[Column] I make a little zoo everyday

It’s a cliche that an old Japanese person, who went through a traumatic event, spends the retirement life on sculpting statues of Buddha.
I have been asked what makes you a Buddhist twice since last week. Maybe sculpting the statues in retirement is what they do.lol
I’m not a Buddhist (though I can have something for primitive Buddhism) but can understand what makes them sculpt the statues.

Reading into the endless lies of Tepco, governments, and the mass media exhausts you mentally.
This is a big incentive why so many people WANT TO believe what TV says. “Because it’s easy.” That’s the reason.

Everyone of the restaurant got to know me well. Everyday, at 20:30, I go to the same restaurant for dinner. It’s 200m from the apartment. Because I don’t want to think about any more things, I don’t change this routine.

Politely they misunderstood me. They thought I came to Romania because I couldn’t get a job in Japan. I found myself explaining everything about my life.
They because quiet. They didn’t say anything, but they got to give me so much discount and something more sometimes.

Usually I hesitate to explain why I’m there. None of the TV news, newspaper, magazine reports Fukushima. I can convince anyone, but sometimes they start crying. Probably my normal is everybody’s extreme now.
It’s ridiculous. It’s not my fault. It’s the fault of nuclear industry. However, it makes me feel bad.

Like sculpting Buddha statues, I make origami animals when I’m waiting for my meal. Frog, crane, beetle.. Not saying anything, I just keep making paper animals by receipts or the wrapping paper of chewing gum. Sometimes I’m tempted to make something mutated, my common sense stops me doing it.

Only when I’m making the paper animals, I can hear the silence. Probably you’ve read some of the columns that I came up with when I origami.
The restaurant staff must be thinking why the Japanese guy makes a little zoo on the table everyday.

I might be recalling when I was in the kindergaten or nursery schools -my very roots. I was taught how to make origami crafts there. You don’t forget what you were taught when you were little.
Whatever the reason is, I can hear my own voice when I origami. Sometimes you need the ultimate nonsense-ness to keep you sane.

 

 

_____

Français :

[Édito] Je fabrique tous les jours un petit zoo

 

C’est le cliché d’un vieux japonais ayant traversé de dures épreuves qui passe sa retraite à sculpter des statues de Bouddha.
On m’a demandé deux fois depuis la semaine dernière ce qui rend bouddhiste. C’est peut-être e, sculptant des statues pendant sa retraite. lol
Je ne suis pas bouddhiste (bien que j’ai quelque chose en moi de fondamentalement bouddhiste ) mais je peux comprendre ce qui leur fait sculpter des statues.

Lire les sempiternels mensonges de Tepco, des gouvernements et de la presse est mentalement épuisant.
C’est une puissante motivation qui explique pourquoi tellement de gens VEULENT croire ce que dit la télé. “parce que c’est facile.” C’est la raison.
Tout le monde commence à bien me connaître au restaurant. Chaque jour, à 20:30, je vais dîner au même restaurant. C’est à 200 m de mon appartement. Je ne change pas cette habitude parce que je ne veux pas avoir à penser à trop de choses.

Ils ne me comprennent pas poliment. Ils pensent que je suis venu en Roumanie parce que je ne pouvais pas trouver de travail au Japon. Je me suis retrouvé à expliquer ma vie.
Ils sont restés calmes. Ils n’ont rien dit mais ils ont commencé à me faire des remises et autres plus souvent.

Habituellement, j’hésite à expliquer pourquoi je suis là. Aucune des télés, aucun journal, aucun magazine ne parle de Fukushima. Je peux convaincre n’importe qui mais parfois ils commencent à pleurer. Sans doute que mon normal est maintenant un extrême pour tout le monde.
C’est ridicule. Ce n’est pas de ma faute. C’est de la faute de l’industrie nucléaire, mais ça me fait me sentir mal.

Comme on sculpte des statues de Bouddha, je fais des animaux en origami en attendant mon repas. Grenouille, grue, scarabée, … Sans rien dire, je fais juste mes animaux en papier avec les notes ou le papier d’emballage des chewing-gums. Je suis parfois tenté de faire quelque chose de mutant, mon bon sens m’en arrête.

Ce n’est qu’en faisant les animaux en papier que je peux entendre le silence. Vous avez sans doute lu des éditos qui me sont venus par un origami.
Le personnel du restaurant doit se demander pourquoi le japonais transforme sa table en zoo tous les jours.

