Food Contamination

Radiation Exposure

March 20, 2011

I guess the big news is about food contamination, spinach, milk. My brother, sent me an AP story that had the same information as was on the Japanese news about rising levels of radiation contamination:
--even if you ate a kilo (2.2 lbs) of spinach a day for a year, the effect would be 1/5 a CT scan.
--drinking the tainted milk for a year would equal a CT scan
(they did not say in the article how much milk -- it must be a lot because I do drink a little bit of milk every day in my tea....)

But to show you the level of worry here, after that newscast, I was making tea and putting in milk when my husband rushed in and shouted, "when did you buy that milk.....before the quake....?????" Well, the two cartons I brought with me I got before the quake, but one carton I got here in Gotenba. But it was surely produced before the quake....? Already people are talking about not eating spinach.

Radiation exposure is like the boogie man in Japan.
They equate radiation with death and dying, for they have seen first hand in Hiroshima and Nagasaki what can happen, ....the illness, the suffering, ....the discrimination, because many people here who suffered once in Hiroshima or Nagasaki were made to suffer again and again because people were afraid to hire them or marry them - their DNA was "weakened", they "tired easily" rumor said. And none of us are experts. We all forget that when you fly, you are exposed to higher levels of radiation or when you get an x-ray, you get more rads.... even some spa waters are higher in radiation than others. All you need in Japan is a whiff of the word, radiation, for irrational fears to surface.

Milk is in really scarce supply because trucks can not get from Hokkaido, where most of the milk is produced, down to Tokyo because all the roads lead through the earthquake zones for the most part. I heard they were dumping milk. I get email from my friends in Kashiwa and they are still having trouble getting milk.

The construction industry has been put on the line - the government has told them that they have to build 30,000 plus temporary homes in 2 months. What they do in cases like this, like after the earthquake in Kobe (15 years ago?), is to build temporary homes in all the flat, public areas, like school yards, parks, any open spaces. They are build cheek and jowl. They are very small, but all have electricity, gas, basic cooking facilities, a sitting room and one extra room, a toilet, a bath tub. Then, the people who live there, have a set amount of time to stay there until they get on their feet again. Some leave quickly once they get their own home rebuilt. Some need to be gently pushed out at the end of the set time. After the set period of time, the temporary homes are taken down.

As you can imagine, the construction industry will be very happy about all this work. Especially since the "hi no maru" or the Japanese "rising sun" flag is behind all this and will be paying for it. Of course, they will not say anything about being happy in these trying times.

A lot of work will be created which will help many people in Japan. You may remember that after the "Lehman shock" or after Lehman Brothers failed in Japan, many, many people were put out of work. In the last two years, many companies that employed the so-called "temporary" contract workers on an almost permanent basis, fired all of them all over Japan, at almost the same time. All at once, thousands upon thousands of young men and women were put out of work, but not only work, as many of these companies also gave them apartments to live in. So they lost their jobs and apartments on the same day. Thousands were camped out in parks in Tokyo for months. These people may benefit from work in the coming months.

People all over Japan are doing what they can to help. Using less gas for example, but there are still long lines for gas in some areas, as reported in this morning's news. We all turn off as many lights as possible. There was a question from a driver in Okinawa asking, if saving gas and reducing electricity consumption in Okinawa would have any effect or help the people in Tohoku. The answer was, basically, NO. Everything has to be shipped into Okinawa, so saving gas in Okinawa would not really make more gas available elsewhere.

The sick elderly who were in hospitals in the effected areas are being moved on mass, out of the region down to Tokyo or elsewhere. There are just not enough medical staff right now. And many people in the effected areas who have access to gas or trains are leaving and heading to Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures. These areas are all opening up public facilities to those from the hard hit areas. They are providing food, water and sleeping facilities....medical and other services.

One thing that you might find interesting is that all towns and prefectural level governments as well as the central government have "meeting rooms" or "public halls" or even bigger facilities that they build with tax money. And if you live in that town or whatever, you can use these facilities for free or a nominal fee by applying in advance. In my neighborhood in Kashiwa, for example, we have a public library. But in the same building there are these meeting rooms. If I wanted to, I could teach English using those rooms, as long as it was open to the general public.... Or teach cooking as some of the rooms have kitchens. So, you see, the larger of these facilities can be used in an emergency.

There were no blackouts anywhere yesterday and I have received an email from the Hakone City Office saying that there would be none today, either.