Giving life back to Fukushima

When you hear the word Fukushima, a prefecture in Japan, what are the first few things that come into your mind? Perhaps, you’ll say radiation, contamination, danger, disaster, and the list goes on.  Without a doubt, these are the familiar terms that are, most often if not always, associated with Fukushima after the Great East Japan Earthquake last March 11, 2011. The whole world has thought of Fukushima since then as a hazardous area or worse, as a wasteland due to the calamity that struck the place on that faithful day. Little do they know that Fukushima has been hastily recovering from that horrid incident and has tried its very best to bring back the image that it once had before the catastrophe.

Personally, I am a witness to that. Last March 18-27, 2013, I was given the opportunity to live in Fukushima as I represented the Philippines in the Kizuna (Bond) Project. This project is an initiative of the Japanese government which invited some Filipino youth to visit Japan and experience its rich culture. For our batch, we stayed in Fukushima as the main venue for the project. Ten days wasn’t enough for me to completely understand Fukushima and its culture. But nonetheless, those ten days allowed me to have a grasp on reality about Fukushima which is extremely contradictory to what people all over the world generally assume.

The best resource of Fukushima is its people

 In my stay, I was blessed to have met wonderful people in Fukushima who came from various walks of life. It is very heart-warming that people in Fukushima welcomed me in their place with wide smiles and even random people who we just encountered on the street greeted me with an Ohayo Gozaimasu (Good morning) or Konnichiwa (Good afternoon). The residents in the place showed utmost kindness to me even if I was only a mere stranger to them.  I even had the chance to have a homestay with a Japanese family who welcomed me so warmly into their house and treated me like their own family member.  I realized then that Japanese are not so different from Filipinos in how they truthfully care for each other in the family.

With highschool students from Hisawa Junior High School

At the Asukasa Castle in Tokyo with JICE coordinators Yuki-sensei and Takusan-sensei

My Henmi Japanese family during my homestay. Meet my Obasan and Ojisan.

The food in Fukushima are safe and delicious

In all honesty, I never thought I would love Japanese food. I didn’t have the chance to taste most of their delicacies until I visited Fukushima. To my surprise, the food in Fukushima are actually very delicious. The various dishes that we were offered with made us want to grab more each time.  What is more incredible is that Fukushima has stricter food safety standards compared with other developed countries. This then dispels what people think of Fukushima food as contaminated due to the nuclear powerplant explosion last 2011.

Oishi food from Fukushima during my homestay with the Henmi family

Fresh strawberries from the Minamiaizu strawberry farm

Fukushima has wonderful tourist destinations

Although I visited Fukushima as a participant in a project and not as a tourist, I still had the chance to explore the area and visit some of its tourist destinations. I was able to visit the Tsuruga-jo castle which speaks so much of the Japanese culture.  I learned from there the historical underground community that a certain place in Fuksuhima had way back when war was dominant in the world. I also saw figures and objects that belonged hundreds of years ago in Japan’s earliest civilizations. I also got to visit the Asukasa Castle in Tokyo where hundreds of tourists were around, wanting to get a good view of the beautiful Sakura trees (Cherry blossom trees) and ancient temples. But I guess any place in Fukushima is a tourist destination, especially if you are a fan of snow, since it snows in six out of twelve months in a year.

Underneath the shade of the beautiful Sakura tree at the Asukasa Castle in Tokyo

The historical Tsuruga-jo castle in Fukushima

Enjoying the snow at the Daikura Ski Resort

Realizations on the Fukushima visit

In sum, my realization from my visit in Fukushima can be enumerated in three points. Firstly, I learned that the greatest damage that the March 11, 2011 earthquake brought to Fukushima is neither the loss of billions worth of properties nor thousands of lives, but the harmful rumors that circulated all over the world after the disaster. These harmful rumors or what they call as “Fuhyo Higai” are the major destruction that crippled Fukushima. The destruction is not even measured by the dwindling economy and tourism of the prefecture but by this man-made damage that steals away their humanity. These harmful rumors affect them so much since it destroys their self-image and confidence with themselves.

Secondly, I learned the truth about Fukushima and that indeed, it doesn’t deserve to be affiliated with negative terms which seem to define it right now. As a Kizuna delegate who experienced life in Fukushima, I wish to share this truth to the maximum number of people possible. I want this truth to be felt by other random people, hoping that the correct information about the place will also be understood by people other than myself or my Kizuna batch mates. By the very simple act of telling the truth about Fukushima, I am giving life back to this hopeful prefecture.

Lastly, I learned that what Fukushima needs from us or from other foreign countries is not monetary donation or manpower, but a genuine understanding of their situation. It is by this understanding which gives them hope and sustains their will to live life as normally as they did before the great earthquake.  The least that we can do then is to give the people of Fukushima some respect simply because they deserve it. It is by this respect and understanding which will give the residents of this prefecture their well-deserved dignity - the one thing that is left to most residents who have totally lost their loved ones and properties.

Fukushima was once devastated by a seemingly unbearable disaster. It was enough. Let us not allow its people to suffer another devastation made by false human rumors. The story of Fukushima is not a story of tragedy, but of hope. It is not a story of despair but of faithful promises for a better future. Their story is my story now, too. My hopes are high that by this article, you as a viewer will read our story now with deeper understanding in which you can also share to other people. After all, what could be better than sharing the truth about Fukushima and knowing that the words we say give life to this promising prefecture? Sasukene Fukushima!

Wearing of national costume at a theater in Fukushima

My kizuna batch mates wearing our Philippine national costume

Presenting our action plan to the Japanese government. This is what we're gonna do upon returning to the Philippines.