Disaster Reality in Japan. Thoughts on Living and Visiting. #japaneseculture #japanese #japantravel

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One final thing I’m editing in in the middle of this I forgot to say one thing which is important which is I’m going to put a link below to a Yahoo Japan donation link for the Noto Peninsula earthquake victims and relief and it’s it’s a genuine charity they helped out a

Ton when the March 11th earthquake happened over 10 years ago so you can trust that your money will go to a good place and if you want to donate to the earthquake relief down or I should say up in isawa ETC and that area please use the link below and anything you would

Give is I’m sure greatly appreciated what is good everyone welcome to the channel happy New Year 2024 I am in downtown Yokohama for the first time since like last October I haven’t been here in a while and I just wanted to wish you a happy New Year and talk about

A topic briefly today’s video is going to be different in a couple of ways it’s my normal walk and talk video on the streets but but usually I practice a little bit what I’m going to say today I’m going completely off the cuff on today’s topic and the second difference is

Well because of the topic I’m not monetizing this video so if you see any YouTube ads on this video that’s YouTube it’s not me okay what I wanted to talk about today basically addresses what’s been going on in the beginning of 2024 for Japan which is a series of disasters

First the earthquake in the Noto Peninsula up in Ishikawa and close to nigata uh and uh fukui prefectures and then of course the Japan Airlines disaster although the latter one is not something I’m really going to address I’m going to be talking more about the earthquake situation to begin

With I really feel that to truly understand Japan in a number of different ways and on different levels is to understand that it is a disaster prone country I’ve been here for 18 years I have seen on the news all manner of terrible things happening it was here

During the March 11th earthquake that happened up at tohoku and of course we have the recent one has new evidence of it’s an earthquake prone country not only that there’s lots of flooding there’s fires there’s landslides uh all kinds of things like that typhoons and of course tsunamis that come along with

Earthquakes and the truth of the matter is is this is baked into Japan’s history and culture I mean the entire city of Kyoto was built basically by people who were completely up to dat uh on like the latest superstitions and the ways to play Kate and keep demons out of daily

Life and who followed very strictly a calendar based on the Chinese zodiac system that basically you know there’s auspicious days inicios Days unlucky days and you know these things still persist in Japanese culture today for example my mother-in-law when we moved into our new house we could only move into the house

On a particular day based on that traditional calendar so it’s not like this is something that goes back to the founding of kotto and before it’s something that is still present today for those who are believers or who are superstitious and obviously it also appears in Shinto religion I’ve talked about this before

Where you pray at a Shinto Shrine to ask the Gods Not to cause problems or to prevent disasters like the Fuji Yoshida fire Festival in yamanashi at the foot of Mount Fuji the entire purpose of that Festival is to basically ask the goddess of Mount Fuji to not send any more fire like

Prevent the eruption of Mount Fuji and that’s very very common as a theme throughout chinto practice belief purification Etc you can almost liken it a little bit to the Greek gods you know the Greek gods were capricious and they would screw around with humanity and in

Some ways the until gods are similar and that they’ll just you know make a disaster happen for entertainment or to see what happens and you know F around and find out right and Japan the population the populace the people have been the sufferers of this capricious behavior and as such have become

Very just both accepting of the fact that they live in a disaster prone country country but also proactive I mean Japan has some of the best in the world earning early Warning Systems evacuation plans they’re always reassessing how things are done and changing them with the times uh the

Place where I work recently had a bunch of its buildings re outfitted with new structure within the building to help it withstand bigger earthquakes those sorts of things are constant battle in Japan it reminds me of something I brought up a couple months ago about the sort of trend these days to buy

Abandoned Japanese houses for super cheap and how that’s a trend right now people like to fix them up and while I think that’s a cool thing and I think it’s better than just like letting them sit there abandoned or you know fall into ruin I would worry if it was me like is

That house really going to withstand a major earthquake it’s the reason why we built a new house because we wanted to have it done to the latest earthquake specs basically if you live here I can’t stress enough that you have to have some kind of emergency plan

Yourself have or I should say have t you should have taken a look at the emergency evacuation Maps you should know where you’re supposed to go in case of a tsunami or you have to evacuate because of a flood or whatever it is and if you have a family you know go

