Helping out

There's an excellent post over at Tofugu today about how you can help Japan and the disaster victims. In addition to providing some useful links, Koichi is running a promotion for his online Japanese language learning system, TextFugu. He's donating 110% of all proceeds to disaster relief in Japan. That was enough for me to buy a lifetime membership for my sister, who has wanted to learn Japanese for some time now. If you want to donate to the relief effort anyway, why not consider gifting TextFugu to a friend who is studying or wants to learn Japanese? Birds, meet stone.

There are a number of efforts going on to help right now. As many Japanese are rightfully proud of how well Japan is handling this catastrophe, I'm also proud of how quick and eager both the U.S. and foreigners of all stripes in Japan have been to give whatever aid they can. There are a number of efforts underway to provide money, supplies, housing, and moral support to the victims in Japan. I'll be posting some resources at JADJ's Facebook page, but here are some I've come across:

(Some of these are mentioned in the above Tofugu post)

- There is a campaign starting up by Jason Kelly called Socks For Japan, which aims to send unused socks to those people who need them most right now.

- Second Harvest Japan is currently accepting food and other supplies as donations to the disaster victims.

- Hope Letters is a letter-writing campaign that began on March 11th, to send letter of support to victims. Morale can also be an important resource.

- CouchSurfing has set up a group for those willing to put up refugees.

- National AJET has set up a Facebook-coordinated effort called Man Up For Japan to donate to the relief effort. It's particularly targeted at asking JET members to donate a portion of their next paycheck, but everyone is welcome.

- Update: Rene from Shoujiki Shindoi is organizing Project Hitori Jyanai (You're Not Alone), another effort at boosting morale through positive messages and photos.

There are also a large number of organizations and charities accepting donations. You can donate through iTunes and Amazon.com, I've heard. If you have the will, there are many ways to help.

If you have any other websites or resources to contribute, please share them in the comments!


I think after today, unless there are any major developments, I'll try to get back to posting as normal.

Intense Video

Over at Gizmodo, watch as someone keeps just above the tsunami as it comes in, moving to higher ground every so often so as not to be swept up. Cars, trucks, and buildings washed away, with a few bystanders being unable to do anything but look on. Sad, scary stuff. Continued prayers and well-wishes to everyone living in the affected areas.

Via Gizmodo, intense tsunami video here.

Earthquake, three days later

It's a little difficult to write lately. As Haikugirl writes, life goes on. Still, with all that's going on, I just can't bring myself to write about anything lighter right now. And it's been tough to write about what's happening, too. Some of the larger J-bloggers have been pretty active both on their own websites and on Twitter, keeping people abreast of what's going on ( @survivingnJapan , @gakuranman , @mutantfroginc are some good ones to follow). I haven't done much "real-time" reporting or blogging in the past, so I find myself wanting to write but instead caught up in listening to and watching the news and Twitter.

But for the moment I do want to present some of my thoughts and what's been going on here.

I know some people are still worried about me. That's fair. In their shoes, I might be, too. But things are comparatively normal here, even if transportation, energy, or shop supplies are temporarily affected (though they're not at this moment). There is still an ongoing situation with the nuclear facilities in Fukushima, but I think it is being a little overblown by foreign media. Via @joe4therecord, here's a blog hosting a message from MIT scientist Dr. Josef Oehmen, who says there is little to worry about. I did look into iodine pills and haven't ruled out buying some, but it doesn't look like the amount of radiation released will warrant using them (especially given the distance).

Watching the news is really sobering and moving. Fellow blogger Sixmats is still unaccounted for. Yoshie's aunt is from Sendai and is really torn up. But recently Yoshie told me she is proud to be Japanese. And she should be. Despite all that's happened, I've seen no accounts of looting or other wrongdoing. Everyone seems to be cooperating and trying to help each other. That's more than can be said of some other large disasters. 

The most amazing thing I've seen on the news so far, and perhaps the most moving, was the firsthand account of a woman that was being helped by the SDF. They carried her to a makeshift aid station and asked her if she was ok and what happened. Clearly very shaken up, she explained how she had opened her front door just as the tsunami was approaching, and was carried away by the water. She was able to grab hold of a fallen tree and clung desperately to it. She lost her hold but was able to get onto some floating tatami and held on for dear life. Man, I can only imagine what that must have been like.

There's also a lot of frustrating/angering stuff going on. Some people are tweeting every time there's an aftershock. I don't really blame them, but these aftershocks are going to be happening for a long time! I've also seen both calls for prayer and calls for people to not pray (and do something instead). I regard the later messages as being rather inflammatory. But people are people. Also, the captain of the Sea Shepard wrote a poem about the tsunami being Neptune's revenge upon Japan. Seriously, what a piece-of-crap thing to say. For someone who defends whales, this guy seems to have little sympathy for human life. Joe has vowed to eat nothing but whale from now on. 

With a few exceptions, this has been another experience of human beings pulling together in the face of tragedy. The support and sympathy pouring into Japan from abroad has been extraordinary, and the Japanese people are being admirably brave. Loco draws some comparisons to 9/11, and I can see why.

I hope that soon I'll be able to return to normal posting...but for now this is just too fresh. If you want to read more, I recommend the blogs and twitter accounts I mentioned above, plus I believe Japandra is compiling a list of blogs with firsthand accounts of the quake and tsunami experience.

Big One!

Breaking: There has just been a pretty big earthquake in the northern region of Japan. The epicenter was reportedly in Miyagi-ken, which is a ways above Tokyo, and registered a 7.9 8.8 8.9 9 on the Richter Scale. There are tsunami warnings for the northern prefectures, and I'm seeing that the Philippines have just issued one as well. This is definitely the most intense earthquake I've ever felt, and Hyogo is pretty far away from the epicenter. According to Yahoo Japan's earthquake reporting service, Hyogo  received about a weak 3 on the Japanese scale, whereas Miyagi was a 6 or 7.

Maia, the ALT sitting next to me, was the first to vocalize it. As we sat there, the teachers around us began to take notice and comment, kind of amusedly, about it. The main quake lasted about 3 minutes here, and I still feel kind of queasy.

Twitter and Facebook are going crazy (if you happen to be following or friends with people living in Japan), and apparently there's coverage of the tsunami damage going on as we speak. I'll write more if anything major develops.

Update 15:51: It's been about an hour since the initial quake. I was just upstairs watching the news with some other teachers. At least one major fire broke out in Odaibai, Tokyo, but it seems to be under control. In Miyagi, there appears to be massive flooding, with cars being carried by the water. Also significant tsunami damage in Iwate. Tsunami warnings have also been issued along all of the Pacific Japanese coast line, although decreasing in severity further south. Around Hyogo the warning level is orange, on a scale of yellow-orange-red.

Update 16:04: According to NHK World, the SDF is being deployed to assist affected prefectures. This is one of the worst earthquakes in Japanese history, on par with the great Hanshin quake of 1995. Tsunami warnings have now been issued for parts of Russia, Guam, Taiwan, and other Asian countries.

Update 3/12/11 00:08: Things are still a mess up north. I've been in periodic contact with a friend of mine in Tokyo, and he's stuck spending the night at his office. Hasn't been able to get in touch with his girlfriend, so quite nerve-wracking. The cell phone networks still appear to be down. I can only imagine what people must be going through at the epicenter. If you're religious, pray for them.

There's a Wikipedia page up and running...apparently this is the biggest earthquake Japan has experienced. For more information about what's going on and for links and resources about how to find people, I recommend visiting Surviving in Japan blog. There's also a video up of the quake in Tokyo at This Japanese Life.

For those of you who understand Japanese or who just want to see what's going on in the news here, this is a live stream.