Here I am again with another update. It’s a sunny, windy day in Tokyo, and the plum blossom outside my window is beautiful. Unfortunately, for people with an allergy to Japanese cedar are suffering a lot this year, especially on a day like this. If you’ve seen pictures of people wearing masks in Tokyo, please remember that the hayfever has probably got them (but some of course may be taking precautions against radiation).

At school, the students have been told not to come to school until April 6th. Their spring vacation has started early but teachers and other staff are still at work. Today we had a lunch for the teachers who are leaving (retiring on moving to another job) and then I came home. We have 2 more days and then we can have a break too. At school the mood is quiet but whenever anyone mentions that they have friends or relatives in one of the affected areas everyone looks sombre and concerned.

Yesterday afternoon I went into Shibuya, right in the centre of Tokyo. All the train lines I used were running smoothly but not all across the city and into Chiba and Yokohama, Kawasaki etc. are. Shibuya was much quieter than usual. Everyone is calm, and the only emotional people I saw were 2 groups of university students on either side of Shibuya crossing collecting money for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami. They were hoarse from calling out to passers-by and  some of them were crying. Yesterday evening, after I got home, we had another aftershock, this time a 5.3. The earthquakes the 2 days before had been over 6, so that wasn’t so bad.

The shortages in the shops continues, and the government has asked people not to hoard food (I told you we were hamsters). On my way home I was happy to find dried kombu (kelp) back in the convenience store. I also bought a multi-mineral supplement. Both contain iodine which protect the thyroid in the event of radiation being in the air around us.

I must say at this point that last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, and I always give up things for Lent. I have been very busy this term and got a lot of migraines, so had already given up wheat and dairy products. The shortages are not affecting me as much as they would have done! Also, my plan for the spring vacation was to relax at home, so the idea of not doing much while we wait to see how the situation develops is not house arrest for me.

There is something of an exodus from Tokyo among the foreign community here. The international schools started their spring vacation early and a lot of families left. I think the schools try to foster a strong sense of community spirit and so it is understandable that once people started leaving a lot of people followed. Other people have left Tokyo and have gone to Osaka or further west. Some have told me that they did not want to leave, but the sometimes excessively alarming media reports alarmed their relatives so much that they had to leave to calm them down. I am not leaving, but I want to assure you that I am thinking sensibly about it!  Of course, I am watching the news and checking responsible websites, but along with other good friends I have decided it’s not necessary at this time.

I have developed a new hobby / form of stress relief, and that is complaining to different news channels about their irresponsible reporting. The ones to feel my wrath so far are the BBC, Channel 4 (also in the UK) and CNN. It really is frustrating when they alarm people and we who are here have to use our frazzled emotional energy keeping people thousands of miles away calm. For a responsible site where you can access a lot of information, please follow this link:

http://www.telljp.com/index.php?/en/news_article/for_people_overseas_concerned_about_relatives_in_the_tokyo_area/

Please know that Tokyo remains calm. Under the surface of course we are anxious, but everyone is behaving sensibly; I think we would all rather have attention focused on the poor people of Miyagi. If you have any questions about anything I haven’t mentioned, please ask! Otherwise, I will send another update soon.

March 15th, Graduation Day

In the 48 hours since I wrote my last update the information and pictures coming out of Miyagi have been awful, and the state of the damaged nuclear power stations is extremely worrying. However, I think there is still a lot of unnecessary hysteria in the media and I want to update you on what life is like in Tokyo. This comes with the usual proviso that it is only my experience and what I have heard from other people, I am not claiming to present a picture of the whole city. It is a snapshot, but I hope it helps you understand some of what we are experiencing in Tokyo.

Before I go any further, and so you don’t have to read between the lines and worry unnecessarily, I will try to explain how I am feeling. First, of course I am worried, and can feel that I am more stressed than usual. It is frustrating knowing that there is very little we can do for ourselves, it is really a question of watching and waiting (and praying) to see what information comes out. With the worsening situation regarding the power stations, more people are finding their anxiety at a level where they need to leave Japan, either for a short break (it’s spring vacation now) or permanently.

Yesterday I either spoke to or received e-mails from 3 people feeling they needed to leave Japan while this situation continued. Dealing with their anxiety annoyed me, for 2 reasons. Firstly, I didn’t feel like being some kind of therapist for them, second, no matter how you keep yourself calm, another person’s anxiety coming at you does rattle you a bit. So while I was doing OK myself I ended the day feeling a little spiky towards those people.

