The Great Post-3/11 Ego Handjob

Nearly a year ago, a disastrous series of earthquakes, a massive tsunami and a nuclear meltdown ravaged the Tohoku area of Japan, killing nearly 20000 people and injuring over 6000 others, as well as engendering massive economic losses – estimated to be US$235 billion – making it one of the most expensive natural disasters in world history.

Having experienced the disaster first-hand and its nihilism-inducing aftermath, I know that a handful of foreigners living in Fukushima at the time, including myself, had it hard. Not from the lack of food, electricity, running water or internet – but rather from having to put up with the constant, juvenile, and just fucking scandalous efforts by a handful of shithead expats to co-opt the pain and loss of others for their own self-aggrandizement online and off.

“He couldn’t possibly be talking about me,” you tell yourself, ignoring all the bullshit facebook albums you posted highlighting that one fucking day you went out to scavenge clean up the strewn belongings of a gutted home near the coast – likely fueled only by a dubious cocktail of guilt and the desire to embellish your online profile. Some didn’t even bring work gloves or appropriate clothes, but they sure as shit brought their cameras. Assholes.

I remember this one girl showing up when we went down to a disaster area to help shovel a shit ton of sand out of an acquaintance’s property. Aside from the intelligent human beings dressed in coveralls, there was a dyed-blonde IN SANDALS who came hours late, with a flaccid beer gut immodestly creeping out a club halter top, asking if we needed any help – but in a obviating way, secretly hoping no doubt that we would tell her that we had shit covered so she could go home and prepare for another night of gorging tequila flavoured cocks in one of Ageha’s men’s rooms. At least she wasn’t like one teacher, who left the country for nearly 6 months, only to return as though nothing happened. I wonder how many months of pay she received for her hiatus.

This gratuitous self-promotion could be seen miles away, too. Nearly 100km away, some puerile d-bag dressed head to toe in played-out designer fashions visited a nearby school (being used as an evacuation area), presumably with the intention to land a photo in the local newspaper and look like some pseudo-local hero. Big fucking deal. The very next day, scans of the article are on facebook for all to admire, with these gemlike quotes: “I stayed for the kids,” and “Although you can’t see the heart, you can see its consideration for others,” in Japanese. That last one copied almost directly from a shitty AC commercial they were playing non-stop on TV. BARF!

The foreign media was way worse, publishing any and all information they could get their hands on, like flies on a pile of shit. I know of at least one dickhead expat that got ostracized pretty badly after being “misquoted” in the Australian news, saying that conditions were so dire that had his friend not driven him to the airport, he would have knocked the guy out and stolen his car. Needless to say, his “friend” wasn’t too happy about that. Fuck the media, asking just about any Joe Nobody with a computer and 10 fingers to report on the conditions in Fukushima as though a bunch of early-20s who jumped ship the very next day after the disaster would know anything about the conditions at ground zero or the state of the Daiichi plant.

While some of us were busting our asses every single day carrying all kinds of shit to the dump site by truck, shoveling mountains of sand, heaving mold-covered tatamis, helping out local business owners/friends, etc. wah wah wah, we had to come home to this kind of whack-as-fuck digital identity management from a bunch of asshat pussies miles away, all showered and eager to spend some of that ill-gained social capital. Forget about the disaster, that kind of shit is way harder to stomach.

There were thousands of amazing volunteers all over Tohoku - they didn’t get any special media coverage, they didn’t whore themselves on mixi or whatever digital identity micromanagement circle jerk site out there. They weren’t really heroes either, to be honest. They were just real dudes, hard as fuck and just looking to help without expecting any special thanks or attention or showers of gratitude and adulation. They didn’t do it to boost their egos, or to chisel another accolade on their digital selves. They didn’t do it just to tell their friends and family, "Yeah, I was down there last week helping out the tsunami victims." Bullshit. How easy it is to get lost in one's own self-delusions!

*flush*

The Big One Finally Hit

It finally happened. The big one hit. Somewhere around magnitude 8.8 (Update: final magnitude calculations concluded at magnitude 9) at the epicenter up in Miyagi prefecture several hundred kilometers north of the metropolis. Here in Tokyo the magnitude was a weaker, but nevertheless a serious earthquake. Apparently, it was the strongest earthquake in Japan's recent recorded history, and the fifth largest earthquake globally in recent history. To what extent these figure are exact or accurate, I do not know.

As I write this at around 11:00 pm, Friday March 11th, 2011, we are still experiencing aftershocks in frequent intervals (Update: According to a Nikkei headline we will be experiencing aftershocks well over a month. Additionally, I have heard talk from people in the Chuuestsu region saying that they experienced aftershocks for up to a year after their fatal quake in 2004). I'm also a bit shaken up (no pun intended) from the events that transpired today.

