Well, hello. Once again.
I’ve been MIA since mid-February and am glad to say that I’m back in semi-full force.
Much has happened since the last I checked in, hence the delay in posts.
I hope you all can understand.
Anyway,
First things first.
“Everything happens for a reason.” How many people casually state that this is “their motto in life”? How many people have actually experienced the meaning of this phrase first-hand?
I had heard my “quack quack” ringtone go off in the middle of the night. I let it ring for a while until I realized it wasn’t a dream, then blindly searched for my phone in the dark. It was 5 am. The caller was “Unknown.” I picked it up regardless, since “Unknown” usually meant it was an international call from home. Annoyed at the possibility of their forgetfulness of the time difference between Japan and the US, I picked it up. “Jin-Xiang? Are you there? Did you hear about what happened?!” It was my father’s urgent voice. My sleepiness immediately subsided and I was wide awake. What? What happened? My heart beat faster and faster and all of a sudden I had a feeling that I had lost my mother. I immediately knew something was terribly wrong.
I got up from my bed, turned on the light, and took a deep breath. “What happened, dad.”
“Turn on your TV.”
“Ok. I just did. What happened.”
“There was a huge earthquake in Sendai. It’s bigger than the Great Hanshin Earthquake. The earthquake …”
I tuned out. All I could think of was, “Where is Mom?”
Thoughts rushed through my head, and I couldn’t think straight anymore.
My father was still on the line.
“Where is Mom.”
I waited for what seemed like 2 whole minutes for him to respond.
“She’s fine. She’s right here.”
I didn’t know if my heart had stopped beating or if time had stopped still. I didn’t know if it was relief or simply happiness that overrode me.
I took another breath, and sighed out the lump in my throat.
There was nothing on the TV other than an infomercial of some workout DVD. 3 payments of $39 each. Great.
Meanwhile, my dad was still on the line.
He said that he himself didn’t even know what exactly was happening in the area, but he was telling how even in Sapporo (where my parents live currently) the shaking was intense enough for furniture to topple and plates to crash. He had to hang up to call our other family members, so he hung up, and I stayed awake for hours before I had my class at 11 am. Finally at 8 am, the FOX 5 news’ Greg and Rosanna finally mentioned something about the tsunami in Japan. At the time, the dead toll was up to 20 people. Somewhere deep inside, I knew that that was nowhere close to being accurate.
All my friends’ names were swimming back and forth in my head, and I immediately called my best friend’s family in Nagoya, a large city in between Tokyo and Osaka. None of the phone lines were going through, and I didn’t give up calling until it finally went through. Hiromi (my best friend’s mother) picked up, and she immediately said, “Jin-Xiang?” I was so happy to hear that all was well with her and her family. I stayed online on facebook all day (the first time that I appreciated facebook for taking up my time) to see what my friends back home were posting. It was frightening seeing the photos of the flooded Tokyo, the convenience store shelves that barely had any food, the live videos of the internet news replaying the same scene of the cars floating on water under a bridge as if they were chocolate sprinkles on melted ice cream….
I went to class half delirious, still unable to fathom the scope of this disaster. That night, I got home, and suddenly remembered that my friend Marika had told me a while back that she was from Ibaraki, one of the heavily flooded areas. I had no other way but to contact her through facebook, and immediately sent her a message telling her to write back as soon as she can so I know she’s safe and sound. For the next two days, I called my parents once every couple hours, while I was updated by statuses of terror from those in Japan on facebook, reporting of ongoing “aftershocks” (which, from the size of them, were more like separate earthquakes).
I don’t think any pictures would do what happened justice, but here are some that remained strong in my memory.
Here’ a video of some news report on the tsunami in its early disaster stages…
Obviously what they’re reporting (23 dead) rose exponentially… and still keeps multiplying.
While there are still aftershocks going on- well after a month-, the summer will be approaching us soon. I had booked a job back home early in February, and while the music festival will be going on, Japan will be going through a huge transformation. The radiation that leaked out of the nuclear plant is a constant fear for the Japanese residents. Even my parents had offered to let me stay in the U.S. for the summer in case I was scared of the radiation. They were also thinking of coming to the U.S., perhaps even moving here to work, in order to escape the aftershocks, tsunami aftermath, and radiation.
Click Here for a final picture of a cat that was rescued just recently.
(I hope the link works…)
What really amazed me was the sudden peace that emerged from the disaster. In the midst of political and economic tension between China, Korea, and Japan, one of the first countries to respond were Korea and China, who both whole-heartedly agreed to help out the country in any way they could to send help.
Everyone around the world sent us thoughts of peace and prayer for the country. It’s depressing to think that this is the only way the world can come together and forget about our troubles temporarily.
In the face of devastating natural disasters, we come to realize how miniscule our power in this world is. Although I’m not religious, these are times when I feel a superior force “out there” to keep reminding us that we cannot control the world, moreover the fate of our lives as much as we think we can.