Je pourrais me rappeler quand j’étais à la crèche ou à l’école primaire – mes premières racines. On m’y a appris à faire les pliages en origami. On n’oublie pas ce qu’on apprend quand on est petit.
Quoi qu’il en soit, je peux entendre ma propre voix lorsque je fais des origamis. On a parfois besoin du plus absurde possible pour rester équilibré.

  1. Dear Iori Mochizuki-san

    this article finally somewhat inspired me to try reply to you. i must admit the information here since i discovered a few months ago is astounding & if anyone i knew around me was this aware of how BAD Fukushima is doing right now that would be a very nice thing to be honest.. as alas i hate Ignorance more than anything.. these self-righteous people that tell you whats wrong or right.. they have no clue.

    i find & sense u have been reaching out to me in curiosity, as ur open mindedness of posting your photo on the blog our eyes digitally meet everytime i pop on for more Great news. im from Tokyo & i find myself recently talking alot about you to my surroundings.. yes u may perceive that i dont necessarily have much good to say about you.. as forgive me i sometimes portray you as a the ‘coward’ or ‘traitor’ that escaped Japan whom now is in Romania talking to the female trees. im quite a sociopathic punk myself & i dont trust anyone anymore.. maybe thats one ground we can connect upon. its sad isnt it? this many bloody fleshy people on the planet.. 7Billion last time i checked.. & nobody to understand or accept you, simply because you can find faults in other people past the speed of light. its a bad habit no doubt, but its something baka-shoujiki in me that cant lie as the ‘ammoku-no-gyoukai’ see-no-hear-no-speak-no-japanese are. nobodys perfect, apparently, but the system thrives on nothing but perfection.. & Nuclear Energy is such a good example of that. not willing to accept anything better or worse. of course all these anti-society tirades gets me into alot of trouble.. ‘so negative’ but then u just say theres no negative without positive, no shadow without light. but the other day when i was told by an elder relative, of how easy it is to just say this that of how horrible society is, while keeping in mind how really godawful it was during WW2 etc.. u find yourself complaining alot for no reason at times. it boils down to one concept, which is ‘waru-gi-ga-nai’ all humans feel the same sadness fears in general, & this same sentient beings are given the jobs at TEPCO atm whether that be kamikaze work or not. & most of all, what society loves most is a scapegoat.. i read a recent article about Tezuka Osamu’s daughter being attacked by anti-nuke movement by accusing Testuwan Atomu being the sole reason Japan ever believed in Atomic Energy.. these are the same people that burned all his comics in those anti-manga movement days. this is outrageous of course for anyone who loves Tezuka-samas vision more than anything, such as i do, & once again you feel like its Yourself VS The Whole FFFFing world.. maybe this is how Atomu felt?

    anyhow i can go on for pages but i just felt buddha beauty in your current words.. we all know its about Satori in the end until we find an alternative.. such as The Greater Truth. im ashamed to say i cant fold a crane out of origami cuz actually im not Japanese.. i feel that ‘samuraispirit’ has been destroyed aeons ago. but i do believe anything that brings beauty through meditation has its healing effects on the spirit world, even tho every moment of it is destroying you in reality. a kid just ready for elementary school visited my lair just the other week.. ironically i decorated the table with vast origami sets & colored pencil not knowing how easy todays kids would get bored. turns out the kid brough his own new tablet pc & was touchpaneling away for hours.. it really really saddend me but this is today. perhaps it was Gen-X-japan for me but “The Touch Panel Generation” is going to have to clean up this soulless mess we have all left behind.

    maybe one day when i find true hope, ill learn myself how to fold that tsuru.

    thanks for your effort, & try to beleive ur not alone to saying how ANGRY you are about all of this.. if u think for even a moment of Hibakusha & the people who were turned into nuclear shadows, we have alot of forgiving & realizing to do.

    meanwhile.. i try to look into that touchpanel kids eyes and apologize.. but at the same time with divine pity they will live natureless for the rest of their lives.

    “do not seek peace without it within”

    Ziro Japan

    ps> i will quote your “maybe my normal is their new extreme” its time we wake up out of this fluffy nightmare

  2. Brilliant article, Mochizuki-san, and an equally shining and poetic comment, Ziro.

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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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