haven’t met anyone in the last month who has anything good to say about CNN. (If you have satellite TV here your 2 main overseas news channel options are BBC World and CNN.)

Life continues to be the same as it has been for the last 2 weeks. Some supplies are depleted in shops (it’s still unusual to find large bottles of water) but that’s about it. I think any lack of supplies in Tokyo is due to the supply chain and maybe a lack of fuel. Some trains are still not back to full capacity (maybe all lines are affected) but I have not really been affected by it much. The frustration is minor compared to the people in Miyagi and what they are still going through, but if the express trains don’t run then a journey by local train can make quite a difference to the time it takes.

A lot of lights are still turned off or down – a friend who came back last week said Tokyo reminded him of Blade Runner! It does have a kind of dimly-lit feel to a lot of places. This, of course will have to continue for a while, because so many reactors (not just the ones in Fukushima) are offline. Tokyo continues to escape the power cuts, but I don’t know if the people in surrounding prefectures are as lucky. People are still more subdued than usual.  It is cherry blossom time and normally there would be cherry blossom viewing parties going on wherever there is a tree, really, but this year the government has discouraged it:

Tokyo gov’t criticized for discouraging cherry blossom viewing parties

 The Tokyo metropolitan government has asked visitors to its parks to voluntarily refrain from holding parties under blooming cherry trees, known in Japanese as “hanami” parties, in light of the March 11 quake and tsunami and power shortages. But the call has drawn some criticism for excessive restraint.

You can read the rest of the article here:

http://www.japantoday.com/category/national/view/tokyo-govt-criticized-for-discouraging-cherry-blossom-viewing-parties

The British Embassy has revised its travel advice to Japan! It continues to advise against travel to Tohoku, the affected region, but the advice to everyone in Kanto that we should consider leaving has gone. Hurrah! Some airlines have also gone back to their normal flight patterns. British Airways, Qantas and some others had suspended direct flights to Japan, and for example BA was flying via Seoul. Of course it made the journey time longer, and once the flight landed in Seoul almost the British crew got off and was replaced by an Asian crew. A friend who flew back last week said that there was an announcement made that the British pilot would fly the plane on to Narita but would leave again on the next flight to avoid spending a night in Japan. Since the British government had said repeatedly that outside the exclusion zone in Fukushima the levels were safe, it seemed a bit much to me and probably stressed returning passengers. I believe flying exposes you to radiation, so doesn’t working for an airline expose you to a certain amount anyway?

Since I have already mentioned the areas most affected by the earthquake and tsunami, I would like to add this; it is amazing to me how many people I know who have relatives in the affected areas. I just came back from school and Kyoko, one of the maths teachers, who is also a friend, was in the photocopying room while I was there. Since I have found that if I ask anyone how they are the answer is invariably ‘I’m fine’, I have changed to asking, ‘Where is your hometown?’, and then asking if everyone is OK, whatever the answer is. But the number of people who answer that they have relatives in Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima has surprised me. Anyway, I asked her about her hometown and she told me it’s Ehime (in Shikoku, western Japan). Then I asked about her husband, and she said his family is from Fukushima, and they lived inside the 30-km exclusion zone and so have evacuated to Chiba (the prefecture to the east of Tokyo) where other relatives live. They’re farmers and so even if they’re allowed to go home they won’t be able to sell anything they produce.

I spent Monday in Kamakura, south of Tokyo and famous for the Great Buddha statue. You may have seen it on TV last year when President Obama visited it.  Another friend at school, invited me down to spend the day, because her parents have retired there and so she is often there. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely time; we visited some temples and had a yummy lunch. It was the perfect day trip and I realised as I went through Yokohama on the train that this was the first time I had left Tokyo since March 11th. However, her mother grew up in Rikuzen Takata, which you have probably heard of since it was once of the places completely decimated by the tsunami. Her mother’s friend and her friend’s daughter are still missing but her friend’s husband’s body has been found. She said she had been watching TV as much as she could in the hope of hearing or seeing something that would tell her what had happened to her friend. In the afternoon we were at Hase temple, which has a beautiful view over the town and the bay, and her mother said, this is how Rikuzen Takata looked before the tsunami . . .

It is all heartbreaking and among the foreign community there is sometimes a feeling of tension. Most people are just trying to get back to a normal-ish life, but there are others who either stayed and are angry or contemptuous of the people who left, and still others who left and have come back in a very defensive frame of mind. I have already written about my feelings and how I feel about the pointlessness of any conversation revisiting the decisions we all made, but I have to say that when people come back saying ‘the last 2 weeks have been a challenge’ or ‘it was really hard for me being away’ I do feel irritated.

For one person’s ridiculously overblown account of what he did and experienced (‘a tortured, writhing land’), follow this link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatlife/8426171/A-tearful-sayonara-to-quake-hit-Japan.html

For an interesting angle on the relief efforts for Tohoku, please read this article:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-03-18/japanese-yakuza-aid-earthquake-relief-efforts/#

On the other hand, what I am finding incredibly wonderful is how this consensus-driven society has come together, and there is a general feeling of ‘we’ and ‘us’. While the media overseas was being shrill and talking about worst-case scenarios, the Japanese media focused more on what could be done and how the situation was being dealt with and slowly improving. Of course, most people didn’t have the option of leaving with the ease foreign residents could and so while some people with family in west Japan did sometimes de-camp, most people stayed put. One thing the Japanese TV channels (including satellite channels) have been doing is broadcasting a lot of public service announcements and apparently this has caused many people to make a lot of complaints because sometimes you get 3 or 4 in a row, all with the same annoying jingle at the end.

At school we held the postponed junior high school graduation on Wednesday, and then yesterday we had staff meetings. Everything that has happened in the last month has made the school think more about provisions made for emergencies, and so there was extra information yesterday, including a traipse round school to see where all the fire doors and emergency tannoy system panels are.

I wrote before at my frustration and disappointment at the church I attend and its lack of action to help anyone or make any useful announcements / pronouncements. The diocese has started to gather things people in Tohoku need and has sent up at least one truck loaded with these items. I was able to take some things to church on Sunday to drop them off in time for the truck on Monday.

But school – how I love you and the response so far! Yesterday at the staff meeting we were given the same list I had seen from church, but this time in Japanese, and a general commitment was made to do as much as we could. The headmaster said that the school had immediately sent ¥100,000 (about £700) to the relief effort, but stressed that this was just the beginning. It was proposed that some of the money amassed in the staff fund (that we use for welcome dinners for new teachers etc. and that we all contribute to every month) should be sent also, and that got a round of applause. The headmaster also pointed out that if we collect money at school, ¥1,000 from each student would result in over a million yen.

Later I was talking to the other two British teachers, and one of them suggested that when we know when the next truck is being loaded up we should get some supplies and take them to the cathedral (where everything is collected) together. I have felt much better being part of a school community that is thinking about what we can do, especially after the church community didn’t seem to be doing much.

Today we had the Entrance Ceremony for the new 1st year students, all big-eyed in their new uniforms. The cherry blossoms at school were almost fully out, but it was a bit overcast, unfortunately. The headmaster talked about the earthquake and tsunami in his speech, but it was an uplifting, encouraging speech and addressed a lot of other things too. Classes start on Monday, but I won’t see the 1st years until Friday.