All About Japanese

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Pete Fowler & Best Ever:
Help Japan @ Holywell Lane, Shoreditch

I saw this street art on the back of Village Underground in Shoreditch. Village Underground is an evolving project, building an international platform for creativity and culture, and it is a collaboration of the Welsh artist Pete Fowler and the street art unit Best Ever for “Paint for Japan” event held on May 30, I guess.
Bluey, the husband of my friend and a member of British asid jazz band Incognito, has produced the charity song “Love Will Find A Way” for Japan earthquake and Tsunami, now being sold on iTunes across the world.
. Source: 　everydaylifestyle


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Gabi reports:


dark clouds
hang over my valley -
rain in Fukushima

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Yesterday, Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono visited Kesennuma City, which has strong economic ties with Indonesia. He also visited Suzuki Atsuo, who had been introducing Indonesian culture to Kesennuma for more than eight years.

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Japan had developed six highly sophisticated robots for work in a damages atomic plant, but they were refused by the plant owners, saying "they will never be used!" and ended up in Science Museums, where we can see them now, while the struggle at Fukushima goes on.


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Bulletins from NHK Online
source : www3.nhk.or.jp


Sunday, June 19, 2011 06:59
TEPCO: cleanup system could take time
The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it may take several days before a system to decontaminate highly radioactive water accumulating in the facility can be restarted.
Tokyo Electric Power Company put the system into full operation on Friday night, but had to halt it 5 hours later as the radiation level of a cesium absorption device rose higher than expected.
The device is also designed to remove oil and technetium.
TEPCO says it may have absorbed larger-than-expected amounts of radioactive materials along with oil. The utility is now working on measures to solve the issue.
TEPCO says the effort will require time. In addition, depending on the situation, it may have to reconsider the working of the entire system and examine the effect of radioactivity emitted from nearby pipes.
There are concerns that the highly radioactive water may overflow in around one week if no measures are taken.


Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:34
Tokyo to revise liquefaction hazard map
The Tokyo metropolitan government plans to revise a map showing areas possibly susceptible to soil liquefaction in the event a powerful earthquake hits the capital city.
Liquefaction caused heavy damage to buildings and infrastructure along Tokyo Bay when the earthquake hit northeastern Japan on March 11th.
The metropolitan government decided to review the existing liquefaction hazard map with the help of outside experts.
The map is designed to be used as construction guidelines on the need for ground fortification and quake resistance.
The current map was drawn up 15 years ago, and assumes an earthquake with a magnitude similar to that of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923.
Tokyo says it plans to create a new projection map by incorporating fresh data obtained from detailed investigation of ground layers.
It says it will make public the new map by the spring of 2013.

.....

Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:44
Annual festival to be held in disaster-hit area
Municipalities affected by the nuclear accident in Fukushima say they will hold a small version of a traditional festival in July as a symbol of reconstruction.
The spectacular festival featuring mounted feudal samurai has been held annually in venues in Soma and Minami Soma cities.
More than 500 riders wearing traditional armor take part in the event, which is designated as an important intangible ethnic heritage of Japan.
This year, the nuclear accident threatened the start of the festival.
The organizers say the decision was made to preserve the tradition, but that some of the high points will be cancelled because the venues are in the emergency evacuation zone and many participants have moved away.
They say the ritual chase of horses to a shrine within the 20-kilometer no-entry zone will take place at a shrine outside the zone.
Mayor of Minami Soma Katsunobu Sakurai says he is sorry that the traditional festival cannot be held as usual but he still wants to hold the event to express condolences to disaster victims.
The festival will be held for 3 days from July 23rd.


相馬野馬追 Stamp from 1965, July 16

Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago.
. Soma Nomaoi Festival
Chasing wild horses in Soma


tradition lives
in difficult times -
Soma Horse Festival 　

.....

Sunday, June 19, 2011 12:35
TEPCO soon to open doors to No.2 reactor building
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it will soon begin to open the doors to the No. 2 reactor building at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for ventilation, to lower humidity, and to start restoration work.
Extremely high humidity of nearly 100 percent, due to moisture apparently from the containment vessel and spent-fuel storage pool, has been hampering work inside the building.
TEPCO has been operating an air purification device for more than a week to reduce the radioactive concentration inside the building. The company now assesses that opening the doors will raise the level of background radiation around the plant by 0.0014 microsievert per hour, far below the permissible annual limit for ordinary people of one millisievert.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday morning, a TEPCO official stressed that the planned door-opening will have little impact on the nearby environment.
The company plans to begin opening the doors at 8 PM on Sunday and to fully open them at 4 AM on Monday if no problems arise.
TEPCO says the initial stage of the planned restoration work will include staff surveying radiation levels and adjusting gauges inside the building.


