Column of the Day: Illegal Nations

Since yesterday, strong wind from the North have been hitting Tokyo. I’m happy that I don’t need to go to work nor outside for these couple of days.

I wanted to avoid this winter wind but it seems a little too late. I hope nothing bad happens to my health.

My eyes have been hurting since yesterday. From looking around on Twitter I can see that other people seem to have the same symptoms.

In the cold wind, my parents came to my apt last night to correct our misunderstandings.

They told me they payed back their education cost to their own parents.

Also, that was the first time I heard of my mother’s father’s death from being an alcoholic, which I’m not supposed to say because it’s a shame of family. lol

Anyway, they seem to understand how much risk I recognize though they won’t do anything for that.

I hear a lot of the similar cases and lots of families are facing the crisis of falling apart.

In most of the cases, the one who is the main source of money says that the job is more important than his / her life so he / she doesn’t want to evacuate.

However, at the simplest level, they are just scared of living outside of Japan.

I can understand it but I don’t think they should stop people evacuating from Japan.

Use your imagination.

They need imagination. Lots of. Because this is something we have never gone through.

To quit my job, I’m supposed to write a letter to tell it’s my own will to quit, not the company’s.

However, I’m not going to write that I will quit from my will.

I’ll say, I have to quit because of Tepco.

I wonder how authorities will judges it. This must be a case that they haven’t seen but I don’t want to write something not accurate.

To keep the shape of the nations, governments have started violating their own laws.

In Japan, they allowed schools to use 40 Bq/Kg of radioactive material for school lunch.

Now there is no limit of incinerated ash that can be dumped into landfills.

Japan is nothing but a lawless area.

In the US, they signed a law to start media black out to tell where / how much fall-out come from Fukushima to protect their nuclear industry. Same as other countries like in EU.

To let the government remain the government, now they can’t help violating their own laws.

But it won’t last for so long.

No matter how much they lie, obvious damage will come out sooner or later and then international panic will start.

When I talk to my dad, he didn’t evaluate this Fukushima Diary at all and asked me why no other “professional” journalist do the same thing as me, to make me feel like I’m nothing.

That was annoying but actually has a point.

I don’t know any other websites to focus on Fukushima. There are some sites but they mostly refer to official information, such as NHK English or Yomiuri English, which are full of bullshit.
As far as I know the Alpha Sources are just: Enenews, Ex-SKF, and Fukushima Diary.

Ex-SKF is “annoying” because it’s a good blog. lol They often have news before Fukushima Diary posts.

But I think competing is a good thing and when we both feature the same news, it proves that is true.

I can’t understand why they block me to follow their twitter account though. lol

When I see Enenews refer to the articles from Fukushima Diary, I’m happy. lol

But these are only the website I know.

Do you know anything else?

This is strange actually.

I’m nothing in Japan. In “Japanese blog industry” I’m nobody. No one knows me. I actually don’t scoop. I don’t know why they don’t come out of Japan.

Anyway, this blog is to let you know when to escape. All along the watchtower.

  1. Thank you so much for the Fukushima Diary- you are doing very important work even if it is difficult. People all over the world are listening.

  2. One more thing I meant to say- you are incredibly brave & courageous, and that is what is needed in that unbelievably difficult situation. You are the human voice of Fukushima for many people, and it is the stories that will lead to change.

    THANK YOU!

    Rachel Gertrude
    Bolinas, California

  3. Dear Mochizuki,

    I personally wonder for quite a long time, why there haven’t been reported any fukushima aftermath at the east coast of china.

    Especially in the Shanghai region they live by eating seafood.

    Why aren’t there any impacts reported?

    Please try to get light on this matter.

