The term paper I did on sensemaking as evidenced by social media exchanges has changed the way I look at internet interactions. Exchanges taken literally, miss the process that is happening and the reasons why people write.
I haven't formed definite opinions, but it seems that internet exchanges are intrinsically linked to making sense of unsettling situations. Online newspaper's "comment spaces" after articles are part of the same genre of exchange. I didn't follow the exchanges after the incident in Norway, but the English riots are also instructive in seeing how people make sense of situations.
Something that is increasingly apparent is that new information goes into an existing framework, but overwhelmingly the framework itself doesn't seem to change much. People who harbour deep suspicion towards the Japanese government tend not to distinguish between the LDP and the DPJ and are inclined to see anything that the govt. says or does in the light of misinformation and coverups.
People who are sceptical of "expert" scientists tend not to be persuaded by figures that say small amounts of radiation are safe. People who evaluate based on "expert" advice tend to be comforted in their decision to remain in Japan.
Many western foreigners are incredulous at the "shouganai" mentality they perceive in Japan, which serves to reinforce their existing cultural stereotype of Japanese as being passive and docile. Grass roots campaigns are overlooked, as is the fact that most Japanese have no option but to live in Japan.
These observations lead me to the question - what does it take to change someone's mind? What does it take for a person's existing framework to be reshaped? Can a science sceptic become a science believer? Conversely can a science believer become a science sceptic? Can a person who believes that riots in the UK are the result of poverty and social neglect be persuaded that the matter is simple criminality and vice versa?
What causes people to change their mind? Is it "overwhelming evidence"? Is it personal experience? Is is the wise words of people in authority? Is it economics?
Still trying to make sense of it.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Monday, 4 July 2011
The human tragedy
Below is an article from Asahi, that starkly shows the on going human cost of the situation in Fukushima. Hiro has been going up to Fukushima for work - working with beef cattle co-operative to try and find options. From what I understand, most beef farmers want their cattle agisted in Yamagata, Iwate and other nearby prefectures until the nuclear situation is stabilized.
message to those he left behind: "Remaining dairy farmers: Don't lose out to the nuclear accident, do your best."
The 54-year-old man, a dairy farmer from Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, wrote the message on the wall of the compost shed, beside the barn where he killed himself in June.
For dairy farmers the situation is much more grim - daily milkings, to throw away the milk. It takes time to wind down and wind back up dairy production. There is also much more frequent financial transaction - milk going out, money coming in. Beef cattle the amounts of money in any one transaction are much higher but their lower frequency is a buffer against market blips.
For the farmer in the story below three and a half months of extreme uncertainty, with no indication of when things will improve, was too much. TEPCO "consolation money" would not be much consolation.... (assuming that they paid it....)
Dairy farmer's last words blame nuclear plant crisis
Just before he took his own life, a desperate farmer scrawled a haunting
 |
| A dairy farmer left this suicide note written in chalk on the plywood wall of the new compost shed he had build just before the March 11 disaster. (Jun Kaneko) |
For years, the man had operated the dairy farm he inherited from his father in a small village nestled in the mountains of Soma, about 50 kilometers from Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The farm had about 40 head of cattle. The cattle barn and compost shed stood side by side in front of the main farmhouse, which sat at the bottom of a gentle slope.
"Earnest and hard-working" is how his friends and fellow dairy farmers described him. He rose at 3 a.m. every day, they said, to cut pasture grass to feed his cattle. Sometimes, he would later head out to cultivate his fields.
Late last year, he decided to make and sell compost. He built the new shed. He planned to slowly expand his variety of farming equipment and tools, and worked diligently to increase the scale of the family farm.
Then came March 11, and the ensuing nuclear meltdowns to the south.
On March 21, with radiation spreading, the farmer was forced to halt shipments of raw milk. After dumping the milk from his cattle every day for about a month, he complained to his friends, "I can't ship milk out, so no money comes in."
Of the 28 members of the dairy farmer section of the Soma Agricultural Cooperative Association (JA Soma) to which the man belonged, only 18 have been able to resume operations.
According to friends, the man lived with his 32-year-old Filipino wife and two sons, aged 5 and 6. Wearing the same type and color of work jacket as her husband, the wife also helped tend the cattle.
