"Thanks to the Iranian whose Name I don't Know"
Winter 1996

Following is the second issue of Kobe One Year After, compiled by Takashi Tsumura, a writer and practitioner of Chinese healing who lives in Kobe. After a year, the effects of the earthquake are very much in evidence. Parts of the city have changed, other parts haven't. A recent collection of personal accounts by victims of the quake.

• voices-1 Thanks, Everyone
• voices-2 Peace at Home
• voices-3 People in Temporary Housing
• voices-4 A "Dead" City Full of Life

• An assembly from midnight to dawn on January 17, 1996
  A memorial ceremony followed by a discussion at the Sugawara Market Place in Nagata

voices-1 Thanks, Everyone

Following are comments from people randomly chosen from the Fukushi Network Hyogo as carried on Nifty Serve.


• My father fixed the roof, but it still leaks. But, thanks, Dad.
  [11-year-old girl, Tarumi Ward]
  
  
• It was a miracle. Grandma was saved. I thanked Grandpa for looking over her and saving her when I prayed to his image on the family altar.
  [11-year-old girl, Suma Ward]
  
  
• I was about to haul in some water to fill the tub, but when I looked, it was full! My children had already done it for me.
  [43-year-old woman, Nishinomiya City]
  
  
• Thanks to my usually roughhousing brother for carrying all that water. What a sweaty job!
  [14-year-old girl, Nishinomiya City]
  
  
• Volunteers worked hard and slept little. But if you don't sleep enough you can't to a good job the next day.
  [11-year-old boy, Amagasaki City]
  
  
• Tomomatsu-san was a real hero for taking care of the rations for the victims at school.
  [12-year-old boy, Nishinomiya City]
  
  
• Everyone complains that there's not enough water. I take a sip and appreciate how precious it is.
  [12-year-old girl, Tarumi Ward]
  
  
• We were short of water and the man from Myanmar who lives in the public housing next to us gave us two out of his four bottles. How kind.
  [12-year-old male, Chuo Ward]
  
  
• You gave us so much food and drink. I hope you're keeping some for yourself.
  [8-year-old boy, Nishinomiya City]
  
  
• I was moved when I saw on television that people were lining up to donate blood.
  [11-year-old girl, Suma Ward]
  
  
• Thanks to the Iranian whose name I don't know for bringing us that gas cylinder. You made us happy.
  [11-year-old girl, Higashi-Nada Ward]
  
  
• My thanks to the volunteers are stronger than the earthquake.
  [9-year-old boy, Higashi-Nada Ward]
  
  
• I learned how encouraging smiling faces can be. Thank you, volunteers.
  [15-year-old girl, Ashiya City]
  
  
• When I grow up, I want to be a volunteer.
  [12-year-old girl, Nagata Ward]
  
  
  Messages of thanks bring the world together. Hanshin victims responded positively to the earthquake in Yunnan, China. The national papers did not cover this fact, but the local Kobe press did. The people of Kobe organized a support group and twice dispatched rescue supplies and money collected by the NGO liaison Committee. Rengo, the labor organization, also dispatched a delegation. There seems to be a large gap between the people of Kobe and others when it comes to being sensitive about disasters.
  
  
• People from other areas helped us so much. I often wonder how we can reciprocate.
  [from "Women's Forum"]
  
  
• I still receive letters from volunteers. They thank me for the valuable experience they had. I write back my thanks, recalling their faces, and hoping to meet them again.
  [A housewife, Nishinomiya City]
  
  
• After this experience, the city of Kobe and Hyogo Prefecture should organize rescue teams and send them wherever they're needed.
  [From a civic forum on "Citizens and Disaster Prevention"]
  
  
• We shouldn't stop giving aid to Third World countries, despite our being struck by the earthquake. Because of that I want to always live in sympathy with the people of Asia and Africa. The "Greening Kobe" movement to plant trees is wonderful, but it should also include planting trees in Rokko, and then on to the rest of Asia.
  [Kenichi Kusachi, Representative of the NGO Liaison Committee]

voices-2 Peace at Home

The father's position was restored in many households. Some "corporate warriors" have confessed that they had spent little time with their children. Was their change a by-product of a disruption in traffic? Of course, there were still some men who claimed that business affairs come first.
• Following the quake there was a lot of hard work to be done. I really needed my husband, and he came through.
  [From "Women's Forum"]
  
  
• We were all very excited, like when we go camping. My husband worked hard, and the experience was good for our family.
  [Woman, Chuo Ward]
  
  
• I don't want to see his face again. When the quake struck, he called out the cat's name, not mine.
  [A message to the Women's Center]
  
  
• I had to fetch the water and do everything else, too. My husband was so nervous, he just hung around doing nothing. I never knew he was such a ne'er-do-well.
  [A message to the Women's Center]
  
  
  The earthquake totally changed some people. From my observations, this was especially true among those who were involved in community activities before the quake; these people naturally joined in the rescue activities. And a lot of partners became closer.

voices-3 People in Temporary Housing

Following the quake, as many as 90,000 people had to leave Kobe to live elsewhere. Another 90,000 were moved to temporary housing.