Sunday, June 19, 2011 14:29
Survey: Average working hours decreased after 3.11
A government survey shows that workers in Japan spent fewer hours at the office after the March 11th disaster compared to the figure a year earlier.
The labor ministry surveyed some 16,000 companies with 30 or more employees across the country to see how the massive earthquake and tsunami have affected average monthly working hours per person.
The survey found that workers in 15 prefectures in eastern and northeastern Japan serviced by the disaster-affected Tokyo and Tohoku electric power companies worked 150 hours on average in April. That's a drop of 5.5 hours, or 3.5 percent, from the figure a year ago.
It also found that average overtime work per employee in those prefectures decreased to 11.7 hours, down 9.3 percent from the figure a year earlier.
The average monthly salary for workers in the 15 prefectures in April stood at about 4,000 dollars. That's a year-on-year decline of 1.8 percent.
Working hours in 32 other prefectures decreased a relatively small 2.3 percent in April.
The labor ministry says it believes the decreases were caused by damage left by the disaster and subsequent power-saving efforts that slowed industrial production.


Sunday, June 19, 2011 16:54
Fukushima parents decontaminate school building
Parents and teachers decontaminated an elementary school building in Date City, Fukushima Prefecture, on Sunday.
About 80 parents and teachers at Tsukidate elementary school thoroughly washed windows and verandas with high-pressure water jets and brushes.
The school has not detected radiation levels in excess of the legal limit, but has still suspended activities on the playground in response to concern by parents.
Meanwhile, radiation levels exceeded the limit in some parts of the city, and the government plans to help households in the designated areas to evacuate, raising concern among residents.
One parent who participated in the clean-up said he wanted to do something for children because the government's response has been slow.
School principal Masayoshi Murakami says he hopes the clean-up will help to ease children's and parents' worries.
(It looked quite strange, seeing all the parents without any protective gear, just rinsing the walls, windows and floors outside the building ... )


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Voices from around


. Daily Radiation Levels . 　

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Japan Times :

Halted reactors safe to fire up: Kaieda
Industry minister Banri Kaieda calls for restarting nuclear reactors currently suspended for inspections, saying countermeasures have been taken "appropriately" at the nation's power plants.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a1.html
.
Prefectures, confused by central government, can't decide on reactor restarts
Seven prefectures with a total of 11 nuclear reactors shut down for regular inspections say they can't decide whether to bring them back on line before the central government clarifies new safety criteria.
... The seven prefectures are Hokkaido, Aomori, Ishikawa, Fukui, Ehime, Saga and Kagoshima.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619b2.html


Tepco halts treatment of water after five hours
Tokyo Electric Power Co. delays a plan to use treated water to cool reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant after problems develop with the newly installed water treatment system.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a2.html


Third extra budget to top yen 10 trillion
The No. 2 man in the Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, says a third extra budget will be readied for the Diet by mid-August to get reconstruction work in full swing.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a3.html


French find cesium in Shizuoka tea
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a4.html


Fukushima panel shocked by destruction
Members of an expert panel investigating the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant visited the site for the first time Friday, where they were shocked by the extent of the damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, committee leader Yotaro Hatamura 畑村洋太郎 said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a5.html


IAEA calls for tsunami warning system to improve nuclear safety
VIENNA — The International Atomic Energy Agency outlined the need to establish an "active tsunami warning system" to enhance the safety of nuclear power plants in a report made available Friday.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110619a6.html


Speaking out on nuclear power
Japan's most renowned living writer, Mr. Haruki Murakami, received the Premi Internacional Catalunya prize in Barcelona on June 9 from the Catalan Government, and took the occasion to criticize Japan's nuclear policies.
... In his speech, Mr. Murakami criticized the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant as the second major nuclear detriment in Japan's history after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This one, he noted, was a mistake made by Japan.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/ed20110619a1.html


Remembering the day the ocean rose
"Come on up," said a man wearing dark-blue overalls and a baseball cap. "Come up and see the view."
... So, on an overcast day in late May, myself and two colleagues followed Yoshinobu Ryokawa into the smashed entrance of his three-story concrete building and made our way up to the roof. We were in the middle of a reporting trip to areas of the Tohoku region of Honshu hard hit by the magnitude-9 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, and Ryokawa had called out to us as we negotiated the rubble of what had been Unosumai Station, about 100 meters away.
Up on the roof, the 70-year-old gripped a railing and began pointing out former landmarks. "That's where the train line was. That's where the station was. There were houses all through here," he said, waving his arm.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/fl20110619x1.html


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Haiku about the Great East Japan Earthquake (8)
Akita International Haiku Network
2011/06/18

春の地震残る仏陀の祈りかな

spring earthquake
Buddha abides
in prayers



春の地震祈る仏陀の涙かな

spring earthquake
Buddha prays
in tears

Hidenori Hiruta


Read more haiku HERE
source : akitahaiku.wordpress.com


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