Can AI (Artificial Intelligence) save the labour crisis in Fukushima?

Here, meet the newest maître d in Fukushima! His name is Peppa. He greeted us at the sushi bar today in Koriyama and guided us which table we were supposed to sit.

Many young people left Fukushima after the disaster and Fukushima has been rapidly aging, faster than most places in Japan.

A big question is where and how should the electricity be produced to operate these robots? The problem is complex and there is no black and white answer. 

Ministry of Presence

April 12, 2018 - Naraha town 

“What skills do you have?”

That was the question repeatedly asked to the sisters who wanted to rent a house and start a community in Fukushima back in 2015. After a long and hard year of waiting, through a connection made at a local parish, the three nuns could get a rental house and register themselves at the local town office in Naraha at the end of 2015. “Why did you move here?” was the question asked by the town office clerk who received the forms filled by elderly sisters.

The Sisters of Visitation is a Catholic order in Japan that was established in 1915 with a mission to visit and offer hope to those who are in pain or suffering. Four sisters from Kamakura convent near Tokyo went to Miyagi soon after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Three years later when the situation settled, they didn’t want to go back to Kamakura. They started searching where in Fukushima they might continue to serve. When they heard the restricted zone (20 km evacuation zone from the Daiichi nuclear power plant) would soon start opening up, they explored the possibility of establishing their community somewhere along the coastal lines of Fukushima. But the door did not open for them quickly.

“We do not have any skills. We are not useful people. We are catholic sisters.”

Realty agencies and civil servicemen, whoever they met, all alike not only gave them a weird look at their grey religious habits, but gave them cold unwelcoming answers. They did not possess useful skills for recovery in this post-disaster almost-empty town.

The sisters started going out to temporary housing complexes in ordinary clothes, not in their religious habits, to serve evacuees with tea and snacks, and simply to be with people who lost their homes and families. Their friendly smiles, and peaceful presence, which was present week after week, month after month earned the trust and opened the doors to the hearts of hurting people. Gradually they made friends, and people started recognizing them on streets near their community house, in their habit. And now some people even started visiting the sisters at their house.

“We are here to visit people and offer friendship. But most importantly, we are here to pray. Pray for hurting people and pray also for the suffering creation. We pray for reconciliation of all things.” Says Sister Fujiwara with a big smile. She may seem useless in unbelieving eyes, but possesses a smile that no human skill can force to break in another human being’s face. She does not have money or power to sign a big real estate contract, but offers inner peace from the Creator God that no money can buy. 

Sister Teru Fujiwara

Sister Akiko Okawa explaining their farming as away of self-reliance

Seven years after the disaster, most foreign NGOs have left and foreign mission support has long gone in the forgotten land of Fukushima. But this small community of four sisters continue to visit their suffering neighbours with the hope and joy of Christ.

Sister Fujiwara, Sister Juvencia from East Timor, sister Yuko Matsusaka and Sister Akiko Okawa
standing in front of their community house (left to right)

Being Missional: Shining the Light in the Darkness

April 11, 2018 - Minami Soma

Back to Fukushima this year, alone with Midori. I miss coming with a team of people to encourage the forgotten people of Fukushima, but I am also enjoying this opportunity for me to sit with pastors and their church members leisurely and to listen (through Midori’s careful translation, for which I am forever grateful!) to their stories unhurriedly.

After my very first visit in 2011, this is only the second time to visit Fukushima in April as my annual visits had taken place in March in the previous years. Though most cherry blossoms have already ended in most parts of Fukushima, the colorful spring blossoms seem piercingly beautiful in contrast to the bags of topsoil piled high in the fields. 

Abandoned area

Empty field after topsoil was removed.

Recently cultivated area after topsoil was removed.

A little over 100 km distance took us over three hours to arrive in Minami Soma from Nakoso by train, bus and then train due to the high level of radiation still found around the Daiichi nuclear plant. As Midori and I were walking around the town to find a place to get some simple lunch, we discovered the town still looked pretty much like a ghost town, like a couple years ago when we stayed overnight. Not a single human-being walking on the sidewalks, and only cars pass by occasionally in the midday small town traffic.

“Yanagisawa san!” The front window rolled down from a car across the street, and the familiar face smiled at us. Mrs. Ishiguro waved at us as she slowed down the car to wait for us to get in. “No one walks in this area, so I was curious when I saw two ladies walking from a distance, and then I realized I knew the familiar faces!” She took us to a recently open store where we could buy hot lunch boxes and rushed to their house, which is also their church, Haramachi Bible Church.

“What things have been happening lately since we saw you last year?” I asked as we didn’t want to waste any time during our short visit before making the long train-bus-train journey back to Nakoso in the evening.

“We started an Ayako Miura book club that meets once a month at the public library in the town centre.” They meet at the public library to make it non-Christian friendly after a failed attempt to start it in the church. 7-11 people showed up so far each month and 20 some people showed up when they held a seminar with a literature expert as a guest speaker.