    With deepest respect and appreciation for your work,

    onono (Germany)

  4. I will send you some money next month, my monetary funds do not allow me this atm. thank you so much for your work.

    If you emergencyly need money, tell us please. In that case I would help you faster.

    with regards

    onono

  5. Dear Friend

    You are doing great. Dont be afraid of family matter and what other says. I evacuated Tokyo in April and traveled to India where living expense is 1/10 of Japan and meanwhile developing connections and searching a job, after 6month I moved to Vienna where I have a friend who provided me a job. Living in other country is most natural choices after all these messy nuclear contamination as well as government-industry corruptions. Why risk? We are who we are wherever we are, cannot change our nationality neither. I hope Japanese people are cleaver enough to recognize it and move on. Next immediate thing people like us should look into perhaps is self-sustainable eno-community developing. We learn the lesson and evolve into next generation. Thats how we people must had evolved up to now.
    I love your information and your honesty. Thanks a lot for your guts and intellect!
    I wish you a good luck with everything.

    Best regards,
    Toshi

  6. (Note from Nika: I searched “fukushima” on google from within the US and Fukushima Diary was the fourth hit down)

    I don’t think my previous comment got through (had cookies deactivated) and I lost the text.

    I also follow on this matter only the three blogs you mention.

    I searched with several engines for the occasion and neither of the three blogs showed up at Google nor Yahoo! (not in the first pages at least), nor really any other search engine except StartPage (which offers also discrete private searching), which showed EneNews. I suspect that the three blogs are blacklisted.

    I did find other blogs that seem to be in this line but lost the whole list, yet the most relevant may be:

    http://fukushima.greenaction-japan.org/

    http://fukushimaemergencywhatcanwedo.blogspot.com/

    http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/

    http://nuclearfreeva.blogspot.com/

    Hope this goes through.

    1. I searched “Fukushima nuclear” and “Fukushima radiation”, either with the “blog” word added or in the blog section, with the date set where possible to one week ago (so to avoid old entries). I search from Europe but in English (per the preference).

      Anyhow, I’m glad that I was wrong and that your site shows up.

  7. Mochizuki-san, You noticed! Why are there so few sites covering this topic?
    Yours is more free.The others you mentioned have blocked me because I questioned the credentials/motivations of a certain prominent player on this sparsely populated stage. At least you haven’t blocked me yet.
    Have you noticed that there are almost no industry people speaking out? Have you noticed that only a couple of the very few activists/whistleblowers appear to be “pure”? Most of the “experts” associate with patriot/truth movement gatekeepers and have all the attributes of controlled opposition.
    Have you noticed the NASA connection yet?

  8. Hi Mochizuchi,

    I follow Fukushima’s crisis from the very beginning and have learned a lot on nuclear industry, civil and military, how evolved each known disaster… I follow it in english and french. A lot of information, but your’s is specific because you write it in a personal way, adding your good understanding about all this. You represent a link to japanese news for me, for us of course because we can’t read japanese language and have no other news from inside Japan. It has been very important to me to feel you writing, explaining what’s going on in japanese’s daily life. what information you get or not get. I was very worried at the beginning that maybe you couldn’t get information.
    There is not enough information of course, but still there is some. The minimum to take roughly the right temperature so I am sure you helped some people to think and adapt as they can.
    Around me very few people want to know anything. Seems also they can not handel this information. I would like to explain all I know, but people often stop me in the first 75 seconds of my speechs.

    I had good information also on one website who changed name and became nuclearcrimes. I learned that german boars exceeding 500beq/kg of cesium are not allowed for sale and German government pays the hunters something, still in 2010 for compensating the hunters. This cesium is from Chernobyl. I thought Japanese government would do the same instantly for Fukushima’s farmers…

    I learned from Leuren Moret that we find plutonium in babies teeth… Her videos are very good. Helen’s Caldicott’s too. Fairwind in the US is good and has it’s specifity too for it’s technical knowledge.

    In french, we find Fukushima over-blog which comes like you with explanations and personal addings, very rich, not every day. Chris busby comes also with insight and the very best he can, from Sweden.

    Gen4 also adds good articulating of information in french. Finally, the one’s I follow the most are Fukushima Diary, Fukushima information scoopit in french, and enenews. Sometimes Fukushima over-blog. I would like to see Greenpeace having better information links about this. I’m sure Germans must have very worthy informations, but I can’t understand enough.

    It’s quite a heavy burden to manage all this information very lonely, sometimes I get very dull because best firends can not even try to listen to me sometimes a little moment to help me digest a little all this. All people in drugstores ignores everything of this. I was thinking at least medical staff would try to know if they can be of any use… nothing! When burden is too heavy for me I go to profound readings in books or websites.. praying it brings me some answers for me right now and it works.