The man appeared to be looking forward to his eldest son's upcoming primary school entrance ceremony. Another dairy farmer, 52, a friend for 20 years, said the man seemed happy when he told him, "I went up to Koriyama (in central Fukushima Prefecture) and bought an expensive school knapsack (for my son)."
But in mid-April, just before his eldest son's entrance ceremony, the man's wife and children left Japan for the Philippines at the urging of the Philippine government. Toward the end of the month, the man followed.
"It's no good. I'm quitting the dairy business and going (to the Philippines). It's lonely without my children," he told those around him.
When a friend contacted him in the Philippines, the man asked that his "cattle be disposed of." It was decided that neighboring farmers and the man's friends would divide up his cattle and take over their care.
Then, at the beginning of May, the man returned to Japan alone.
"I didn't want to come back, but I couldn't speak the language," the man said of his time in the Philippines.
His barn was empty by then. "I'm sorry I caused you all so much trouble," the man told his dairy-farming friends.
On the morning of June 11, an agricultural cooperative worker came by to deliver the association's magazine. He found the man's body in the compost shed, and the message handwritten in white chalk on the shed's plywood wall.
To his older sister, the man wrote: "I am grateful for all that you've done for me. If only there hadn't been the nuclear power plant.
"To my wife and children, I am sorry. I was a father who could do nothing. To my deceased parents, I'm sorry."
His funeral was held in Soma on June 14. About 200 people, including family members and fellow dairy farmers, came to pay their respects. The man's wife and children, who had rushed back from the Philippines, were huddled together, crying.
The man named two people in his will. The first was the carpenter who had built the man's compost shed. Payment for the work had yet to be completed. "Please collect what I owe you from the insurance money. I am sorry."
The other name was that of a neighbor, a 64-year-old dairy farmer.
"I can't express in words how indebted I feel to you," the man had written.
The neighbor said, "He was big in body but weak in heart, and a serious person who had no interests other than his work. We can't let any more people like him leave us."
According to National Police Agency figures, 151 people killed themselves in May in the three prefectures--Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima--hardest hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disasters. Of the three, Fukushima recorded the most suicides at 68, 19 more than in May of the previous year, and the only prefecture of the three that showed an increase.
After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, some people who took their own lives from the shock of losing their jobs and loved ones were recognized as having died from "earthquake-related causes." The bereaved families were provided with condolence money, provided that certain conditions, such as the deceased having been medically diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), were met.
Terumi Hironaka, director for the Kobe-based Cosmos, an NPO working to reduce suicides brought on by multiple debts, is providing telephone counseling for disaster victims.
Recalling her experiences after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, Hironaka pointed out, "After the Hanshin earthquake, suicides increased sharply after survivors started entering temporary housing. After some time has passed, a sense of hopelessness can attack people who have lost their homes and jobs. Providing care from here on is important."
Hisao Nakai, a psychiatrist who cared for disaster victims after the Hanshin quake, notes, "In Fukushima, along with being devastated by the earthquake and tsunami, people are also feeling pain from the uncertainty about the future due to the nuclear accident."
(This article was written by Takafumi Yabuki, Sho Tanji and Kenichi Hato)
The aftermath and sense making
The original stimulus - a story
It (the prefectural office) has been unable to communicate with the mayor and officials in Otsuchi after the town office was swept away by a tsunami while the mayor and town officials were apparently inside the building…. Nikkei
Two interpretations
Interpretation 1. www.japanprobe.com 13 March 2011
Why were the mayor and town officials inside the building at the time the tsunami struck? According to news reports, they were holding a meeting to discuss safety measures that should be taken. The town office was a two-story building only 1-kilometer from the shore, making it one of the worst imaginable places to sit down and have a discussion while a deadly tsunami was on its way. At the time this blog entry was posted, the mayor and town officials were still missing. It is possible that indecisiveness at a critical time resulted in their deaths, as well as the deaths of many town residents.
Interpretation 2. www.guardian.com.uk 22 March 2011
Koki Kato's last official act as mayor was to set up a command centre for Otsuchi's disaster response team, outdoors, in front of the town hall and facing the sea. The mayor in his usual hands-on style was helping workers haul out tables and chairs for the outdoor HQ when Japan's tsunami struck. "All of us scattered to escape," said Kansei Sawadate, a local government official who was at the meeting. They all made it back into the town hall building – including the mayor. But then, to Sawadate's horror and disbelief, the waters surged as high as the clock face on the second floor. "The people who went up on the roof were saved, and the people who stayed on the second floor were washed away," he said.
