Japanese politely giving up their lives

 

On the bottom of the fact that most of the Japanese people still don’t evacuate, there is the mentality to want to die.

This is making me feel desperate.

I am a blogger. I spend more than 10 hours on the internet to search for the trustworthy information. Recently, I noticed that more and more people are accepting their destiny.

Roughly estimating, more than 30% of the internet users are giving up living any longer. It seems like this ratio is getting larger and larger.

This is not Harakiri or Kamikaze mentality. This is resignation.
Say, about half of the internet users are aware of the radiation risk. In the rest of the 50%, I “sense”

A 60% – think cancer is the only risk
B 35% – know the variety of the symptoms
C 5% – full aware, evacuated, warning remaining people

In category A and B, almost 60% (Or more) people state they don’t want to live any longer.

They don’t have the intention to hurt others or stop other people evacuating. They rather to be helpful and very polite. However, they state they will die in Japan.
This strange mentality is coming from 2 kinds of thought.

1. In Japan, sometimes struggling is considered to be ugly. Not wanting anything – Nirvana – state is thought to be ideal. (Cf. Wabi sabi)

2. Group mind.

About 1, of course they are/were not in the nirvana state. They try to think they are in the nirvana state and holding the last rope not to let them go panic. They intentionally try not to think about what is actually going on to them. They are sometimes even self-absorbed.
As to 2, they are probably imagining the scene when they are hospitalized and all of their families or friends are happily in the same room. and dying as smiling with no pain.

Behind these mentality, they are having the feeling of “helpless”.
They have lots of troubles to evacuate. having to take care about old parents, pets, having to pay for house mortgage, car loan, raise children. Evacuating means losing their job.
Sure there are solutions for all of these problems. (I don’t write it here because it takes too long.) However, probably it takes time and energy. They will also feel embarrassed.
Sometimes they have properties and social status too.

They are not bothered, don’t want to lose what they have, so they think becoming mummy is more romantic.

The reason why they are not bothered to challenge is because they were tired out even since before 311.

Behind the sense of helpless, there is the mentality called “suicidal wishes”.
Even before 311, Japan was suffering from a sense of stagnation. Long recession, decreasing employment rate, rising China, decreasing pension.
People in 30s~20s could not find hope to live, they were tired of daily lives.
Japan is thought to have less social hierarchy, but seniority system let 50s~ dominate most of the power and younger generation were given less chance.
Every year, more than 30,000 people commit suicide.(Some people say it’s actually 100,000.)
For some Japanese people, suicide is the only liberty.

This mentality is seen in both gender. However, when the “mentality-holder” is husband/father of a family, children and wife are pushed in danger. In case of that both of the parents have jobs, both of the parents may share “the mentality”.
Until the end of 2011, there seemed to be conflicts between the holders and non-holders but since the beginning of 2012, non-holders are starting to be infected by the mentality.

In the universe of internet world, Japanese segment is starting to be covered by the sense of resignation.

 

[Meanwhile, in Japan]

Japanese politely giving up their lives

 

5.52μSv/h at 200m from reactor4 of Chernobyl. Meanwhile in Japan, it’s 8.02 μSv/h in Fukushima and everybody’s smiling at the technology of the dosemeter box.

 

 

 

  1. What does DOSIMETER BOX SAY NOW MOCHI??? !!! That was long time ago, I’m sure if working correctly it would say over 100 mc/s

  2. I am very grateful that you take the time to share your thoughts. My thoughts are with you, the people of Japan, indeed all of us…

  3. I agree with almost everything you said about the Japanese. Many prefer group mentality and false sense of security that comes with it. There’s a popular saying, “Red traffic light, it is nothing to be scared of, if you cross it with everyone else.” That is how most Japanese are now facing the demise.

    It takes a lot of guts and courage to be an independent thinker, like you Mochizuki-san and some of us who’ve chosen to leave Japan for one reason or another.