    Oh! one man helped me a lot too, channeling some information. So he remembered me that each one has roughly decided of it’s path on Earth and solutions may come out through the children’s voices. Listen to them now, which is wise I think.I’ll try to find his name again for you.

    The last website I think of, which mention’s your’s very largely is attentiondanger and is in English and French. Strange, also some sort of channeling. It is interesting and enlarges our possibilities to get informed…

    Long ago I asked a friend who knows japanese to translate radiation detox and let it available for Japan and precisely Fukushima’s mother but I don’t think he did it. Fukushima’s mother did not answer me although I sent them the best of what I could find, even with protocols for pregnant women, nursing women,…

    Little stop for dinner… I’ll be back after Ciao

  9. The issue is too complicated, and too scary and/or depressing, for most people. They turn a blind eye on purpose. In America, many are still somewhat aware of it in their hearts but they prefer not to speak of it or think about it. To mention it is like mentioning a big faux pas, like talking about your problems in the bathroom over the Christmas dinner table. Except, there is hardly a good time when people want to hear about Fukushima. They have to feel very safe emotionally and willing to talk about terrifying things. Then you find them ready to talk – and that many HAVE been thinking about it, and others will admit they blocked it out because it was just too hard for them to deal with. They wrongly believe that there’s nothing we can do and they’re scared that talking about it will make them abandon all hope. They don’t realize how strong they really are and that they can handle it… probably cry over it first, and then go on, and still have hope and joy in life. They just think they will collapse instead, so they turn on reality TV. It is the radioactive “elephant in the room,” as we say here.

    Anyway, the other two blogs you mention are great resources. There are more. Here is another: http://fukushimaemergencywhatcanwedo.blogspot.com/ Another one, I don’t have the URL handy now, is called “Pissing on the Roses.” And there are more. Each one is important because they may discover or discuss something that the other blogs missed. Then, other people who don’t have devoted blogs sometimes make a post or two that conveys important information about Fukushima as well. Or even just expresses how they have not forgotten and are still thinking about it and still paying attention (which TEPCO hates… too bad). But most people cannot keep up with more than 2 or 3 blogs at a time, so I think most people congregate to enenews, EX-SKF and this one.

    Yours is especially valuable, in my opinion, because it is from someone living in Japan. Besides this heroic blog, I have only seen one or two blog posts here or there in english from Japan about Fukushima. If anyone has any Japanese-language ones I’d love to read them even if they are old (I will use google translate.)

    Even when you leave Japan, you will ALWAYS have the insider perspective we who were outside of Japan when it first started can never have. You have experienced almost a year of it, so you will know better than anyone who was not living there when it started (and also how things changed as the months passed by) was really like, and especially what the Japanese culture(s) is/are really like. As a gaijin it is so hard to understand certain things, but I so much want to try.

    I hope you will leave for your safety, but also hope you will continue this blog for a long time to come. I am sure you are helping many others work up the courage for the same difficult decision. You are even helping people in the rest of the world understand about Fukushima and nuclear power, and its complex interactions with politics and life in general.

    Remember, most people who read blogs do not post. You have a much larger audience than who you see posting. This is my first post to your blog, actually, even though I’ve been reading for months. I know how lonely it must feel sometimes providing this unique service to the world but you are very far from alone.

  10. I found your blog via a E-U independent news blog http://www.prisonplanet.com
    they post news about Fukushima from time to time and one of the articles directed me to your blog. Since then, I also keep track Fukushima-diary blog in a daily basis.

  11. Mochizuki-san be strong and go forward. If your genetic line is to continue you must have children and to do so safely you must leave, at the very least, Honshu island but I myself left Japan completely (sadly). Tell your parents that if they want their family line to end with you (last child) then they should ask you to stay but if they want their family line to continue with further generations they should accept you leaving for your health. They cannot make this decision for you and to do so is extremely selfish even if they think they are making the right choice. You are your own person and have the right to make your choice for your safety.

