I received a lot of good feedbacks for my previous report [Link], and I received a lot of donations. Thank you very much.
I still don’t know what I am. Journalist, activist, radiation refugee.. Maybe all of them, and maybe none of them. Some people told me I don’t have to categorize myself. That is true.
Before 311, I was just one of the Japanese salary men. I worked at a huge company, and a micro company too. I watched Japanese society. I wasn’t always happy. wanted to go out some time like all the other Japanese people, but never expected to go out this way.
The problem is, I left my pets, family and friends behind. Probably they’ll die if I don’t do anything. and myself, I might die in 2 or 3 years too. (90% of my exposure was done in March 2011. I can only control the rest 10% of the exposure.) I don’t know. Should I persuade them? or force them to get out ? What to do for their new life ? I can not support them all even if I get them out of Japan. but shouldn’t I ? There is always conflict in my mind. and I always think what’s the difference of me and them.
As it’s widely known, Japanese society is very exclusive. They are very cold for new comers, such as graduates. 20s are bullied, pressured, and paid peanuts. Of course I wasn’t happy with that unfair situation. Though I graduated from an ok national university, my salary had been always low for some reason whether I was in the huge company or the small company. I was always in debt with credit card. For what ? to buy daily groceries.
However, from around 2008, I started feeling something wrong. I can’t explain what it was. but I felt something strange from the foreign exchange market or the relationship between China and America. I started saving money and cleared the debt. I cleared all the debt only 1 month before 311. For the same reason, I did not buy a car or anything. Unconsciously, I was preparing.
My preparation started back in my university days. Soon as I got the job offer in my third grade, I enrolled myself in an English school near my house. I don’t know why. It cost 2 million yen. I intensively studied English (though some people slash my English, I believe most of the people can understand what I’m trying to say.[Link] ). I was at the school from opening time to closing time almost everyday. I can not explain why I did that, I just felt like I had to do that. Anyway, if I didn’t study English at that time, I could not evacuate.
I always read books. Books about philosophy, psychology, business, mathematics, and everything. I took bus to commute. I called the time “bus university”, intensively studied various things for that 15 or 20 mins everyday. The things I learnt in my bus university are helping me out to a writer of Fukushima Diary as well. There was no reason to do that, but I couldn’t help doing it again.
So many dots are connected to each other and the line ends at my evacuation.
Iori Mochizuki