Imprisoned wife and children

 

 

I would love to begin with the definition of terms.

 

Me : Emotionally neutral. not meant to criticize anyone but Tepco and Japanese government.

Japanese : People living in Japan regardless of the DNA type.

 

 

Survivors are pressured. Japanese style of the society is starting to kill themselves.

 

Imprisoned wife(husband) and children.

 

In the family, where the husband works at a company and the wife stays at home to look after their children, more and more wives and children feel like they are imprisoned.

In those typical style of the family, husband has the control over the wallet mostly. However, because they spend most of day time at company, they tend to have group mind. Especially when they work for typical Japanese company, they are not allowed to put higher priority on their health, private life, or even family. Even when the company is not making profit at all, those Japanese workers are expected to devote everything to the work. After 311, a lot of the company workers were forced to be exposed by commuting and working outside. In that culture, “giving a trouble to others” is thought to be the worst taboo. Even if they have 39℃ of fever or have their child sick, giving a trouble to the company, such as calling in sick or commuting after sending their child to a hospital is not happily accepted. Not to mention, radiation is not exception. Still radiation is considered to be an “imaginary” problem. Talking about radiation is thought to be like talking about UFO.

On the other hand, house wives have more time. Because internet infrastructure is well maintained in Japan, they can access to the variety of information.

Since 311, the only source where we can get correct information has been Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook or Mixi. Things changed on 3/11/2011. Right after the disaster, NHK, TBS, and other TV channels broadcast their news programs on the internet such as Ustream. Usually NHK requires you to pay the monthly charge. It was their charity service to spread the news for people who don’t make a contract with NHK. On those websites such as Ustream, you can talk to other viewers by using the service of Twitter. Viewers therefore exchanged live information beside the non-stop disaster reports of mass media. Meltdown, explosion of the depleted uranium factory in Chiba, those information was spread on Twitter several months before mass media reported.

House wives who got to learn how to collect information on the internet accumulated knowledge, and understood that they have to evacuate to save their children. Now those Japanese house wives are the people who are the most familiar to physics in the world.

After the historical concealment of Japanese government, they no longer trust the public announcement.

 

Government measures radiation contained in food but the data is not trustworthy.

Government measures radiation but it’s only cesium, beta nuclides such as Strontium or Tritium, and alpha nuclides such as Plutonium or Uranium are ignored.

The safety limit of food is set to protect food producers, not consumers.

From the historical issues of public pollution, they are aware that Japanese government will not compensate for the victims.

Children are forced to eat school lunch, even milk or mushroom, and the radiation measurement is full of flaws.

 

However, when a wife offers her husband to evacuate, husband goes hysterical. They turn down the wife’s offer for financial reasons, such aswork, house mortgage, educations cost etc. Then wife offers him to evacuate only with the children. Husbands yet refuse for financial reasons again, such as living apart costs too much. Not to mention, if they have cancer and get hospitalized, it would cost more than living apart. The fact is, this is not the true reason for the man to refuse evacuation.

As wives try to persuade their husbands more, they get to a conclusion. The husband doesn’t want to be apart from his wife. It is easy to judge this is not affection. If they love their wives, they must evacuate soon as possible. It is dependence. Those husbands depend on their wives like a son depends on his mother. This is similar to what they call mother complex.

Even if the wife manages to evacuate with her children, the family roles are swop. Wife plays the role of man. Husband plays the role of (bad) woman, in other word, possessed by his own internal female personality. I often hear that a husband in Tokyo calls her, no his wife in Okiwana to ask for divorce. The wife will suffer from poverty and the child will be sent back to the contaminated zone. In the current legal situation of Japan, the evacuated mother won’t be given the right to take over her child. She is more likely to be considered to be mentally unstable. This is how a husband pressures his wife financially. After repeating this a couple of times, sometimes the husband finds another woman for the replacement of his wife and his mother.

When the husband is a “house husband” and the wife works at a company, it happens oppositely.

