Japan [Tag: Fucked]

[pxib]

Saw that video on the news earlier, very moving when they rescue the woman and she feels she has to thank them  .

Japanese culture is layers upon layers of constant, automatic, authentic politeness. Sarcasm is practically an alien concept. It's not so much that she felt she had to thank them, as that it would be unthinkable for anybody not to do so. Unnatural as it looks from here, that kind of thing is related to the lack of massive looting and riots.

[FatuousTwat]

Err, why wouldn't she thank him?


Is the concept that you don't have to be an asshole rude to strangers really that foreign to people?

[Trippy]

Err, why wouldn't she thank him?


Is the concept that you don't have to be an asshole rude to strangers really that foreign to people?

Yeah that thanking is to be expected. It's more about the below kind of behavior that's typical for the Japanese but not for cultures like us Americans:

An old lady in pain from a shattered ankle, pulled from beneath fallen furniture, apologized to her rescuers for inconveniencing them and asked whether others should be helped first. It is as if courtesy, so ingrained in a culture of bowing and formality, never leaves.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/awed-by-japans-quiet-dignity/429441

The lack of looting mentioned above is another manifestation of this behavior.

[UnSub]

And in another display of "people behave differently in other countries??":

Police aren't the only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza, Japan's organized crime syndicate, have also been enforcing order. All three major crime groups—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and the Inagawa-kai—have "compiled squads to patrol the streets of their turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and robbery doesn't occur," writes Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, in an e-mail message. "The Sumiyoshi-kai claims to have shipped over 40 tons of [humanitarian aid] supplies nationwide and I believe that's a conservative estimate."

(Ignore the other two examples in that article - the Japanese aren't being polite for incentives and policing is different in Japan.)

[Sheepherder]

If that is too extreme then I invite you to talk to the people of Russia whose children are being born horribly deformed or with holes in their hearts.

Response is elsewhere.

[NiX]

And with that link we direct all conversation about the merits of Nuclear energy to politics. Keep this about the status of the plants in Japan and other news/info about the relief effort.

Too damn lazy to remove the crap posts.

[Surlyboi]

And in another display of "people behave differently in other countries??":

Police aren't the only ones on patrol since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza, Japan's organized crime syndicate, have also been enforcing order. All three major crime groups—the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and the Inagawa-kai—have "compiled squads to patrol the streets of their turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and robbery doesn't occur," writes Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, in an e-mail message. "The Sumiyoshi-kai claims to have shipped over 40 tons of [humanitarian aid] supplies nationwide and I believe that's a conservative estimate."

(Ignore the other two examples in that article - the Japanese aren't being polite for incentives and policing is different in Japan.)

This is nothing new. Right after the '95 Kobe quake, Yamaguchi-gumi was one of the first organized relief efforts on site. Granted, Kobe's their own turf, but still. As fucked up as the Yakuza might be under normal circumstances, in times of crisis, they've always been the point people for taking care of their fellow Japanese.

[Fordel]

Well hey, those people paid their protection money! 

[Surlyboi]

Well played sir.

And now, on a continuing note about what's going on in Tokyo, and how the people there aren't panicking and aren't leaving, I give you, Tokyo Times.

[Sir Fodder]

Images of the dousing operation of the water trucks going on now are intense, water shooting on to the buildings (around 2 pm today) and seemingly all almost immediately going up in steam.

[Fordel]

The Tokyo times link, I love the pictures of everything sold out but that one product that no one will buy, not even in panic of greater disaster.


"Oh god no, not <product>, I'll just eat some tic tacs or something"


-edit- http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/archives/supermarket102copy.jpg how awful must whatever is in that box be, to be completely ignored?

[Chimpy]

I do have to say that you have to have a lot of respect for the Japanese people with how they are handling this. Had this happened on the East coast of the U.S. you would have had looting and all the westbound interstates would have been chock full of cars of people "evacuating" to safe ground. Probably all the way to St. Louis.

[Surlyboi]

I can't read enough of it from that angle, but it looks like it's some sort of instant soba.

[Fordel]

I have no idea what Soba is, do I want to know? 

[Surlyboi]

Buckwheat noodles. Which is normally not a bad thing. Then again, Japanese food in boxes is sometimes weird as fuck.

[lamaros]

Would have said it was Udon. Actually, looks like two different products. Could be Udon on the left, Soba on the right.

[Teleku]

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/opinion/awed-by-japans-quiet-dignity/429441

The lack of looting mentioned above is another manifestation of this behavior.

Yeah, I finally got to talk on the phone with my friend in Japan who was right near the epicenter.  She went back to her apartment just yesterday, and she was sad to find there weren't any hot Japanese guys who'd broken into her apartment while she was sleeping away.   