“Ayako Miura (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayako_Miura) is a famous Japanese female novelist, whose works convey a biblical worldview that is well understood by ordinary Japanese people. We want to serve our neighbours by creating a social event like this because there are very few opportunities to enjoy culture or entertainment for a quality time here,” said the newly ordained Rev. Ishiguro (Rev. Ishiguro’s wife) spoke to us with her great big smile.

 The church is also trying to have an open church occasionally by holding more seeker-friendly services. They want the church to be a non-threatening, friendly place where people can come and find friends.

Minami Soma is a rapidly aging city because most young families left after the disaster. The city was under a voluntary evacuation order soon after the disaster and many who evacuated during that time have not come back. This house-church run by a husband-wife pastoral team had two lonely years right after the disaster when the Sunday service meant only the two of them to worship. But now the church has been steadily growing in the last few years and now they are trying to meet the needs of the neighbors by holding public events.

Rev. Ishiguro in front of the public library

This is a church that knows her mission to be present and shine Christ’s light in the darkness.

"What ifs" won't return the lost 2557 days (7 years and two days)

For the first time in several years, I am in Vancouver this March. Normally I would pay my yearly visit to Fukushima this time of the year, coinciding with the 3/11 Triple Disaster anniversary. I find it hard to call it an anniversary, but there it is. With a plan to visit Fukushima in April, I am home reading online news about Fukushima instead of visiting friends there.

I imagined that the echoes of the triple disaster would gradually disappear from media even on these anniversary dates now that seven years have passed. But I was surprised to see a news article (click here) which mentioned some scholarly reports saying, "The evacuation was a mistake." 

There have been countless arguments about Fukushima issues right from the day one, seven years ago. About the level of radiation risks, about how far people must evacuate, about how long they must wait, about how soon they could return and to what level of restoration and so on.

2557 days have passed since the triple disaster in Fukushima. For more than sixty thousand people from Fukushima, that's how long they have carried the stigma of evacuees. More than half of that number of people are still wandering with lost hope, not just lost homes and possessions. It is not easy to get an accurate count on how many more people left their homes in Fukushima voluntarily and unofficially. But in the first year of the disaster, the number was over a hundred thousand.

Since the very first visit I took in April 2011, I've met people who have pointed out how wrongly this triple disaster recovery was unfolding ever since the official recovery began in Fukushima almost a whole year after the disaster. Now we hear a voice of ivory tower saying that the evacuation was a mistake. Grassroots people knew it, but they had to follow the voice of authority. The people of Fukushima did not have a voice back then. Only one in two people who were forced to evacuate returned to their homes. Where are the rest? Do they have a voice now?

Questions arise if the evacuation was indeed a mistake. What if these people had all stayed home, would they have recovered better? What if there was another tsunami and earthquake, would people then have evacuated or stayed? What if, what if, what if.... We do not have answers.

We can't return to those evacuees the precious 2557 days that they have lost in evacuation even after monetary compensations have been made by TEPCO to those evacuees. But perhaps one thing we can do is to remember the big mistake and not repeat it. Now is the time to think about the present moment and future.

Six Years after the Disaster

Some facts about Fukushima after six long years passed since March 11, 2011. 

Percentage of forest area in Fukshima: 70%

No. of towns affected by the mandatory evacuation order: 11

Total no. of evacuees in 2012: 164,865 

Total no of evacuees in March 2017: 79,446

The highest radiation recorded on March 10, 2017: Okuma town at 10.444 μSv/h

Total no. of population in Fukushima prefecture in 2011: 1,988,995

Total no. of population in Fukushima prefecture in 2017: 1,895,080

Total no. of workers for decommissioning in October 2016: 5920 

"Six" doesn't seem to be as a significant number" as some other numbers, like five or ten, or even seven, that mark passage of time better in our fragile memory. But this is what happens in ordinary Japanese life. The Japanese school year and fiscal year run from April to March. So mid to late March is a season of graduation, school break, job transfers, and relocations, and any other life changes associated with these big changes and passages of life. And there is the famous season of beautiful cherry blossoms. 

In the midst of these happy anticipations of life on a cold Friday afternoon six years ago, the earthquake hit and a massive tsunami followed. Children were still in school, high school and university graduations were going on, salarymen (as Japanese call their white-collar work-force) were exchanging their news about the next posts in faraway places, mothers were busy shopping for the weekend family outings.... Then panic and chaos began. A shock and trauma scarred their memories forever. It has never ended. 

Children who were born in 2011 go to elementary school this April. Children who finished elementary school that year have spent the hardest, darkest and most unimaginable forms of youth and teenage years in their middle and high schools. University students who graduated that year spent the rest of their twenties in this broken reality of Japan's super-power as the world's leading economy as they entered the job world. 