 

 

 

Imprisoned young generation

 

It’s not only husband to be dependent. Parental generation (60s~) is also dependent for their own children generation (4os~).

Parental generation attacks their own children generation for evacuation.

Old people, especially above 60s have been trained to accept the propaganda without questioning. They are not familiar to the internet either, so they are isolated in terms of information. Mostly their source is only two, NHK, and Yomiuri newspaper. (Sometimes it’s Asahi or Sankei etc..They are very similar.) They believe the Japanese situation is safe, Fukushima is over.

They can not understand why their children (40s, 30s, 20s) evacuate. Though they could evacuate too, because they think much of the concept of “home land”, they find their own children “renegades”. They are even hurt because of their children leaving them behind, they pressure on them. They try to attack the renegades verbally, such as by calling paranoid or selfish. If it’s a wife leaving her husband in Tokyo, like in the case above, they call her  un-loyal wife etc. Because they don’t understand the radiation risk for the children, they even call mothers child abuser when she evacuated with her child.

Most of the evacuated people don’t have confidence in what they do. They are full of doubt toward themselves. It is not strange because the world is full of propaganda. They decided to leave only based on their intuition and information on the internet. For some people, internet still looks like a place full of lies and fraud. They can’t be 100% sure even for what they have learnt from the internet. Those harsh words of their parents therefore hurt the children generation to make their evacuating life even harder adding to the financial issues.

 

 

  1. Thanks for your honesty and insight Mochizuki-san…it truly is a profound challenge; to have the courage to step out of a comfort zone (even though it may be killing them) must be so hard for people who have never been required to really think independently before. However, this challenge for Japan has the potential to bring the best of Japanese culture (compassion, patience, unity, humility…) to a new vision of a sustainable society capable of inspiring the world – at least this is my prayer…

  2. I think that the situation would be very similar if it happened in the United States. People are much the same inside their minds as far as fear and other reactions are concerned.

  3. Well done Iori for enlightening the non-Japanese on what actually happens within your unique culture… very understandable and leaves one with a sense of loss. Pity the wives and the children who knows they themselves are at risk and yet obeys the dictates of your tradition – sort of committing hara-kiri for the sake of the country (or company) and the family….. Only thru the perseverance of dedicated guys like you can any headway be hoped for!!! Fight on please!!!

  4. This is such an insightful summary of a very real problem many wives and their children are facing in the aftermath of Fukushima.

    Thank you for calling attention to this sad situation. Perhaps it will bring some positive solutions by bringing the problem out into the open.

    Keep up the good work, Mochizuki-san.

  5. Sounds like healthy, well educated, high intellect future forward maverick genius no?
    Btw, you can’t go near open fuel or reactors to “BABYSIT” SO NO BABYSITTING MEANS, “THE END” NOT KIDDING. NO ONE ON SITE, GO SEE.

  6. Sounds like fractional reserve banking has made helpless pets out of the Japanese. You can’t evacuate without great risk and trouble because of the trap set for you by your keepers.

    Same thing happened in the US. Once you have ultra rich criminals who set the rules so they keep getting richer, they take advantage and control everything, the media the companies, the government, everything.

    You have Japanese mafia running the media, Tepco, everything, right? Probably your banks and government, too.

    In the US, it seems like this is actually a problem the whole history of it’s existence. Sure, we fought against it for a time and briefly tasted freedom but we lost. Something was faulty about our choice of self government. Not the self government part, but perhaps the part where we outsource self government to “paid servants” who have a decreed monopoly on making laws and providing services like protection.

    What about Japan? How long did you manage to hold off the elite criminals, or have they been with you since the beginning of your nation? I liked that Japan did try to protect it’s national sovereignty, but what does sovereignty mean without rights for the people? The same thing could be said I suppose of the US. We did not respect the lands of the Indian man, Americans turned loose the settlers upon them to claim their land like it was uninhabited. Now look at us. Americans are now on the reservation, just like we did to the Indian.

