(Reuters photo)
According to a Newsweek Japan feature, stress and lack of privacy is taking its toll on victims of the March 11 quake and tsunami living in evacuee shelters in Japan’s Tohoku region.
As the media and politicians are spouting slogans like, “Tohoku people are strong,” “We are all one,” “You will never walk alone,” “One nation one heart,” the people living through the crisis don’t feel strong, and don’t necessarily want to walk with anyone or share a heart.
Evacuees who have been living in shelters for the past two and a half months complain about the lack of privacy and the stress of no longer trusting their neighbors. The people sleep on rows of cots without partitions. Basic provisions are often stolen, something the mainstream media ignore, because it goes against the notion that Japan is the only safe place on earth and all crimes are committed by foreigners. Compounding these problems are opportunistic reporters and photographers pestering victims for interviews, or taking their pictures without permission, while celebrities visit the shelters for photo opportunities, smiling and helping only while the cameras are on, and only long enough to get a shot.
I can sympathize with these victims. In normal Japanese life, there is no such thing as privacy. There is no native Japanese word for privacy, and the Japanese use the loan word, “puraibashii” for a narrow, nuanced definition of the foreign concept. Puraibashii has a connotation of being a selfish desire to hide something personal. Walls in Japan are paper-thin, and homes are cramped close together. There are no cubicles in Japanese offices. Workers sit at desks arranged into pods, with the boss sitting at the front of the room, looking down the pods. Everyone can see what everyone else is doing. Living in Japan is a bit like living in a fishbowl–you are constantly on display. Coming from Kansas, where there is nothing but space, this is especially hard for me. I imagine the feeling would be compounded exponentially in these shelters.
Since Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials now don’t expect to get the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant under control until the end of the year, some evacuees will be stuck in the shelters indefinitely.
