San Diego is known for its yearlong mild sunny
climate and my new school is only 10 minutes away from the Pacific Ocean. But the close
proximity to the sea has constantly reminded me of the affected areas in
Tohoku, which must also had been beautiful before the disaster struck last year… well no, it IS still a beautiful place.
Images of Tohoku have branded in my mind
since the trip early this month. In a span of 3 days, we met with city mayors, officials,
doctors, enterprise leaders, NPO leaders, university students and victims alike
and have learned from them the sheer force of the tsunami, the difficulties
that they face in resuming their original lives and most importantly, the plans
that they have for their future. We also saw with our own eyes the mounting
debris that are waiting to be removed, the still largely unkempt affected areas
in 福島 and towns including 南三陸 and 陸前高田 where most
of the buildings were reduced to their foundations. There was just too much
information to swallow in mere 3 days. Before the trip, I thought I have seen
and heard everything about this disaster from the media and how wrong I was! And
while progress has been made, it is just plain ignorant to believe that Tohoku
is already on track to recovery.
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| Mr. Suzuki |
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| Enterprise leader Mr. Takeda |
This trip has renewed my faith in humanity. If
there is anything we can celebrate out of this disaster, it must be the glory
of humanity and the hope towards a better future embedded in it. The people
that we met in this trip are all devoted to restore vitality to the once
closely knitted community. One of the most memorable experiences of this trip
to me was the sharing session by Mr Suzuki, the community leader of the
temporary housing in 南三陸市, who is also a victim himself and is now working
to organize various activities for the residents to gather in the hope of
building a new community. He recollected the event on 3/11 and the subsequent
few days to us in a plain, soft voice and a cool tone that sounds almost like
detachment. He told us how he found and carried more than 10 corpses from a
nearby hospital where most of the deceased died because they could not walk. Under
that soft voice, I can hear and feel an intense sorrow… it was as if a part of him was
forever hollowed out by the tsunami. Despite the trauma, he remains in the town
and is working to bring the community together again. And this is just one of
the many encounters in this trip that touched me deeply. The meeting with the
enterprise leaders in 気仙沼 moved me in a different way. They detailed to us the difficulties
confronted their operation but they always carried a faint smile when they spoke. It was almost as if they were going through all these mess with ease and ungrounded optimism. I asked myself where could this optimism possibly come from and recalled one of the last things that they said in the meeting：根性, which loosely translated to willpower I suppose. This really just highlights the resilience and perseverance of the Japanese people and nation.
I felt extremely powerless and out-of-place
the whole time during the trip. It was in this context and frame of mind that I
see how insignificant I am and what I am trying to do with my life. In Tokyo,
we touted ourselves with pride as the students of University of Tokyo but the
encounters in this trip have reminded me that it is not the title that counts;
it is the people and what you are trying to do for them that matter. The group also had a small sharing session on the bus
when we were on the way back to the hotel and I still remember vividly what
Noah reminded us as students of public policy: our goal shall not be to devise
the grandest and most efficient policy vehicle possible. Instead we shall
always have in mind the people affected by the policy because in the end, it is
the people and certainly not our ego that we are trying to serve.