In the wake of the 11/3 earthquake, which caused tragedy on a massive scale, people are searching for explanations. Explanations are less for the earthquake itself, which to the modern mind can be understood satisfactorily by geophysics, rather for the manifold incidents that it precipitated. Questions abound. Why did so many people die in the tsunami despite it being a high risk area with evacuation plans? Why was the failure at TEPCO so large? Why is the Japanese evacuation zone so different to the evacuation proscribed by the US? Why did some foreign government’s order evacuations while others downplayed the risks? To make sense of all the information connected to the earthquake the unknown has to be placed alongside the known in a framework so that you can ‘comprehend, explain, understand, attribute, extrapolate and predict.” (Starbuck and Milliken in Weick 1995). For an event to make sense it has to fit inside ones ‘mental model’ of the world, when it doesn’t fit, the process of sensemaking becomes more intense. We have all needed to “make sense” of events that have occurred since the earthquake. In this paper I am seeking patterns in the sense being created and the discourses being developed.
Wednesday, 22 June 2011
A reply
| to | H-NET/KIAPS List for Japanese History <H-JAPAN@h-net.msu.edu> | ||
| date | Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 9:01 PM | ||
| subject | Re: H-JAPAN (E): The Great Fukushima Panic of 2011 / empirical evidence on "flyjin" | ||
| mailed-by | gmail.com |
With respect, I am not sure how constructive it is to be adopting the term "flyjin". Though the term may appear to be cute and clever, in reality in the Kanto area in particular it is a loaded word that in some circles has become derisive and abusive. The term flyjin trivialises the reality that there is an evacuation zone in place and that there is a serious radiation problem - the extent of which is still not clearly determined. It also fails to consider that people who left were in many cases acting on embassy advice or company instructions. I have been in Tokyo since the earthquake, except for a Golden Week sojourn in Tohoku, with no thought of leaving but have been dismayed at the macho vitriol around who stayed and who left. It's disappointing to see the term being picked up unproblematised in academic circles.
A spot count of conspicuous foreigners on the streets of Tokyo tells nothing about the numbers of people who have left Tokyo. In particular it ignores a distinction between residents (short and long term) and tourists. It also ignores the fact that most foreigners (both resident and tourists) are Asian. A spot count that has no control, defines foreigners in racial terms (which probably labels Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Singaporeans and many other SE Asians as Japanese) and conflates people that have actively left with people that decided not come, is meaningless.
For the dip (plunge) in foreign visitor numbers the Ministry of Justice data is much more useful. http://www.tourism.jp/
Cecilia Fujishima
Tokyo
A bizarre anecdote from an academic list
Below I have posted an email that turned up on an academic email list that I subscribe to, from a professor at Berkley, who should know better.
I will post my reply in the next post.
H-JAPAN (E) June 19, 2011
For those of you who have not yet returned to Japan since 3/11, it may be helpful to understand how significant the absence of "gaijin" is in the capital, a point noted more than once on this list.
I am using the term "gaijin" here to refer to racially differentiated (non-Asian) individuals, including those who appear to be from the Indian subcontinent. If mixed-race children were with a non-Asian parent, I counted them. I also counted one woman in a version of the headscarf worn by Moslem women, seen from behind, and her child (in a stroller), because the attire was clearly non-Japanese in nature. That is, I tended to err on the side of counting individuals as being foreign.
I did a casual count Friday, June 17 through Sunday, June 19. The first two days, I went about normal activity, but the last day, I confess, I deliberately went to a tourist spot. I included those seen within my hotel, a nice business hotel that maintains a reservations web site in English and often has foreign guests.
___
Friday count: 22. (8 a.m.-7:30 p.m.) I went through 9 subway stations: Akasaka, Meijijungumae, KitaSando, Shinjuku (Oedo at Minami Shinjuku), Aoyama Itchome, Gaienmae, Akasaka-Mitsuke to Nagatacho, and Kojimachi. I walked at least 6 kilometers: from my hotel to the first station (.6 km), from Kita Sando west for 1.2 km, from there to several floors, including the 6th, of the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Minami Shinjuku (1.8 km), from Aoyama Itchome to Gaienmae (.7 km) and from Kojimachi back to the Akasaka area (1.6 if done efficiently, which I did not).
----
Saturday count: 135. About 15 under 5 years old.