Onto the power stations. CNN (yes, I know, I told everyone not to watch it, so why am I watching it myself? Answer, I watch for a few minutes, get disgusted and return to the BBC. I have no excuse.)  CNN is a disgrace to journalism, and anyone who is relying on them for news / information will be far more anxious than someone watching real news. They have big, scary graphics, big, scary music (dum! dum! dum!) and reporters being thick and / or lacking sensitivity and compassion.  Also lacking in cultural awareness. While the BBC seems to have sent in a number of people who I recognise as former Tokyo correspondents, (and of course some others), CNN has sent in their usual crowd who don’t appear to know much about Japan. (On seeing a wrecked house and the portraits still hanging high up on a wall of deceased relatives, someone said, there are the pictures of the people who lived here. Well yes, but they haven’t lived there for some time . . .) The dreadful Piers Morgan started his programme with the words ‘Apocalypse Japan’ and that was it, back to the BBC for me! Apocalypse? Really? Is that helpful? Is it any wonder people’s anxiety levels are rising?

The situation at the power stations does not look good at all, but Tokyo is 250km away  and the evacuation zone is 20km around the area, people between 20 and 30km away are being told to stay inside. The wind was blowing to the south-west the last time I saw any information (away from Japan) and the radiation levels at the plant are 4 times the legal limit (of course not good), not 400 times the limit, as I have heard on some news reports. Radiation levels in Kanagawa, next to Tokyo, are ‘9 times normal levels’ but that is not the legal limit, but compared to the level it normally is. We have to wait and watch enough news to get the information we need but not sit glued to the TV until we are wildly goggle-eyed with anxiety.

Next, the shortages. Some people in Miyagi and Iwate are in evacuation centres and even the ones who aren’t are struggling with food, water and petrol shortages. There and in neighbouring prefectures there are people who have lost water, gas, electricity or some combination of all 3. I heard a report that the petrol is being diverted to emergency services, which sounds sensible.

In Tokyo we have all turned into giant hamsters and have made trips to the convenience stores and supermarkets to stock up. Apparently bottled water, tofu and toilet rolls are what we need, so I can be a very satisfied hamster because I have all of those. The shelves of convenience stores are extremely depleted, especially when it come to things like bread and rice balls etc. I think it may be just because the resources are being diverted elsewhere so it’s difficult to re-stock. Anyway, as soon as they re-stock the human hamsters return and buy it all up.

I am unclear why we are doing this in Tokyo. I think it may be because historically that is what people needed to do, but in urban areas these days no one is going to starve. I understand the need for water, but I don’t know why people seem to be stockpiling so much – unless they are all watching Piers Morgan of course. I have asked all the friends I know who have also done it, why are we doing this? and no one can tell me why, we are just doing it because everyone else is.

Next thing, the rolling power blackouts. You may have heard that power in Tokyo has been turned off. Not true. There are 2 things being reported here. Firstly, parts of Tokyo that are a riot of neon lights are turning them down, and Tokyo Tower has been dimmed. Theses are voluntary measures. Secondly, yesterday was the first day of rolling power blackouts around Tokyo, but not the 23 wards that make up most of Tokyo. In fact, the 23 wards may be protected from even scheduled blackouts because the power company is unwilling to cause such disruption to businesses etc. That seems unfair to me, since we in the 23 wards are gobbling up energy like Godzilla, while a few people at home during the day in areas around Tokyo are hardly draining the grid. I am trying to keep as many things turned off as possible, but at this point it doesn’t sound like anything is going to be imposed on us. I don’t know of anyone in Tokyo who does not have water, electricity and gas.

Onto earthquakes. We continue to have quite strong aftershocks, and there is a likelihood we could get another big earthquake in the next few days. This is a horrible thought and there is nothing we can do about it. We all know this is a possibility and we are all just staying calm and waiting to see what happens. Since Mother Nature will do whatever she wants in her own time I can tell you no more than that.

Finally, school. As I said at the beginning, today was Graduation Day, normally a big, long day of celebration. Yesterday the school decided to amend the schedule for this week, which is actually the last week of the school year. The students should have been in school yesterday picking up their exam papers, but the decision was made early in the morning to close the school. Some teachers were in, because there is still grading etc. to do and there were some preparations for today.