    Japanese society generally condemns independent thinkers, whose innovative minds threatens the dark side of Japanese traditions — love for mediocrity and bureaucracy, rigid mindset, preoccupation for saving one’s face than having substance. Another popular saying, “a nail that sticks out gets hit.” You and I and others who live overseas are these nails they want to hit.

    I think, though, Nirvana and Wabi Sabi are far from the current Japanese mindset. It is more of attachment to materials / powers / money that is preventing many Japanese from evacuating. The business people I know in Tokyo area all have financial means to evacuate if they want to. Some might try to send families to elsewhere safer temporarily, but that is their limit. They cannot competely detach themselves from the wealth and comfort they’ve enjoyed so far (perhaps at the expense of Fukushima people).

    However, I do have deep feelings for those who are unable to relocate due to their human obligations, such as having to take care of eldery family members whose health no longer permits travel, as well as for those who do not have any financial means… knowing how incredibly inhumane the Japanese government has been to their own children in this crisis.

    1. Thank you for your insights May, (and Mochi-san). I have never lived in Japan, nor known close Japanese friends, but from what I have seen of Japanese culture speaks of a deep human decency living in and AROUND those rigid traditions. John Pilger made a beautiful documentary years ago about Japanese culture… it’s beauty, sensitivity in contrast to the makers of war, how the warlike element dominated and usurped the noble, compassionate, generous side of the people.
      After WW2, the Japanese had a brief chance to reject the imperial mentality; but it remained occupied. Amerika re-installed all the same bureaucrats and businessmen who embraced nuclear power; and now the noble, struggling people have to suffer… with as much dignity as they can muster.
      Very sad. I would have loved to visit there someday.

  4. I have an observation about Japanese leaders that readers might find interesting. It is a sad one.

    Many years ago I had a chance to visit Aizu Wakamatsu in Fukushima prefecture. Aizu clan was one of the most powerful samurai tribes in mid 1800s. They were literally Shogun’s right hand man. At the end of Bakumatsu (end of Shogun and samurai era), the new Meiji government attacked Aizu, forcing them to give up the old samurai way.

    Hundreds of Aizu samurai, their families including women and babies died in bloody battles, trying to protect the honor of their Lord Matsudaira Katamori. There was even a group of teenage boys called Byakkotai (“White Tiger Force”) who traveled afar and came back defeated. These unexperienced boy samurais committed “harakiri” (ritual suicide) on a hillside overlooking the castle after mistakenly thinking their castle was breached.

    I learned in the castle museum during my visit there, that Matsudaira willingly surrendered to the government forces and was spared from being executed. He did not commit “harakiri”, as any respected samurai would have done in those days. Matsudaira lived out his natural life, while all of his soldiers, their families, and children samurai lost their life for him.

    You see the similar coward leadership dynamics during the Japanese history of World War II. The government leaders said it was the national obligation and citizens’ duty to die for the emperor and Japanese military. They drafted mostly teenagers and young adult men for Kamikaze suicide missions. Under the pretense of “sacred mission,” “patriotism,” “beauty of giving up one’s life for the nation and emperor,” etc. Many mothers lost their sons this way.

    At the end of WW II, the emperor surrendered to keep his and his family’s life. While the Allied prosecuted some of the Japanese war criminals, many who were in the ranks to order the young men suicide missions got their life spared and lived well, made a lot of money from the past big name connections in the post-war Japan. Only the regular people got the bad deal.

    Now fastforward to 2012, the same thing is happening again. Exactly the same way, the government is pushing all communities and people to accept the disaster debris burning and radioactively contaminated foods, under the slogans of “sharing the national pain,” “fulfilling your load of national responsibility,” “in the show of patriotism,” “help the disaster areas recover…”

    To this day, none of TEPCO executives committed a suicide, as respected big shots used to do decades ago. None of the top government officials, who pushed the failed nuclear energy strategy and made the Fukushima accident worse than it could have, have been arrested. As they continue to tell their citizens to share the burden through eating contaminated food and getting irradiated once again from incinerated ashes and particles, we know that back in spring 2011, the Tokyo central government issued a mandate to the national farmers’ association telling them to send as a priority the uncontaminated produce to Tokyo.