    How will they respond if you stay and 3-5 or more years later get sick? Will they tell you sorry? Will they restore your health, no! Just follow your own heart.

    ———

    You made two very great and true statements:

    “To keep the shape of the nations, governments have started violating their own laws.”

    “To let the government remain the government, now they can’t help violating their own laws.”

    They simply do this to remain in power and keep their positions. If the true scale of the danger of this disaster was officially revealed to the people there would be a massive upheaval and those in power would likely be removed from their roles. But alas they control the media which prevents people from knowing what is really happening and the true dangers.

    Please continue on with your great work Mochizuki-san and please speed up your plan to leave.

  12. “I’ll say, I have to quit because of Tepco.

    I wonder how authorities will judges it”

    They will most likely ridicule and blame you.

    I have yet to fully understand the Japanese mentality of community/island thinking but to rationalize that dying is OK as long as you make some money is completely ridiculous!

    You can make money anytime anywhere, as long as you’re creative as you pointed out in this post. Life on the other hand is rather fragile and you only get one go at it.

    I have to say I follow this blog and ex-skf, both present different stories most of the time which keeps users like myself more or less informed instead of getting the heavily revised/censored version from the mass media. For that I thank you!

    You say you’re not popular in Japan as a blogger, do you post in Japanese as well? I’m sure there are plenty of people in there who don’t want to bother learning English. If you do then maybe I missed it.

    Good luck and keep us posted!

  13. There is this good French blog, which comes fourth in google.fr (top three are Wikipedia links) :
    http://fukushima.over-blog.fr/
    It puts your site in the list of Fukushima sites, on the right side.
    Your site is number 71 on google.fr.

    About your parents : “They told me they payed back their education cost to their own parents” sounds like they invented this since your last conversation, to try to turn you into their guilty financial prisoner. They sound like they could resort to any dishonest tactic to get you to stay at their service. I think you can only trust yourself and people who think like you. Not people who disagree with you.

    “I’ll say, I have to quit because of Tepco.”
    That is absolutely brilliant ! 🙂

  14. Normally nothing is stronger than the bounds in a family.
    Give your parents some time to understand that their world has changed. And give them some time to understand your actions.
    If they get it, they will support you.

    I live in Germany and would be proud of giving Japanese people shelter for free, so they could start a new life here.

    Fukushima is so sad. Main stream media and pro nuke plant scientists ignore the impact to mankind.

    I personally think we have to wait 50 years for the next two nuke plants exploding to face those idiotic pro nuke plant scientist, engineers, … with reality.

    Never give up, never surrender.

    Onono

  15. I used to read enenews first but now I read your blog first THEN go to enenews. You are a person living in the middle of this crisis that enenews tries to gather info on. Your story is more important and must be read first. Thank you for your time. Thank you for telling us what you are in the middle of. We hear you.

  16. I’m happy to see you’re in good spirits.

    Almost all families have dark secrets.

    If more people talked about them, other structures in the society would be more open too.

    But you can think about your family later.

    Concentrate now on preparing for your departure. Make sure you take something that you love from your childhood or youth (one favorite manga, or a small toy).

    Wherever you go you will have a big culture shock, but you will be ok after a while.

    It will be good to leave. You have to stay alive and continue writing. Please also consider meditating or doing some other concentration techniques.

      1. skipping words, but hopefully not the point< I should say, THANKS for "your" sanity and intellectual integrity! Be careful! And try wearing a mask and goggles these days!?

  17. try a google search for “fukushima forum” without the quotes, it seems there are lots of forums, some good and some not. also try “fukushima news” a good many more sites, again though, some good some not so good. as far as sites being blocked because of your ip address/country use either a proxy server located in an ‘appropriate’ country to get what you want or better still use firefox and the tor network see here https://www.torproject.org/index.html.en and tor is free. and sometime it takes a while to build its network. it’s kind of like in one of those hacker movies, where the bad guy is going through server after server after server and then to a host server. but that last server is the one the host server sees, so if things are not blocked for that server then you can view what it is that, that country doesnt want you to see. caution, i can imagine that in some countries tor may be illegal and who knows what the legal charges/fines/jail/death may be in one of those countries. i dont know about the status of tor in japan.

