*******************<\/p>\n
The following is a personal essay by Audrey Shiomi<\/a>\u00a0(CIR\u00a0Miyagi<\/a>-ken, Sendai-shi, 1999-2001)<\/strong>. Through generous sponsorship by Japan\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/a>, she spent a week in September visiting her former residence in Sendai City, one of the areas affected by the March 11 earthquake. In lieu of volunteering in disaster-stricken regions, she spent each day meeting with friends and former coworkers to listen to their stories.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Click here to read other\u00a0Return To Tohoku<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0updates on JETwit. \u00a0You can also check the JETAA USA website post (\u201cJET Alums Return to Tohoku\u201d<\/a><\/strong>) for additional information.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Don\u2019t Speak, Just Move On<\/strong><\/p>\n By Audrey Shiomi<\/a>\u00a0(CIR\u00a0Miyagi<\/a>-ken, Sendai-shi, 1999-2001)<\/strong><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I couldn’t believe how normal it all felt to spend each day hanging out with old friends in Sendai. They hardly talked about what had happened six months ago, and if they did, they were calm, reflective and grateful. They didn\u2019t suffer the way they did in the north, along the Pacific coast.<\/p>\n Within city limits, homes were damaged and people were left without running water, electricity and heat soon after the earthquake. It was late winter, and they had no clue when things they\u2019d taken for granted\u2014warmth, hot food and information\u2014would be readily available. The minute it looked like a market was about to re-open, people formed long lines out the door.\u00a0 Luckily, by Day 5, water and electricity had been restored.<\/p>\n Now, six months later, my friends are with me, laughing, drinking and eating like there\u2019s no tomorrow. We were doing everything but<\/em> dwelling on March 11 and for good reasons. For one, it was simply time to more forward. For another, talking about your own situation made it seem like you were complaining about it, and\u2014as my friend explained\u2014the only people who are socially allowed to lament are those whose loved ones died in the tsunami.<\/p>\n Another reason few people talk about the events of March is that if someone were to mention they temporarily fled the prefecture after the nuclear reactor meltdown, they\u2019d face the silent scorn of their peers. For some, leaving town was a logical safety measure. For others, leaving town was the moral equivalent of abandoning your family.\u00a0 It\u2019s these opposing schools of thought that make it difficult to openly talk to one another. \u201cIt\u2019s like in the U.S. where people don\u2019t bring up religion,\u201d said one Japanese friend. \u201cPeople don\u2019t talk about certain parts of their experiences after the disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n So instead of dwelling in the past, my friends have no option but to move forward. For many of them, March 11 instilled a newfound reason for living. Many have taken up new hobbies and started traveling more. My friend, Nanae, has been making a living by holding private cooking classes at her home. March 11 fueled her to hold more classes. The way she sees it, she\u2019s lucky to be alive, so not living life would be like besmirching the memory of all those who\u2019d died.<\/p>\n I\u2019m glad my friends have emerged from this tragedy with their heads held high. It would have been a sad reunion if they\u2019d greeted me with distressed tears. If they\u2019d told me, \u201cTake me back to the U.S. with you!\u201d I would have stowed them all away in my suitcase. But, no, instead we\u2019re able to share a drink, enjoy great izakaya<\/em> food and laugh about old times.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the Japan I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ******************* The following is a personal essay by Audrey Shiomi\u00a0(CIR\u00a0Miyagi-ken, Sendai-shi, 1999-2001). Through generous sponsorship by Japan\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she spent a week in September visiting her former residence in Sendai City, one of the areas affected by the March 11 earthquake. In lieu of volunteering in disaster-stricken regions, she spent each day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,378,369,304,282,368,132,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-earthquake-tsunami","category-japan-local","category-notable-jet-alums","category-jet-roi","category-traveltourism","category-volunteer","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-5EJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21745"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21747,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21745\/revisions\/21747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}