They decided to go ahead with Graduation, but to scale it back. Usually, the entire senior high school (4th, 5th and 6th years) would be there, but the 4th and 5th years were told not to come this year, only the graduating 6th years were there. Their parents came of course to watch the ceremony. All the teachers were asked to come if at all possible, but the train service is still patchy and unreliable, so I think a few didn’t make it. Usually, each student goes up to receive her diploma, but today the names were read out and then just one student from each class received her diploma, the others carried theirs into the hall because they had already received them in their classrooms.

Of course, the headmaster mentioned the earthquake and all its horrible aftermath in his speech, and the mood was certainly not as excited and emotional as usual. I think we all felt quite sombre. After the ceremony, the students all assembled for their commemorative photo and they sounded happy and excited. Normally we would have then gone into the school gym to have lunch and listen to more speeches, but that wasn’t possible this year; the students have not been in school so they have been unable to decorate it and make preparations.

Tomorrow is the teachers’ deadline for grades (by 9am). I have already submitted all of ours, but I have to be there tomorrow morning while the computer processes everything, in case there is a problem. Thursday will be the lunch for teachers who are leaving, and again, as many teachers as can come in should be there. Of course, I live next door to school, so I will never have any problem getting there!

The school will be closed on Friday, and then on Saturday we will have the junior high school graduation and closing assembly, and the students will receive their test papers and report cards. We should have done it on Friday but it has been changed to Saturday. That is our last day of school, and then we don’t have to be in until April 7th for a staff meeting. The entrance ceremony for the new 1st years will be on the 8th, opening assembly on the 9th, then classes will start on the 11th. In between we have the cherry blossoms to look forward to, and anything else that might come our way.

So that is everything up to today. I will send another update soon. Than you for all your prayers, good wishes and just keeping in touch. This has been written as a general e-mail, so if I have explained anything that you already knew because you have lived in or visited Japan, my explanation was for others who also received this. As I said before, if you know of anyone else who might be interested to read this, please forward my e-mail to them.

Yesterday I sent out e-mails to lots of people, for 2 reasons; to reassure everyone that I was OK, and also to counter some of the wilder reporting I had seen on TV. I have received a lot of positive replies and so I am going to try to continue as this awful situation develops. I am not claiming to represent what the whole of Tokyo is going through, but I will try to include as many snapshots of what I see and hear so you get as full a picture as possible.

So: Day 3.

Let me start where I left off with my last e-mail.

Yesterday morning I spent several hours in school. At 6:30, when I first went in, there were still around 100 students in school, and maybe 25 members of staff, many of whom had not really slept overnight. The headmaster was not at school on Friday, but the 3 other senior members of staff, and the office manager, chaplain and school nurse were all there. Straight after the earthquake, all phones stopped working, and so the headmaster couldn’t get through to the school, neither could the school contact him to tell him everyone was OK.

But wait! Someone remembered that there was a ‘special black emergency telephone’ in the headmaster’s office that would work come what may, and they hunted it out and called the head. Step 1: communication re-established.

All the train lines had stopped too, but some parents drove, rode bicycles or walked to school to collect their daughters, so from an original group of around 200 girls only half of them slept at school. (We only have one more week of school and all classes and tests have finished. These students were at school for club activities, and the teachers were there working on grading.) Some parents went to great lengths to get their daughters home; one father arrived at school at 2am (a few train lines were working then) to pick up his daughter, he said he ‘just wanted to see her face’. Another father walked for 5 hours to come to get his daughter. Her reaction on being told they had to walk 5 hours home was apparently less than enthusiastic!

As I wrote before, the girls were calm and smiley yesterday morning. They were mainly wearing their uniform, with bits of their sports clothes added to keep them warm. 2 students had been out when the earthquake happened, and because they were closer to school than their homes they very sensibly came to school; they were not in uniform. I think they must have been making for Harajuku to hang out with their teen tribe and dress up, because one of them was wearing a full Rirakkuma costume!  (Imagine this, lifesize!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rirakkuma)

By noon all the students had left school, and then the staff went home, mission accomplished. I am in awe of the work they did, how calm everyone was and how everyone supported each other.

I told you that 3 members of the ladies’ reading group were stranded and stayed at my apartment on Friday night. They left very early on Saturday morning and then called me later to say they had managed to get home, but it took them 3 or 4 hours because train service was patchy. I went to the supermarket after I left school, and all the shops along the shopping street were open, people were going about their business like any Saturday morning. The supermarket seemed busier than usual, but since I assume people could go there on Friday it may just have been twice as many people as usual, I didn’t see any panic buying, though at church this morning some people said some shops and convenience stores had empty shelves. However, the lines to pay were very long, and when I left I saw they had closed the doors and were making people wait outside until some of the people already inside had left. (But it is a very small supermarket!)