And yeah, the Yakuza are a weird beast......  Vicious asshole fucks in many ways, like when they thought a friend of mine in Japan was trying to pick up on one of there girls in a club, and had him dragged out back and beaten until his teeth were shattered.  They can also be very cool, like with or earthquake relief.   Or like the Yakuza bar owner we became good friends with, who randomly handed a friend of mine a large wad of prime grade hash one night at the bar for being good customers/friends.  This is not easy or cheep shit to come by in Japan.

Weird but fun country.

[Hogan]

Saw that video on the news earlier, very moving when they rescue the woman and she feels she has to thank them  .

Japanese culture is layers upon layers of constant, automatic, authentic politeness. Sarcasm is practically an alien concept. It's not so much that she felt she had to thank them, as that it would be unthinkable for anybody not to do so. Unnatural as it looks from here, that kind of thing is related to the lack of massive looting and riots.

I only meant it was odd to see the normal social gestures even in such an extreme situation, perfectly logicial yes, still looked odd to me.  I had the privilege of working for a few months with a Japanese guy who spoke very little english, great guy, we hadn't clue what each other was saying but a lot of bowing and head nodding was involved.

[Surlyboi]

Yeah, in '95, I was shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of yakuza guys in the cleanup effort. Positively weird. Just seemingly down-to-earth guys that also happened to try to kill a rival boss with a fucking backhoe a couple of years later. Bizarre.

[Hogan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

0900: Japan raises its level of nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi from 4 to 5, Reuters news agency reports quoting the IAEA.

IAEA Briefing on Fukushima Nuclear Emergency (17 March 2011, 14:00 UTC)

Unit 4 remains a major safety concern. No information is available on the level of water in the spent fuel pool. No water temperature indication from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool has been received since 14 March, when the temperature was 84 °C. No roof is in place.

[Arthur_Parker]

U.S. nuclear officials suspect Japanese plant has a dire breach

That assessment by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials is based on the sequence of events since the earthquake and information provided by key American contractors who were in the plant at the time, said government officials familiar with the evaluation. It was compelling evidence, they said, that the wall of the No. 4 reactor pool has a significant hole or crack.

Unlike the reactor itself, the spent fuel pool does not have its own containment vessel, and any radioactive particles and gases can more easily spew into the environment if the uranium fuel begins to burn. In addition, the pool, which contains 130 tons of uranium fuel, is housed in a building that Japanese authorities say appears to have been damaged by fire or explosions.

Despite the alarmist tone of the LA times, I've read that water spraying would work to keep fuel from December cool, obviously complicated by getting close enough to do it, the then possibly contaminated water going somewhere unknown and the unknown arrangement of the fuel.

Edit to add Digitalglobe image March 17th

[NiX]

Entire house floating out at sea.

[KallDrexx]

Ars Technica has a (seemingly) good article that attempts to explain the nuclear crisis in Japan.

[Soln]

No significant radiation on the West Coast of the US so far today.  Yesterday's readings below.

Fixed Monitor Location: WA: SEATTLE
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/18/2011 02:03:38 PM
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/18/2011 03:03:46 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 13
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 686
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 435
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 144
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 76
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 46
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 56
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 39
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 18
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 22

Fixed Monitor Location: OR: PORTLAND
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/18/2011 01:53:30 PM
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/18/2011 02:53:38 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 20
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 2607
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 1255
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 379
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 200
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 128
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 153
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 101
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 41
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 57

Fixed Monitor Location: CA: SAN FRANCISCO
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/18/2011 01:41:39 PM
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/18/2011 02:41:47 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 17
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 1962
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 1271
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 380
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 201
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 133
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 161
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 101
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 29
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 38

There's an EPA site one can join that has logs on radiation data being actively collected.  I'll channel AP and maybe start posting West Coast readings every once in a while.  

Fixed Monitor Location: WA: SEATTLE
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/17/2011 02:58:40 PM
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/17/2011 03:58:48 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 10
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 682
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 423
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 140
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 73
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 46
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 55
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 40
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 17
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 22

Fixed Monitor Location: OR: PORTLAND
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/17/2011 02:48:42 PM
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/17/2011 03:48:50 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 12
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 2276
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 1064
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 324
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 171
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 115
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 134
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 89
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 36
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 54

Fixed Monitor Location: CA: SAN FRANCISCO
Measurement Start Date/Time: 03/17/2011 02:36:39 PM
Measurement End Date/Time: 03/17/2011 03:36:46 PM
Beta Gross Count Rate (CPM): 18
Gamma Energy Range 2 Gross(CPM): 1966
Gamma Energy Range 3 Gross(CPM): 1257
Gamma Energy Range 4 Gross(CPM): 377
Gamma Energy Range 5 Gross(CPM): 197
Gamma Energy Range 6 Gross(CPM): 132
Gamma Energy Range 7 Gross(CPM): 157
Gamma Energy Range 8 Gross(CPM): 96
Gamma Energy Range 9 Gross(CPM): 30
Gamma Energy Range 10 Gross(CPM): 37

[Mrbloodworth]

Entire house floating out at sea.