Tokyo has literally grinded to a halt. All JR train lines have suspended operations. Highway are at a standstill. Buses are being crammed with people trying to at least begin to head in the general directions of their homes. Several subway lines have resumed operations, but the situation will be dire at best, as masses of people will attempt to squeeze their way in making the usual rush hour commute seem like a luxury limo ride with champagne service and stripper HJs.

I'm not really able to focus too well while watching the devastation in northern Japan unfold on TV and the Internet, so this entry, which happens to be the first one in a long while (as well as the first of 2011 for Anaba: Happy New Years?), may not be as well written as I desire. However, I want to share my experience today, as insignificant as it may be in the grand scheme of today's disaster.

Around 2:45 pm this afternoon I was fumbling through some code at my day job when the earthquake struck. Now, at first it just seemed to be a regular quake. We had a decent one earlier this week that lasted a minute, but all in all it wasn't really shit to raise any alarm. Anyway, about a minute of gentle swaying suddenly gets exponentially stronger. My 30 to 40 year old 4 story office building starts to bounce amidst the swaying. The blinds start smacking against the window sills, hard. Monitors start toppling, and we hold onto whatever electronics we can grab while halfway begin to duck for cover under the big work table.

It felt like an eternity. It was probably about 3 minutes, realistically, maybe less. Magnitude. Mother. Fucking. 8.8. (M9 now, breh). All of us in the office quickly gathered all of our stuff, put the monitors and desktop PCs flat on the ground, as well as some other items that would be prone to toppling in the aftershocks, and leave after the initial quake.

As soon as we made it out of the building we were greeted by a massive crowd of evacuees in the neighboring offices. After a few minutes of chatting with the neighbors, we decided today's work was pretty much done and dispersed to are respective destinations.

From my office in the Hanzomon/Kojimachi area by the Imperial Palace I started to walk home to Koenji via Shinjuku-dori. Right when I reached Yotsuya station the first aftershock hit. I noticed how intense it was when I started to walk across the bridge crossing the tracks and the bridge started shaking. I decided to back track a few steps to avoid a potential collapse and turned around to witness the surrounding building swaying about gently like grass in a windy field.

Immediately following the aftershock I proceeded across the bridge to a major intersection. As I was constantly looking around, 360 degrees, to make sure debris wouldn't come crashing on my head, I noticed plumes of black smoke off in the distance toward what I think was Shibuya.

I continued on Shinjuku-dori toward Shinjuku and noticed in the sky jumbo jets and other passenger jets flying over the skyscraper district; a rare site as most of the city is a no-fly zone. However, the current circumstances had pretty much rendered the airports inactive. Flights were being looped and diverted.

The rest of the way home was surreal. The streets were packed with people heading somewhere, most likely home or a friend's place. Zombies wandering aimlessly came to mind.

It was a brisk day with strong gusts of wind every so often, and a bit of a piddling rain for about 20 minutes at one point.

The streets were jammed with cars going nowhere. Apparently, it was nearly impossible to hail a cab, and the line up for buses went on for blocks.

The noises of the city were dominated by sirens blaring everywhere; cops, firefighters, gas-works response teams, and ambulances. The hubbub of worried citizens layered by the sound of radios, TVs and 1segs broadcasting emergency reports were filtered by the gusts on wind. Once I got near the tracks of the Chuo-line it became eerily silent. I'll say it again: Surreal.

When I finally made it home I wasn't surprised to find some of my electronics on the ground. I haven't even got around to checking to see if they were broken or not. At least I know now  for sure that my desktop is in order, as I spent the following several hours watching and reading reports online, contacting people via Facebook and Twitter, and shitting the proverbial brick about whether my good friend and TokyoAnaba contributor, globalimagination, who lives up in Fukushima (a.k.a. Tsunami country), wasn't engulfed in the brutal Pacific tide. He's okay by the way.

At one point my friend David who lives nearby stopped by and we set off to grab a few supplies. On the way back we saw some debris that had fallen off a Showa-era edifice. Check the photos below.

I'm exhausted, so I apologize if this post is written poorly, if there are errors, blah blah blah. Tired and ready to sleep, as long as the aftershocks don't keep me up all night. Burn the midnight oil, I suppose. Doing what, who knows?

The TV was originally on the floor, but the it was propping the doors against the wall, originally. The force of the earthquake had moved the doors and TV out about 2 feet.

A couple of my laptops, drum machine and midi controller along with some other  detritus littered about in my study cum bed (futon) room.

Fallen debris from an old building in Koenji.

Where the debris had been pre-quake.