I spent the afternoon and evening at home, e-mailing and watching TV. Generally, I am finding the BBC to be very good, measured and calm but getting information out quickly. CNN is markedly shriller and I think anyone relying on that for news will be in a much more distressed state than someone watching the BBC. By the end of the day I was frustrated to see that all the American channels are sending teams of their big-hitters to cover the earthquake and tsunami; it seems to me that what is needed in the worst-hit areas is teams of rescuers to try to find anyone missing but still alive, and to give emergency help to all the survivors who have lost their homes. (Anderson Cooper said on CNN that he wants to get to the epicentre, but since that is miles under the ocean, good luck with that!)

We had a number of aftershocks yesterday, and late in the evening we had several big ones. Since the earthquake on Friday started as a moderate one and just kept getting worse, every aftershock is scary, you wonder how big it’s going to be.

An update on what information I can give you about the earthquake: today it has been upgraded to a 9, not 8.8, so truly a monster. I said before that this had been The Big One that we had been waiting for. Having spoken to some people at church I can now say, the jury is still out. Some say it was, some say it wasn’t, and that Tokyo will get its very own monster quake at some point in the future. I must say, this is an upsetting thought. On a positive note, what we went through on Friday was big enough to test our buildings. My own apartment seemed to be rolling with the quake, and while it probably sounds alarming it is actually a good sign. Rolling with the quake is good, juddering about is not.

There has been remarkably little damage in Tokyo and Yokohama. Apparently one building front fell off in Yokohama and someone said they had seen on TV that a crack about 30cm wide had opened on a road in Yokohama. More worrying, I heard from 2 people that there were instances of what I think is called liquefaction, when water comes up through the ground and turns it from solid to liquid. Quite a lot of Tokyo is built on reclaimed land, so the danger of liquefaction and also being low-lying makes these areas not the best places to be. (I live on a hill, and not on reclaimed land, so I am not in that kind of area.)

Next, the threat of nuclear meltdown. Clearly, Not A Good Thing. I suppose at this point we just hope and pray and keep up with the latest information. Again, CNN is making it all sound worse than the BBC, and since they have more professors and people who I would think know what they’re talking about, I am listening to them and trying to stay calm. I bought some dried kombu (kelp) at the convenience store yesterday; it contains a lot of iodine and therefore protects the thyroid. Last time there was an emergency at a power station here that is what a Japanese friend told me to do, so I did it again!

I went to church this morning. I had not planned to, because now we are into Lent and the priest has a liking for what he calls ‘traditional language’ (Book of Common Prayer, lots of thee and thou etc.) and I do not connect with it at all. I knew he was planning to use it this morning, but decided to go anywhere because I needed to connect with other people, get out and see what Tokyo was doing, and just pray. Ironically, we had quite a large aftershock during the prayers, and we ended up not using the language I don’t like.

All conversations were of the ‘where-were-you-what was-it-like?’ variety. Many people spoke of being relieved that they had not been alone at the time, and anyone who had not been at home had either walked home or stayed at work until the trains started working, which may have been late at night or early yesterday morning. The lucky ones only walked 5km, some walked as far as 14km. All said it was eerie walking home since so many thousands of people were doing the same.

Another question frequently asked: Do you have friends or family in the tsunami-affected area? Some people do and are having trouble getting through to confirm everyone is OK, we can only hope that once the phone networks get back to 100% they will be able to find their people. One friend at church is the Director of Studies at the school I used to work at (though he wasn’t there when I was). The main school (I worked at another one) is a boarding school, and they have a number of students from Miyagi prefecture. He said some students and teachers watched the TV coverage and said, as they looked at the tsunami, that’s my house, or, that’s the building where my father-in-law works. Just heartbreaking.

In terms of damage to homes, I heard only about things falling off shelves and out of cupboards, I heard of no injuries. Coming home, I went to National Azabu supermarket, which caters to expats and the general need for PG Tips teabags, Marmite, marmalade etc. Their stocks seemed a little lower than usual, but again, no panic buying. When I passed Segafredo coffee shop (where people go when they are too cool for Starbucks) all the conversations I overheard were about what has happened.

So now I am home and am planning a quiet afternoon doing laundry! I think I have brought you up to date; more soon! In the meantime, please keep the people of Miyagi prefecture in your prayers and don’t let any shrill TV reporters alarm you excessively. If there is anyone else you know who may be concerned about the situation here, please forward my e-mail to them.