  18. You are doing a GREAT job! Keep it up. All the ‘Alfa’ source blogs/websites you list are doing their part — their differences are also appreciated too. Your very personal narrative gives me strength as I think about negotiating my next steps in Japan (Osaka) or abroad. I agree with your general stance about Japanese social reactions/resistances and the need for individual choice — choice that may not be supported by the whole group/society, but eventually it will make a difference. You are courageous — keep it up!

  19. I’m a Japanese living in southern Japan, and can never thank you enough for what you have been doing. Your blog offers a complete and one of the most decent coverage of this human disaster by the nuclear accidents, as you see issues from people-centered viewpoint.
    I hope you will escape. Two French young men living in my town fled back to their homeland two weeks after the disaster, saying that was advice from Sarcozy. Your parents will understand you when they need you more in their old ages. Now is the time to think and act for yourself. Please take good care. Thanks again.

  20. Regarding work.
    In all of the EU countrys there are possibilitys for short term jobbs and that can give you “breathing space”.
    Languages in moust EU on streatlevel is English.

    The importand part is forbearence and prepearing.
    Have all the Papers in Absolut spottlesss and you will infact have no propblem, the only problem is Chash.

    Jobbs and other aplications can be obtained in almoust any city, anywhere in sentrale europa.

    The rest is up to you, that aproatch is the one I would have.
    I almoust ended up in Canada, Thunder Bay.
    Yeahaaa.

  21. Alpha source… what a pun 🙂

    Yes fukushima-diary is the best of the fukushima blogs IMHO. Thankyou for running it!

  22. Mochizuki –

    Thank you for your effort, you are very courageous. Your blog is the only one I turn to now for news on Fukushima – it is the only one I trust. My heart goes out to you for the ongoing tragedy you and your country are enduring. You are in my thoughts,

    From Toronto, Canada

  23. You’re certainly something to us internationally – the powers that be have proved their utter ruthlessness with Japan, you have given us the real story and this is vital – because more of these things are going to blow up in the coming years, and people need to be ready, we need to know what kind of lies to expect from the government and the 1%ers generally. What are we going to do when they nuke us? It’s scary how apathetic people are.

    It reminds me of this Russian sci-fi movie I saw called “inhabited island”, where there’s this mind control weapon that causes everyone to be utterly gullible to government propaganda, except for a few mutants, called “degenerates” who experience the mind control rays as incredible pain. Or that song by Del Amitri…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnW8dmJ0Fl4

    Clearly it is going to take a long time, but we might not have that much time. Thank you for your work Mochizuki, and the very best of luck to you!

  24. You are very brave for saying the truth. Your parents should be praising you. I am in Toronto Canada and have noticed that people who stay ouyside (myself included) for a few hours become some sort of zombies(due to radiation poisioning) and feel depressed, helpless. This may be one reason why a lot of people do not leave – they are under poisioning radiation influence. I hope you have a place to go to. News in the media suggest you have to get out of there asap. I can send you an invitation to Canada for visa if you need one. I cannot provide accomodation, but on enenews a lot of people in the US or UK offered to provide accomodation – it is just a matter of getting out of Japan now. I lived 500 km from Cernobyl as a kid and did not feel radiation then, however I can feel it now (and I am much, much further away ftrom Fukushima).

    1. “invitation to Canada for visa” means 3 months visa = tourist visa?
      If it’s tourist visa, I think the needs to leave Canada after the visa expires. Could it be changed into a different type of visa while he’s there?
      If invitation is made, you need a lot of papers, and also offer him a place to stay (since you invite him), and he needs to prove he can sustain himself on the duration of the visit + needs a flight reservation (round trip ticket) for Canada before he goes to the embassy with the invitation, the papers you send and his passport – and all this must be done before leaving Japan, and the the whole “process” could take weeks…
      Please correct me if I’m wrong…

  25. “In the US, they signed a law to start media black out to tell where / how much fall-out come from Fukushima to protect their nuclear industry. Same as other countries like in EU.”

    could you provide a source for that? thanks!

Comments are closed.

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.

Categories

December 2011
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031