    It is time that Japanese people wake up. We can send best wishes, donations, and supportive thoughts from overseas, unless they stand up on their own, nothing is going to change. It takes a lot of courage, but as Mochizuki-san says here, it can be done, it has been done by many of us, to be an independent thinker and take actions without waiting for someone to do it for you.

    1. Thank you May, that’s a great contribution.

      I should note that US “leaders”, be they Democrat or Republican, are not any different. They don’t send their sons or daughters into battle; instead, they let poor and ignorant youth in the US die and kill in senseless wars, often because they want to travel and get health care and education. Many others kill because they want to kill, including mercenaries and white supremacists, but that’s not my topic here.

      The point is that elites usually let other people die. The Roman adage “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and appropriate to die for your country/homeland) is always directed toward the others, not toward the self.

    2. And, worse, Katamori managed to become an Earl. His granddaughter married a brother of Emperor Showa, re-legitimizing the line (although there were no children from that union).

      The people of Aizu-Wakamatsu actually felt joy about that event that the Emperor in Tokyo finally recognized the ‘loyalty’ of the Aizu people!

      Katamori also got to become the ancestor of the current Tokugawa main branch, when the main branch died out around 1930. All of these, on the lives of his retainers and their families!

    3. May, your words are wise and they inspire me a lot. I agree in all you have to say and I really appreciate all the “insider” info you give us about Japan and its history. I’d love to see you write more. Thank you and good luck on your new life overseas. I’m sure people with minds radiating light like yours, will survive everywhere.

    4. May, outstanding observations about the sad state of Japan now. I attribute it to Thanatos, the Death Wish, which is basically universal. In the Usurious Soviets of Amerika, for instance, President Obomba signs the draconian and totalitarian, Bill of Rights-destroying NDAA 2012, on New Year’s Eve, and no one cares.

      You may have already seen this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5p283KZGa8 but Frying Dutchman show that at least a few young Japanese have the warrior spirit in them instead of the televised one starring AKB48.

  5. My husband is Japanese and this is his mentality. He says that he would rather live in Japan and get poisoned than abandon Japan.

  6. First Mr. Mochizuki good work what you are doing! Respect!
    People in Japan have a big problem, but the most important is that everybody must play with open cards. Only with the truth they can solves the problems, a solution is on everything.
    I know many people from Second World War and they had bigger problems, but they did not give up. Japan are smart people and they could solves all problems, but you must have serious open minded people who can solve the situation. You must think on the future of your children.

  7. Thank you for this insightful analysis, Iori. It’s a sad one, but nevertheless it makes a lot of sense. :/

    Greetings,
    Flo

  8. Very sad. That could happen to any nation.

    People are the same everywhere.

    In the USA it’s called denial. A lot of us still won’t face reality or talk like all hope is lost but…

    We are less embarrassed by anything, since we have lost most of our standard of living, our global image is trashed and 99% see themselves as poor or in danger of becoming poor. We are slipping out of first world status. I think it’s a blessing that we feel so undignified, because it seems like people are more willing to fight for life that way.

    In other words, America has lost face already in a bad way. The only saving face now to be had is in learning from our mistakes, not trusting the media and fighting against the creeping death of toxic products and laws, by taking up the old pioneer wild-west mentality again. More and more of us cook from scratch, and try to buy local. We do not feel exempt from the Fukushima accident, either. So we do what we can. That’s all the Japanese can do. We may suffer, but we can survive.

    Maybe Japan needs to realize that more than decontamination of their soils, they need to decontaminate their minds of their pride. Really, it’s ironic. The Japanese once appeared to be the smartest, healthiest, most well behaved, longest lived people, the pride and glory of the planet. Now they will be some of the dumbest, most irritable, most desperate and impoverished, not to mention some of the most misinformed. Makes me sad. But they didn’t give human rights to strangers. I have to believe that they didn’t treat each other very well either then, and that explains why this is happening. If they had put people first we wouldn’t be in this mess.