  7. This is heartbreaking Iori. I am so sorry and I do not know the answer. I am afraid for the people of Japan, those living in the high contamination areas especially. There will be a reckoning in the future, and it is so sad that it is the children who will pay the price ultimately for the stubbornness of the adults.

  8. The men are most trapped in the dream that is slowly turning to a nightmare. The women and children are more free but alone in their panic. There is one solution. It is for people to form human-scale groups (no more than 200 and as diverse as possible). As families their options are very limited and the power of the larger group (society) is overwhelming. We (humans) are tribal by nature and that is the grouping that is most effective and powerful for us.

    All our problems stem first from scale which is too big and then from the systems that dominate us, of which money and government are two of the most virulent.

    It is not necessary to have a plan beyond human-scale grouping as the group itself can achieve an intelligence greater than the individuals’ and find it’s own way.

    Even at this distance and through so narrow a medium your pain for your society is evident and your integrity beyond doubt. Please think of a way to get groups together in Japan. I believe it is our only way to act that stands any chance of a future for us wherever we are.

    Don

  9. Hello Mochizuki,

    I want to take a little time and thank you for all your reporting. I find you a gentle person with great concerns for your country. This article, “Imprisoned wife and children,” really touched my heart. I am understanding your frustrations more and more with each post. I’m sorry you and you’re people are going through such a sad and what seems like, a hopeless time. I’m in America and it is frustrating here, so I can’t imagine what it must be like for you. Thank you so much for all you do, you are amazing.

    Much respect,

    Sherry

  10. Trapped, imprisoned..this article is my story.Iori, were you following me around for the past year? I am American living 250km from fuku (boarderline ok boarderline not) with my Japanese husband and 3 girls 12, 9 and 6. Sometimes the inlaws and husband almost convince me into believing I am crazy and paranoid for wanting to go back, until I get online and read something like this article. It keeps me sane. Yesterday we had a huge blowout in my house because it dawned on me the toilet paper could be contaminated. I went to a meeting where the governor was trying to convince the residents it is safe to bring the garbage from tohoku because it is not so contaminated…yeah right!!!! In his spiel he mentioned the were separating the garbage recycleables and burnables. What’s happening to the recyleables? So I went shopping to buy tp and one of the packages said made from recycled stuff. Even if it is not from recyled stuff it comes from trees. Which trees??? Thus the blow out over toilet paper. It is easy to convince someone they are crazy when they are afraid to use tp. I don’t want my girls wiping thir female parts with radioactive tiolet paper. I know it sounds ridiculous and at the same time it is logical. I think it is ridiculous that I am being force to even have to think about it just to keep my family together. the fact that I have to deal with things like this everyday is torture and a stuggle. I want my girls to grow up with their father it is so important for their emotional stability but I also want them to be able to have heathy children. Thank you for your site.

    1. It’s not only toilet paper. Shower, tap water to drink, rain, food, wind, everything. That’s why I escaped. Please run.

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  12. Dear Mochizuki,

    thanks for your updates.

    I’m travelling soon to Japan — what brand of portable radiation detector should i buy?.

    best regards, Stuart

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About this site

This website updates the latest news about the Fukushima nuclear plant and also archives the past news from 2011. Because it's always updated and added live, articles, categories and the tags are not necessarily fitted in the latest format.
I am the writer of this website. About page remains in 2014. This is because my memory about 311 was clearer than now, 2023, and I think it can have a historical value. Now I'm living in Romania with 3 cats as an independent data scientist.
Actually, nothing has progressed in the plant since 2011. We still don't even know what is going on inside. They must keep cooling the crippled reactors by water, but additionally groundwater keeps flowing into the reactor buildings from the broken parts. This is why highly contaminated water is always produced more than it can circulate. Tepco is planning to officially discharge this water to the Pacific but Tritium is still remaining in it. They dilute this with seawater so that it is legally safe, but scientifically the same amount of radioactive tritium is contained. They say it is safe to discharge, but none of them have drunk it.

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