I went through Roppongi twice, Hiro once, and Midtown twice. I went through three crowded shopping areas--Ebisu, Midtown, and Roppongi HIlls, plus the Photography Museum. I went to National Azabu (upstairs) on a Saturday.
I was out 8 and a half hours, and I went through Roppongi Station (10:30 a.m.), Ebisu (subway) Station, and HIro Station. I walked 1.5 km around Ebisu, and from Hiro to Roppongi HIlls (another 1.5 km) to Gallery Ma (another 1.5 km) to Midtown (600 meters) and back to the hotel (1 km). About 6 kilometers.
----
Sunday count: 60. I counted 13 women; 4 were children.
Out at 9 a.m., walked from Akasaka to near the foot of Tokyo Tower via Ark Hills (1.9 km), continued on to Daimon Station, boarded a monorail to Tenozu Isle (1.5 km), Walked a very short distance from there, then boarded a cab back to Akasaka.Afterward, walked to Kasumigaseki (2 km), continued to the Imperial Palace Gardens (3 km), walked from there to Otemachi Stn (1.5), direct line back to Akasaka, and back to hotel (.5 km) about 6:30 p.m.
21 men and 8 women were seen in the area of the Imperial Palace, including joggers and apparent tourists. (Note: I attended an English-language church service, but did not count the congregants. There were about 45 people in the church, and between half and two-thirds were non-Asian. The church would normally have at least 50% more congregants, and often double.)
Walked about 10.5 km, was in three not-particularly-busy subway stations, but lingered around the Imperial Palace.
_______________________
...............................
Associate Professor
Department of Architecture
University of California, Berkeley
I will post my reply in the next post.
H-JAPAN (E) June 19, 2011
For those of you who have not yet returned to Japan since 3/11, it may be helpful to understand how significant the absence of "gaijin" is in the capital, a point noted more than once on this list.
I am using the term "gaijin" here to refer to racially differentiated (non-Asian) individuals, including those who appear to be from the Indian subcontinent. If mixed-race children were with a non-Asian parent, I counted them. I also counted one woman in a version of the headscarf worn by Moslem women, seen from behind, and her child (in a stroller), because the attire was clearly non-Japanese in nature. That is, I tended to err on the side of counting individuals as being foreign.
I did a casual count Friday, June 17 through Sunday, June 19. The first two days, I went about normal activity, but the last day, I confess, I deliberately went to a tourist spot. I included those seen within my hotel, a nice business hotel that maintains a reservations web site in English and often has foreign guests.
___
Friday count: 22. (8 a.m.-7:30 p.m.) I went through 9 subway stations: Akasaka, Meijijungumae, KitaSando, Shinjuku (Oedo at Minami Shinjuku), Aoyama Itchome, Gaienmae, Akasaka-Mitsuke to Nagatacho, and Kojimachi. I walked at least 6 kilometers: from my hotel to the first station (.6 km), from Kita Sando west for 1.2 km, from there to several floors, including the 6th, of the Kinokuniya Bookstore in Minami Shinjuku (1.8 km), from Aoyama Itchome to Gaienmae (.7 km) and from Kojimachi back to the Akasaka area (1.6 if done efficiently, which I did not).
----
Saturday count: 135. About 15 under 5 years old.
I went through Roppongi twice, Hiro once, and Midtown twice. I went through three crowded shopping areas--Ebisu, Midtown, and Roppongi HIlls, plus the Photography Museum. I went to National Azabu (upstairs) on a Saturday.
I was out 8 and a half hours, and I went through Roppongi Station (10:30 a.m.), Ebisu (subway) Station, and HIro Station. I walked 1.5 km around Ebisu, and from Hiro to Roppongi HIlls (another 1.5 km) to Gallery Ma (another 1.5 km) to Midtown (600 meters) and back to the hotel (1 km). About 6 kilometers.
----
Sunday count: 60. I counted 13 women; 4 were children.
Out at 9 a.m., walked from Akasaka to near the foot of Tokyo Tower via Ark Hills (1.9 km), continued on to Daimon Station, boarded a monorail to Tenozu Isle (1.5 km), Walked a very short distance from there, then boarded a cab back to Akasaka.Afterward, walked to Kasumigaseki (2 km), continued to the Imperial Palace Gardens (3 km), walked from there to Otemachi Stn (1.5), direct line back to Akasaka, and back to hotel (.5 km) about 6:30 p.m.