    Mass social sickness. Seems like the whole world has come down with it and some have been immune or are getting over it already.

  9. I just found out I am pregnant. I was trying for this and don’t regret getting pregnant, even with Fukushima radiation blowing in from the east. I’m very happy. I want Japan to be happy and find hope in new life. Don’t give up, Japan. You could still be a shining beacon of hope, especially if you find the victory over nuclear. Take care of your families, have lots of babies very very young. Look to the future with hope. Work hard and restore your lives like I know you can.

  10. Couldn’t the Japanese adapt their living so that it was as if they lived on Mars? They don’t even have to get in space ships. Just build protective biodomes and when going outside when you must have full protection. I imagine it would take a long time but I bet it would be less painful than the work of shielding the nuclear plant or decontaminating pavements and soils.

  11. Couldn’t you also build quickie evacuation shelters and greenhouses to temporarily get high risk people like pregnant women and small children out of the fallout? As Americans would put it, “bug in.”

    It might be the only chance to keep the island alive.

  12. I was watching the conference video hosted by Days Japan on the one year anniversay of 3.11 and found the situation regarding the radiation creates a very divisive atmosphere in the minds of many Japanese. There are those who chose to evacuate and those who chose to stay, those fighting to bring change and those giving up or living in denial. My mother had to evacuate Japan after her home was bombed on 3.10 during WWII and she tells me of the horrors of running through streets of flame and seeing some people just giving up not even trying to save themselves. Others made fruitless attempts to try to put out the fires with bucket lines because they couldn’t see the bigger picture that it was a wasted effort (much like the jyosen efforts today). My mother escaped, survived, and is now a naturalized citizen of US.

    Japan has built nuclear power plants near or close to fault lines, notably the Hamaoka plant. It appears the 3.11 earthquake has twisted the very shape of Japan along the platelines and future quakes are inevitable as the earth formations beneath tries to stabilize itself. Melting snow will send irradiated water seeping deep into the earth which will probably end up in the drinking water of population sites further and further from the center. Unless the nuclear fuel is removed to safer locations, other plants are at risk in the next big one, especially if it is centered inland instead of offshore. One speaker at the Days Japan conference said he is seriously considering sending his daughter and his grandson oversea and reflected how few Japanese, even those who are “aware” have difficulty considering this possibility.

    Countless times in history, people have lost lives because they have failed to act. Mount Vesuvius in Pompei, Mt. St. Helen in the USA (the difference in survival had been as simple as the driver going 100 mph passing another 70 mph who did not make it) I get the sense that the Japanese people for the most part are very courageous when it comes to enduring hardship, but they are strangling themselves with the ideals of “kizuna” linking themselves to obligations like a noose. Perhaps the Japanese have karmic ties of kizuna embedded into their DNA, a cultural behavior inherited over generations, that makes breaking them so difficult.

  13. The saddest article I’ve read in ages. However, I really appreciate the insider view of things. This mentality is really full of inhibitions and sadomasochism, but I can’t blame the citizens entirely, because they have been programmed to be like that.

    However, since internet and English school are widely available, it’s their obligation to educate themselves and access all the free information of the internet and act quickly. It’s the only way to survive and see a brighter future. Thank you as always.

  14. This country has one of the most outrageous wars on drugs. Unfortunately if they can’t swallow their pride and repeal this ignorant way, they will apsorb the radiation and die. If they decriminalized hemp to grow and marijuana to smoke they might be able to save many many lives. It might be the land of the rising sun, but it is also the land of regressing survivalistic instinct.

  15. Don’t you think that the population density here in Japan has something to do with the problems here? There are about 120 million people in the space the size of California. OK, so the population is going down, and the pace accelerates of the decline every year, but still, last year “only” declined 200,000. Before industrialization, Japan’s population was 40 million and most people lived rural lives, gathering energy from the sun, not oil, nuclear or coal.