Some 600 people died in the wake of the quake from illness, suicide, and being alone. Their deaths have been classified as disaster-related. Of those in the temporary housing, 23% had no income at all after the quake. Of those who lost their jobs, 38,000 registered with the public employment service to receive help in looking for jobs.

Conditions at the temporary housing sites are severe. People there are spending a great deal of their lives at these "temporary" sites. They must be allowed to live decently and with certain amenities. But they've been told that they'll soon have to leave. What will they do? Try to stay? Return to their former home sites? Look for something new? Their place in the world has become totally confused.
• Medical care, jobs, living space. These are the important things at these sites. But they're all inadequate.
  [ Mr. Murai, a temporary housing leader]
  
  
• I had to switch schools. But I still go back to my old one and play with my old friends.
  [From a civic forum on Temporary Housing]
  
  
• I want to go back to my old house. That's a simple enough message.
  [From a civic forum on Temporary Housing]
  
  
• I want my own mailbox.
  
  
• It's not easy to even go shopping; it takes at least an hour to go and come back. I wish there was a local bus service.
  
  
• I want to see my doctor for a check-up, but now he's so far away.
  
  
• This place might have more privacy than the tent I stayed in at the rescue site, but still, it's hard to make friends at a temporary place.
  
  
• I envy the people who got temporary housing in Kobe. It's lonely to have to stay in remote places like Himeji or Yodogawa or Yao.
  
  
  The 59th death attributed to living in solitude was reported on January 17, 1996.
  
  
• There are 184 elderly people here, and 52 of them are living alone. I wish we could form a friendly group and live happily together.
  
  
• We got three households here to form a group. We have a rule that you have to report to the group if you don't see someone for more than a day. And if you go out beyond a certain distance, you report to the group.
  
  
• The biggest problem now is that the kids don't have a playground.
  
  
• I'm always hearing crashing sounds of trucks going by. Are there holes in the roads? They keep waking me up.
  
  
• Our temporary house is here in the middle of a rice-field. It is very drafty. It's cold; a cold wind blows through my heart, too.
  
  
• They built this housing on the side of a busy road without traffic lights. This means that old people have a hard time crossing the street. But some drivers have become aware of the situation and make way for elderly pedestrians.
  
  
• I don't want to return to the place where my son died. I'll stay here in this temporary place even if I have to pay rent.
  
  
• According to the Disaster Rescue Law, people can stay at rescue sites no longer than seven days. But this doesn't necessarily mean that they will be kicked out after a week. The Law is based on the idea that health conditions are not good at such sites, leaving local administration with the responsibility to quickly provide decent temporary housing. People at temporary housing are allowed to stay no more than two years, and again the administration is charged with the further responsibility, legal duty, in fact, to provide permanent housing by the time the two-year period is up. The Law clarifies the responsibilities of the administration, but not the period of how long people are allowed to remain in temporary housing.
  
  
• How we design our futures is not a matter to be solved by "mental care." So-called "healing" doesn't take care of social responsibilities.
  
  
• The city of Kobe owns 17% of the city's land, but it only built temporary housing in remote locations as if it was taking advantage of the emergency so as to carry out their land development schemes. City-owned lots in convenient locations are untouched. The city is abusing the earthquake victims.
  
  
• A house isn't necessarily a piece of private property. A house is worth something only in the context of viable urban development efforts. A deserted town is no community. Just look at the abandoned Sugawara Market area. National and local governments have to spend money to develop our urban areas. I think this is a just demand.
  
  
• Seventy percent of the people here can only afford 30,000 yen a month for rent. Unless improvements are made, these people will have no chance of living in the "public housing" that's now under construction as a part of the reconstruction program.
  