Future from Fukushima

Fukushima's future and its people are forever marked by the triple disaster and the ongoing struggle with the unresolved nuclear crisis. Collective memory is a powerful thing when building a new future. I've seen this logo, Future from Fukushima a couple years after the disaster, as a local movement among farmers and small businesses that started promoting revitalization of local economy in Fukushima. Today our team visited Comutan Fukushima, a brand-new exhibit hall that the Fukushima prefectural government opened recently as an information and learning centre about the nuclear disaster in Fukushima and the impact of radiation in human life and environment. We learned a great deal about Fukushima through our experience. 

Last six years my purpose of visiting Fukushima has been to listen to the stories of people and churches at the grassroots level which often get buried in the big headlines of media. I found it very helpful to be able to see the whole picture of Fukushima from a bird-eye view. Indeed a new future from Fukushima is rising!  

Deepening Friendships and Deepening Engagement

The artists who did the first exhibit in Fukushima three years ago (go to the story on the exhibit) continued their engagement with Fukushima in differfent ways. The nine artists went to the restricted areas surrounding Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant in late 2013 and their experience mounted to an exhibit in Fukushima in March 2014 to commemorate the third anniversary of the triple disaster. After that, a group of friends got together in Vancouver and raised funds, prayers and other kinds of support to bring the exhibit to Vancouver (go to the story on the Vancouver ehxibit). In early 2016 some of these artists went to Fukushima again with addition of two new Japanese artists and a Canadian artist in March 2016. In their first visit to Fukushima three and a half years ago, they saw and grieved over the devastation, trauma and human tragedy of man-made disaster. Their work reflected their lament, but a sign of hope. 

This time the new exhibit in Tokyo showed their deepening experience as a group of artists: trying to understand what lies behind these man-made disasters, what is being done to recover the devastated soil and farms, how a small but resilient hope is found in various pockets of Fukushima. 

The artists visiting the areas stricken by tsunami (March 2016)

Learning from the radiation expert about the radiation clean-up work in Fukushima (March 2016)

Olive Garden: A nonprofit organization planting olive trees along the Fukushima shore line
by creating  jobs for the disabled (March 2016)

Six adults and three children from Vancouver visited the exhibit today. Last night was an opening event, which was a great success including some major media coverage (sadly, we missed it because we were just flying in to Tokyo at the same time.) Today, the exhibit began to fill steadily even during the day and got busier in the afternoon. 

Fukushima, even after six years, still continues to be a mind-boggling, immensely complex reality. It is a kind of conundrum to a nation that never took "no" for an answer. 

This exhibit, once again, is a communal art project which is honestly reflected by the people who care deeply and express boldly. As their experience grows deeper, their friendships grow richer. We are greatful for their vocation of artists. 

Here are some photos Jonathan took this afternoon. I wish many of the readers were able to come to Tokyo and experience this beautiful exhibit. 

No Greater Happiness Than a Visit with a Friend from a Faraway Place

In April 2011, I went to Fukushima, Japan, alone from Vancouver, Canada to line up at the immigration in Narita Airport where there were very few foreigners entering the country. Most foreigners had already left the country due to the safety alert coming from the uncertainty following the meltdown of the reactors in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

Six years have passed and a lot has happened outside Fukushima. Most of the disaster recovery work has long been completed in Iwate and Miyagi since disaster recovery is one thing Japan has been known for her expertise and tenacity. But the situation in Fukushima is quite different. Year by year, we saw very little progress in Fukushima. Though the effect of the earthquake and tsunami was not as devastating as in the other two prefectures mentioned above, due to continued uncertainty around the nuclear plant and rising long term challenges associated with it, progress in Fukushima has been very slow.

Over the next few days six friends from Vancouver are visiting the local churches in Fukushima to learn from their stories of faithfulness, to encourage them that we stand alongside them, and to worship together in Christ. This is a huge answer to prayers. Last Sunday afternoon during the congregational worship at Church of All Nations, we were prayed for and sent out by the loving congregation. I am no longer a lone-ranger visiting Fukushima! In fact, a-dream-come-true kind of thing.

A long time ago a Chinese wise man, Confucious said in his famous writing, the Analects, that one of the three great joys in human life is friend’s visit:

有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎

 It means, “Isn't it also great when friends visit from distant places?”

It has already been a great joy to the six of us that God chose us to send together. Six of us now all live in the Metro Vancouver, but we come from five different nations: Japan, Korea, Malaysia, USA and Canada. It is a truly global friendship. We go to offer ourselves and our prayers to friends in Fukushima.

Ministry of friendship and ministry of presence

Right from the first year of my work in Fukushima in 2011, I had a hunch that the key to sustainability in Fukushima will be relationships. The local churches which we witnessed to be effective in such a challenging context all had one common: People who are called by God to stay in Fukushima. To be present is to minister. To be friends is an end of mission, not a means to mission. This is only possible through

relationship that is bound by voluntary commitments rather than monetary, project-terms or contracts. We now offer ourselves to this voluntary commitment of being present in Fukushima from afar. It is a true joy to visit friends in a faraway place!