    Everyone here knows, subtly, that their existence is due to oil, coal and nuclear. Maybe more than other countries, Japan has an awareness of energy—probably because of the Sun God, Amaterasu.

    So we are “made of” oil, coal and nuclear. In that we wouldn’t exist without them. So when these energy forms start to break down, as now oil is in declining production, then the population in Japan goes down. Because people are so tied to these energy forms that they can’t afford to exist without them.

    So the situation of Fukushima means that the very energy form that brought us life brings us death instead. It’s very clear to people that this is happening. But to speak of it openly is to just say the unnecessary.

    And the body is a very weak, frail, tube that needs food every day. And warmth. To keep this tube going, plus the members of the family, is just a huge struggle now. To get cancer and die within 5 years from Fukushima might seem like a blessing….Everything has been going to he&& in a way for some time, with global warming and the death of the oceans, so to have ones body just peacefully compost might seem like a good way out, rather than waiting for the global economy to collapse and starvation to really set in.

    That starvation will be totally global, except for a few pockets of hill tribes and indigenous hunter-gatherers who have only lived with the sun for thousands of years…..

    Fukushima seems minor compared to an economic crisis that is still ahead of us, in fact, that governments are busily trying to postpone as long as possible.

    I myself fled Fukushima, but I don’t feel much except a sense of numbness—-the earth has been so totally wasted by fossil fuels (nuclear is just the handmaiden of fossil fuels, which are used for uranium mining, processing, building the plants, etc.)and we humans have been the agents for that destruction.

    So live by the sword, die by the sword.

  16. I do confirm that Japanese people seem not to figure out the situation. Via to the humanitarian project I pionnered, I have received very few calls since June 2011. Maybe 10 or 12. Among them, only 3 applications have been honored, as a result only 4 (four) people have been welcome in France. May I precise that we now have 56 hosting families willing to offer a homestay ?

    I received another email inquiry 2-3 weeks ago. The person told me (s)he was currently in a hurry and (s)he was to contact me back quite shortly. I still have no more news 3 weeks after and probably won’t receive any.
    There is another application in the pipeline… but the applicant is not a Japanese native. She is a Canadian woman having married a Japanese and living in Japan for 17 years.

    Here is what she wrote me recently:
    « (…) I feel there will have to be a support system in place between the people in Japan and those willing to offer homes in France, perhaps the trauma affected people are not able to apply by themselves. (…) To move may be the best plan but our child does not want to go and my husband does not want us to leave us.
    This may be similar to most of the families in Japan. »

    Japanese must know that it now exists many humanitarian project wordwide. As an example, in France, e have currently 2 running. We can be reached at and on Skype at ” okinawa761 ”

    Minna gambatte !

  17. Back in the 1950s, an Austrian, Wilhelm Reich, experimented to try and find a solution for humans against nuclear radiation. For over one year now, I have been experimenting with an orgone accumulator (the fruit of Reich’s research) in order to remedy irradiation found in my family and friends. The results are excellent inasmuch as the accumulator clears the body of irradiation. There are instructions to build an accumulator on the website, http://www.telluricsonline.com. They come from the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, albeit a little dated. Nature has wonderful ways, so please do not give up hope!

  18. You make a good comparison to the WWII era. I’ve noticed other similarities as well. During the war, Japan thought it could succeed where others had failed, simply because of greater spiritual will, regardless of empty stomachs and fuel tanks. They tried to colonize Asia after European powers had failed at it. Also, the government conscripted women to work in the propaganda effort and to “comfort” the soldiers behind front lines.
    Now in Fukushima the Japanese government thinks they will succeed at decontamination efforts that the Soviets and Americans know to be futile from their own experience. And the government has conscripted Japanese campus queens to eat and promote the agricultural products of contaminated land. It’s a rather disturbing reemergence of a trait that we all hoped had faded after WWII.

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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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