  
  These are the voices of people living in remotely located temporary housing. We organized a tour of these sites. People filled 15 chartered buses to attend the "International Forum on Disaster Prevention for Citizens and NGOs." There is much that can be done to improve temporary housing conditions, from improving the path to the front door to repairing the roof. Small efforts such as these help to make people's daily lives more comfortable. But the fundamental problem, that these people's former communities have been torn asunder, remains unsolved. The problem will only be solved when they are allowed to return home to reform their familiar communities.
  
  
• How many people will have to die until a solution is found?
  [Mr. Ueno, a member of the quake victim's group "And then, Kobe"]
  
  
• Here in Shimabara [in Kyushu where a large quake struck some years back], we demanded special law enforcement and a reconstruction fund. I thought things would move faster in Kobe, but apparently not.
  [A member of the Shimabara City Council]
  
  
• I asked if the military had been mobilized to relocate the communities of the victims. It seems to have been carried out pretty smoothly. I was surprised to learn that there had been a lottery, and those who won were given temporary housing. There was no consideration given to family ties or community. This is incredible. And how could the people be so docile and obedient about it? I can't believe this administration. Anywhere else in the world, they would have to solicit the people's cooperation in reconstruction activities. But here they just moved in and broke up local communities. This is unprecedented.
  [A member of the United Nations Center for Human Settlements]
  
  
  Over the past year, 240,000 people visited the quake sites. The "diaspora" of victims continues apace. It reminds me of Bertolt Brecht's remark about Hungary in 1956, "If the government hates the people so much, they should just break up the country." Humor aside, people are breaking up in Kobe and Hyogo prefecture.
  The law needs to be amended so as to provide victims with funds. That has become the focus of debate. But too, I think it is equally important to generate among the people a feeling for collective decision-making. We need to enhance our own capacities.
  
  
  
  

voices-4 A "Dead" City Full of Life

• I was standing on the burnt earth of Nagata Ward at dawn, exactly one year after the quake, and I thought, "Kobe is still a graveyard." In fact, you can still find cardboard tombstones with names on them and offerings of flowers. In downtown Sannomiya and Motomachi, you can't tell that an earthquake ever happened, everything's been so restored, all the neon shining. I'm impressed, but at the same time I can't help but feel that the many deaths have been turned invisible. Is that the purpose of reconstruction?
  [A newspaper reporter who has followed the quake story for a year]
  
  
• I lost my house, furniture, everything. I can no longer return to Kobe, there's nothing there for me to return to. But I'm happy to be alive.
  [From an essay by an elementary school boy that was read publicly at the International Forum on Disaster Prevention for Citizens and NGOs]
  
  
• Nature is powerful. People are powerful, too. I saw how powerful Nature can be. But I also saw how hard and desperately people worked and have continued to work.
  [Taisei Masuda, Deputy Chairman of the Kobe Co-op]
  
  
• Everyone dies. This is what the Buddhists used to say to soothe the families of the deceased at funerals. However, now I very strongly feel that instead of saying this so we can accept the death of our loved ones, we must help everyone come to terms with his or her own death as a natural part of the life process.
  [A Buddhist monk living in Kobe]
  
  
• The earthquake was a collective near-death experience. Some people have this sort of experience when they are very ill, and then they see the significance of their being alive and they change their lives. I hope that the quake victims will also change their lives.
  [A bookstore owner]
  When one is aware of death, and allows the death element within life to mature, then he or she can tap into infinite vital energies. Then we no longer simply consume life.
  
  
• It's great, Mother. Now I know that death is not an end. I have been transformed into another kind of light, a link on an infinitely illuminated chain of life. Now I understand.
  [From the film, "Island of Light"]
  
  
  The film "Island of Light" was directed by Junichiro Oshige. He used footage from his years in the Yaeyama Islands of Okinawa, and he edited the film as he had his own near-death experience in Kobe. The film's theme is healing-through-death. It neither glorifies nor looks down on death. Rather, it accepts death as a natural part of life.
  
  If it were not, we would be over-indulgent when it comes to life, and panic at the thought of death. Those who saw the film remarked that they wanted to show it to people who lost their loved ones in the earthquake. Many wanted to show it especially to school children, or to those living in temporary housing. This summer, it will be projected on a large open-air screen and at temporary housing sites.
  
  (by Takashi Tsumura)
  
  

  
  
  
  

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[Tsumura Interview on the Quake's Aftermath Part 1]
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["earth" A Sensibility for Living in a World in Constant Flux by Shin'ichi Takemura]
["earth" From Kobe to the World by Takashi Tsumura]