Archive for May, 2011

Tepco President Meets With Angry Fukushima Evacuees (Part II)

Tokyo Electric Power Company President Masataka Shimizu visited a shelter yesterday to meet with former residents of Namie, a town that had been evacuated because of its proximity to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The visit was much like Shimizu’s previous visit to a shelter, with angry evacuees criticizing Tepco’s handling of the crisis and demanding action to back up apologies:

The clip begins with one evacuee loudly demanding that Shimizu get down on the ground and apologize. Shimizu gets down on his knees and apologizes, but the bow isn’t quite the low “dogeza” that the evacuee demanded. A woman standing before him denounces the lateness of his visit and says that people are frustrated about the nuclear accident delaying the search for missing people in the area.

At another part of the report, Shimizu kneels before about 200 evacuees as they vent their anger and frustration. One woman demands that Shimizu live in an evacuation shelter so that he can understand how the evacuees are feeling. A man, who is annoyed about hearing how the disaster was unanticipated, demands that Shimizu admit that Tepco lied to residents when it originally told them that nuclear power was safe. Another woman is frustrated by the lack of compensation that evacuees have received, saying that it is probably is less than Shimizu and his fellow corporate bigwigs spend when they go out drinking. Shimizu apparently did not give them more than the standard “I’m sorry” and “we’re working on it” responses.

Prime Minister Kan also visited evacuees that day. While a person is shown demanding that the government do more for the evacuees, the evacuees seem less hostile than those at the shelter than Shimizu visited.

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Century 21 Post-Earthquake Commercial

Century 21 has a new commercial airing on Japanese TV, in which real estate agents from around the world send messages of support to Japan:

It’s a very nice commercial. However, before people out there accuse me of providing Century 21 with free advertising, I feel I should bring up the fact that they don’t exactly have a great reputation for treating foreign customers with respect.

Here’s what one Japan Probe reader (sublight) had to say about them:

Century 21, however, gets special mention for their two-hour “we don’t want to help you, but we don’t want to say we don’t want to help you, so we’re going to be as unhelpful as possible until you leave” dance. They were friendly enough when my Japanese wife had called the day before to ask if an apartment was available to see, but the moment they saw me, the smiles dropped (this was at the Ikejiri-Ohashi branch in Tokyo). Suddenly, there was a ‘problem’ with the apartment and they couldn’t show it just yet. While we waited (for over an hour), they didn’t give us any other listings to look at, and instead spent all their time with other couples.

After realizing we weren’t leaving (it had taken us an hour to get there, and we had all day), one agent said, “well, we can show the place, but we can’t go inside.” I said “fine, we’ll look at the outside.” “But it’s raining and we can’t use the office car.” “That’s fine, I have an umbrella. You’ll walk there with us.” So we walked over and stood in the pouring rain staring at the outside wall for about 15 minutes before heading back. When we got back to the realtor’s office, he positioned himself in the doorway and quickly said “well, sorry we couldn’t help you thanks for coming goodbye.”

[this was in 2000 and I'd been living in Japan for 5 years by then, so my Japanese was fairly solid. Also, I wasn't going with a friend but the person who'd be living in the apartment with me and paying half the rent.

As for a guarantor, I was working full-time with NEC as a project coordinator then, and they were guaranteeing me.]

Another foreign resident of Japan (Eric) was treated a bit worse:

The only problem I ever had with renting an apartment was with Century 21. Went inside, and they immediately crossed their arms and gave me the “batsu”. Wow…. such friendly folks.

If anyone else out there has had a particularly positive or negative experience with Century 21 in Japan, please let us know in the comments thread of this post!

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Rodents Walk on Two Legs

A zoo in Kumamoto where several capybara have been taught to walk around a little bit on their hind legs:

Capybara are known to stand on two legs when seeking out food in the wild, but it is apparently very rare for them to display that kind of behavior in front of humans.

The giant rodents also seem to enjoy using a metal fence to clean their teeth.

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Did Squid Warn Japanese Fishermen About the Earthquake?

The Yomiuri reports that an increase in the squid catch prior to the March 11th earthquake confirms old folk beliefs about the quake predicting powers of squid:

Some fishermen believe a large haul of squid might be a sign that a major earthquake is about to strike, a theory one expert called “intriguing.”

A fishery cooperative in Komatsushima in the prefecture said about 200 tons of squid were landed during the peak months of January and February–between two and four times more than in a regular year. A fishery co-op in northern Tokushima reported this winter’s squid catch of 70 tons was triple that of a standard year.

Most of the prefecture’s squid haul is netted between northeastern Shikoku and Wakayama Prefecture.

A fishery cooperative in Arida, Wakayama Prefecture, which is across the water from Tokushima, also hauled in 700 kilograms, triple a normal season’s catch.

According to Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry statistics, squid fishermen in Tokushima brought in 491 tons of the cephalopods in 1994–just before the Hanshin quake–which was 1.4 times the 1993 catch and 1.9 times the 1992 catch.

The “fisherman’s tale” that the size of a squid catch can foretell earthquakes gained traction, and reports of the phenomenon continue to be made at briefings on possible precursors to earthquakes.

“There were amazing hauls of squid just before the Hanshin quake, and also just before the 1946 Nankai Earthquake,” one veteran fisherman from southern Tokushima said.

Another was unable to hide his amazement at the possible connection.

“I thought it was odd that we got such a huge haul,” he said. “I’d heard that squid catches increase before a major earthquake, but….”

A squid research offered an alternative explanation: last year was quite warm, so the hatching rate of squid eggs would have been greater than usual.

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California Kids Send Messages of Support to Japan

Last week, Japan’s ATV aired a short news report about how the children of Colony Oak Elementary School in Ripon, California were writing messages of sympathy and support to survivors of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami:

The American children were very shocked and dismayed by the scary images of the Japanese tsunami. They felt very bad about how so many children in Tohoku lost friends, family, homes, and schools.

ATV agreed to deliver their drawings and letters to survivors. Before driving them up to Tohoku, they displayed the drawings in their news studio and read a couple of the messages.

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Japanese TV Network Creates Scale Model of Bin Laden’s Hideout

The staff at Japan’s TBS network created scale model of Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan:

The clip is from a news broadcast that took place one day after Bin Laden’s death. Whoever makes their models is quite fast!

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