Stunning.

[Sand]

And now, on a continuing note about what's going on in Tokyo, and how the people there aren't panicking and aren't leaving, I give you, Tokyo Times.

I dont know why certain posters are attempting to deny that people are fleeing the city of Tokyo, but it is happening.
Relevant news article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110316/wl_nm/us_japan_quake_tokyo

TOKYO (Reuters) – Areas of Tokyo usually packed with office workers crammed into sushi restaurants and noodle shops were eerily quiet. Many schools were closed. Companies allowed workers to stay home. Long queues formed at airports.

As Japanese authorities struggled to avert disaster at an earthquake-battered nuclear complex 240 km (150 miles) to the north, parts of Tokyo resembled a ghost town.

Many stocked up on food and stayed indoors or simply left, transforming one of the world's biggest and densely populated cities into a shell of its usual self.

"Look, it's like Sunday -- no cars in town," said Kazushi Arisawa, a 62-year-old taxi driver as he waited for more than an hour outside an office tower where he usually finds customers within minutes. "I can't make money today."

And its not just foreigners.
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Coquitlam+foreigners+Japanese+women+children+fleeing+Tokyo/4459565/story.html

Foreigners and Japanese women and children are packing trains to flee Tokyo, says a Coquitlam man who escaped the stricken metropolis with his family over radiation concerns.
Au said over the past few days foreigners have fled Tokyo, and now there seems to be a rush of local woman and children from Tokyo.

At a transportation hub Thursday night in Tokyo, “on the bullet trains it was packed with foreigners, women and children [leaving,”] he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8389480/Japan-nuclear-plant-no-quick-getaway-for-thousands-trying-to-flee-the-radiation-zone.html

On Thursday the cars were moving in the opposite direction as thousands of Japanese ignored their government's advice and began to flee south from Fukushima, the little-known Japanese town that, like Chernobyl, has now given its name to a nuclear disaster.

But if "flee" suggests speed, that would be to mislead: for mile after mile the cars barely moved above walking pace as they inched south from Nasushiobara, the last town north of Tokyo before you enter the wrong side of the 50-mile exclusion zone designated by Britain and the US

Many of the drivers stared out from behind protective surgical masks, some allowing their chins to sink forward on to their steering wheels, as if giving up any hope that the traffic would start to move again.

I mean hell just google "fleeing tokyo" and look at the list of relevant news articles.

[Pennilenko]

Entire house floating out at sea.

Stunning.

That house is build amazingly well to not be in a billion pieces.

[Merusk]

That was my thought.  It's only weak point was the bolts holding it to the foundation.

[Surlyboi]

I dont know why certain posters are attempting to deny that people are fleeing the city of Tokyo, but it is happening.
Relevant news article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110316/wl_nm/us_japan_quake_tokyo

I mean hell just google "fleeing tokyo" and look at the list of relevant news articles.

Probably for the same reason you want to keep insisting that everyone is running away when the vast majority are doing what they always do, which is staying put.

Read some of the comments in that second article you posted. And then, while you're at it, google "Don't believe the hype". Oh wait, you don't need to google that, you just need to apply it to your daily life as you go about looking for more gloom and doom than is actually taking place in Japan.

[NiX]

My friend/co-worker has family in Tokyo and he's saying the same thing as Surlyboi. Expats are fleeing, but most of the Japanese people are staying where they are. The ghost town observation applies only because they're all staying inside, which is just them doing what the government told those in the 20km zone to do.

[ghost]

Who really cares if people are leaving?  If they are, great.  If not, great. 

[FatuousTwat]

I keep feeling like the US government is intentionally trying to incite panic.

[Chimpy]

I keep feeling like the US government is intentionally trying to incite panic.

They are just trying to ensure that the media conglomerates have sensational headlines to keep the eyeballs on the screen/paper and the ad revenue coming in.

[Teleku]

I keep feeling like the US government is intentionally trying to incite panic.

Err, how so?  What has the US government itself been continually saying to cause panic?  I've just seen it from the media.

[schild]

The US government isn't a government of Panic. They know far too much about psychology for that. They are a government of Fear.