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Learning to Live in One World A&S and the Great East Japan Earthquake

by Guy Spriggs

It is difficult to fully grasp the destruction caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake that occurred in March of 2011.

Millions were left without electricity or water. Thousands were injured, and many more have been reported dead or missing. Estimates from the World Bank put damages from the event at $235 billion, making it nearly three times as destructive as Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

In America, however, things continued without much pause. It is possible, after all, to feel completely disconnected from such catastrophes as long as we are not directly affected.

But even though this disaster took place on the other side of the planet, both students and professors from the College of Arts & Sciences experienced the event from inside Japan.

Doug Slaymaker, a professor in the Japan Studies Program specializing in 20th century literature, was in Tokyo doing research for a book project when the earthquake hit.

“If you spend any time in Japan earthquakes are no surprise,” Slaymaker said. “The problem here is that it didn’t stop. I knew this was serious. I could tell this was out of the ordinary.”

Slaymaker had planned to spend a month doing research at libraries and museums, but ended up leaving Japan after just a week due to the unworkable conditions.

“Between worrying about the nuclear threat, libraries and museums not being open and not being able to stop watching TV coverage of the disaster, it seemed the wrong time to remain. I didn’t feel in any particular danger but I didn’t want to be in the way, either,” he said.

Andrew Le, an international studies major, realized his dream of studying in East Asia with support from UK’s Education Abroad Program. Le elected to remain in Japan after the event, filing a petition with UK’s International Policy Committee to stay and finish the school term.

“I decided that I wanted to learn what I could from my host country in the time I am granted here,” Le explained.

Almost half of the students in Le’s program left Japan and were prohibited from returning for the term beginning in April. And while Le says that he has learned a tremendous amount during his time in Japan, he has also witnessed changes in the landscape as a result of the disaster.

“The general psyche of the people I know seems to have altered a little. People have become a little more somber, a little more serious,” he said. Le says that the streets and trains in Tokyo were often empty, and that many store shelves were bare because of panic buying and broken supply chains.

Slaymaker also says that while Japan is used to these kinds of natural disasters, the gravity of the earthquake has placed added pressure on Japan’s ability to respond. “We’re six weeks out now and the stress lines in Japanese culture are becoming clear,” Slaymaker said.

But Le says that he has observed some effort to move past the tragedy. “The week following the disaster you could feel the heaviness in the air. Most people in Tokyo seem to have moved on with their lives in spite of everything.”

“There is every justification to flee, but I want to be with my Japanese friends in their time of need. While I am here I would like to participate in the relief efforts if that is a possibility,” Le added.

In response to the events Slaymaker and Le witnessed firsthand, Masamichi Inoue organized a forum to discuss the Great East Japan Earthquake that took place on March 28th.

“I am hoping that this earthquake will be a reference point in the future to think about questions of energy in a worldwide context and in the future of this thing called Japan,” Inoue explained.

Although he was not in Japan during the disaster, Inoue has a very personal connection to the tsunami: his undergraduate education took place at Sendai, one of the most devastated areas in northeastern Japan.

“The coastal area, where hundreds of dead bodies were found, is where I used to visit with my friends,” he said. “It’s shocking to see that scenic beauty completely gone.”

In the wake of the disaster, Inoue wanted to raise questions about the way Japanese identity is presented in the West.

“Often the media presents this old image of Japan, unified under this spirit of ‘gaman,’ or endurance. I have been troubled by that because the actuality of Japan at this moment seems to be far more complicated. The practice of ‘gaman,’ if there is any, needs to be understood in a specific historical and social context,” he explained. 

Inoue says that the discourse used by the western media in coverage of the disaster resembles that used during the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. “Everything has been reduced to this ‘spirit of Japan’ for almost the past 100 years,” Inoue said. “Why is that?”

Moving forward, Inoue believes this event can be a watershed moment for understanding how Japan is changing – as well as how it remains unchanged – and for envisioning a more connected global society. Given the reality of aging Japan and the prospect of the labor shortage, the efforts of recovery will likely involve assistance of foreign laborers, money and resources on a vast scale.

“I think that is going to be a painful yet significant moment of intercultural connection, which may radically redefine who and what constitutes Japan against this myth of a homogenous Japan,” Inoue said.

In the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, most of us continued living our lives without interruption. But the College of Arts & Sciences was and is connected to the events in Japan in a very real way, and recognizing that connection can help us to accomplish Inoue’s goal of thinking about new global circumstances.

“There is the possibility of learning to live together in one world instead of treating this incident as if had nothing to do with us. We can bring this project into the context of the 21st century.”

You can view the video of the Forum on the Great East Japan Earthquake here: http://connect.uky.edu/p38207040/