21 men and 8 women were seen in the area of the Imperial Palace, including joggers and apparent tourists. (Note: I attended an English-language church service, but did not count the congregants. There were about 45 people in the church, and between half and two-thirds were non-Asian. The church would normally have at least 50% more congregants, and often double.)
Walked about 10.5 km, was in three not-particularly-busy subway stations, but lingered around the Imperial Palace.
_______________________
...............................
Associate Professor
Department of Architecture
University of California, Berkeley
Monday, 20 June 2011
Volunteering part 3
The article below is of Chinese students making donations to Japan. I have a lot of affection for both China and Japan, and the state of relations between the two countries often upsets me at a deep and personal level. A lot has been made of the Chinese media delighting in the misery in Japan after the earthquake, but I think that is only one aspect of the Chinese media. There has been a lot of effort made to transcend nationality and see the suffering and and need as being human. I was amazed to read Chinese newspapers praising the character of Japanese after the quake - praising technology I could understand but character... that seemed like huge progress. The story below seeks to show a common humanity. A story I posted before shows the character being praised. (I haven't seen the truth of the story verified, but that is secondary in this context to the fact it was run as a true story in a Shanghai newspaper.)
In terms of organisations I know people involved with
Red Cross, Caritas, Peace Boat.
as well as people working unaffiliated.
Students move to donate to quake-hit Japan
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-03-16 22:54
 | Large Medium Small |
BEIJING - Two donation boxes were set up in front of canteens in Beijing's Tsinghua University, one of the top universities in China, to collect money for earthquake victims.
One box was for victims of the 5.8-magnitude earthquake last Thursday in southwest China's Yunnan Province that left 25 dead and hundreds wounded. The other is for victims of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami that wreaked havoc on Japan.
"We should care for and help each other since we are close neighbors," Meng Xiaoxiao, a 19-year-old freshman from the School of Humanities and Social Science of Tsinghua, said while donating money to Japan.
"Humanity always comes before nationality, and it is pointless to let historic problems deter relief work when natural disasters strike," Meng Xiaoxiao said.
"We talked a lot about the earthquake in Japan and it was really a catastrophe," said Li Keqian from the School of Information Science and Technology. "It is natural that we give them a hand."
Li said that the money collection was organized by the student union and the graduate student union of Tsinghua University. The campaign gained wide support from lecturers and students.
Some Japanese students who study in Tsinghua University helped with the donation. Each time a student comes and donates, they will bow deeply to express their thanks and appreciation.
Nakayama Chie has been in China for 10 years and is studying journalism at Tsinghua.
"Many of my classmates inquired and comforted me when they heard about the earthquake. I am so grateful for their kindness," Chie told reporters.
She said that she donated to the victims of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in southwestern Sichuan Province that killed tens of thousands of people. She also worked as a volunteer during the Beijing Olympic Games that same year.
Learning that Chinese rescue teams have arrived in Japan, Chie bowed a second time. "The disaster is not over yet, and I just hope that my country will recover soon," she said.
Similar donation collections were organized in other universities around the nation.
Starting Sunday, about 200 volunteers from seven universities in northeastern Changchun City took to the streets with 29 donation boxes to request donations for victims in Yunnan, as well as in Japan.
"All human beings are equal when it comes to life and death. We should not only aid those in Yunnan, but also send our assistance to the Japanese people," said Du Yumeng from the Changchun University of Technology.
In Shanghai's Fudan University, donations also attracted a crowd of students who opened their purses without hesitation.
Yang Yujia, a freshman who majored in economics, said she studied in Japan for a year with an exchange program when she was in middle school.
"I have a beautiful memory about Japan, and I hope my contribution could bring a little comfort to those heart-broken," Yang said, emptying her purse.
There are 454 Japanese students in Fudan University and 33 of them are from the most severely hit northeastern regions, said Yang Zengguo, a staff member with the foreign students department.
After the earthquake, the department contacted all Japanese students and offered psychological counseling to some of them, said Yang.
"We will never forget the aid provided by Japan during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and China will never hesitate to stretch out a helping hand to Japan's quake-hit zone," said Liu Jiangyong, a professor at the Institute of International Studies of Tsinghua University.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Not really anything to do with the earthquake but
it's the kind of story that might inspire "volunteer spirit".
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