Through the process of setting up meeting points if you’re not together okay in a disaster we’re all going to be here have supplies in your home water food medicine everything that you might need to you know stay through a few weeks of the possibility of not having water power and food delivery in

The March 11th earthquake shelves in Yokohama were sold out for days and days they would restock in the morning because there was still infrastructure and transportation so there never really was a real danger of running out of food but that’s because the earthquake wasn’t here it was up in

Tohoku if the earthquake and tsunami were down here there’s not going to be anything on shelves all of the vending machines are going to be sold out and if the roads aren’t clear and the trains aren’t running there’s not going to be any restocking so you have to have stuff

Yourself and also be aware of like the community you’re in where they have their emergency stock piles cuz most communities have emergency supplies you’ll see in different neighborhoods like these big boxes that have the name of the municipality on them that’s basically a housing of emergency supplies so I mean

I I often caution my own students about this cuz they come to live in Yokohama from other prefectures and they live in apartments and they often don’t have anything extra in their apartment they don’t stock up on emergency supplies so they really should but you know they’re young they

Don’t really think about that kind of thing so if you’re visiting if you’re here as a tourist then I mean you can’t really stock up on supplies but it’s probably not a bad thing to have like some water that you keep in your hotel room or you know always have a supply on

You and just you know maybe buy a bunch of snacks that you put into your suitcase as a emergency supply of food if you need them but if you don’t need them then you just take them home and you can enjoy Japanese snacks in your home country basically be aware of the

Fact that disaster can strike certainly up in Isa like Kan Sawa which is a popular tourist destination there would I’m sure foreign tourists up there at the time and they’re probably wondering what they should do or how they should get out of there or you know what what the

Procedure is and it’s probably not a bad idea if you’re coming to Japan to just take a brief time to kind of look over what emergency preparedness you might need to know in terms of the place where you’re going I mean the likely Ood of it happening in the exact time that you’re

Here while not zero isn’t very high but you know better safe and better planned ahead than sorry as for me you know you just there’s a reason why the Sakura cherry blossoms are so popular and famous in Japan they’re famous because they’re be they’re they’re famous because their beauty is

Transient meaning it doesn’t last last very long it they fall and they blow away in the wind and then that brief period in time is over and that’s kind of part of the Japanese psyche in a way because all life is transient it’s it’s not lasting forever nothing lasts forever and that

Also comes from the psyche of a country that has endured disaster after disaster after disaster throughout its history I also think this is a reason why there are so many Japanese disaster movies like Godzilla and you know giant monsters destroying all of Japan comes out of course the the World War II

Memories but also the fact that Japan literally endures disasters where an entire city is destroyed like as if by a giant monster and you have movies like suzo which is basically a kind of remembrance of the tohoku earthquake and this kind of spiritual look at the cause of

Earthquakes in which it is kind of like a giant monster leveling cities or a giant spiritual energy in these well if you haven’t seen the movie I won’t I won’t go on but if you seen it you know what I’m talking about it’s always in the back of

People’s mind and as someone who lives here I have to just you know plan ahead be ready but also be kind of mindful and just accepting of the fact that I could find myself in the middle of one of these and you know if I’m here for another 20 40 years I

There’s a high possibility I will be and I just have to be accepting of that fact and and live with it and do my best to mitigate whatever uh I can to help out the situation before during and after it’s happening so I take it very seriously

But realize that in the end there’s not much I can really do to control what would happen in the disaster itself it’s just a fact of life of living here and if you are planning to live here long term it’s something you’ll have to make peace with

Yourself so any rate yeah I didn’t really plan any of what I was about to say that was all off the cuff so let me know how that went I usually I I never script my videos but I will usually kind of make an outline and practice that

Outline a few times so I don’t know exactly what I’ll say but I know the main points I’m going to make and the order in which I’m planning to make them but I didn’t do that this time if you enjoyed this video and if you got

Anything out of it I invite you to like it share it with anyone you think would also enjoy it subscribe if you haven’t already I have a plan in 2024 to start a patreon for those of you who would like to support the channel and the sort of

Exclusive content that I would offer on that patreon is uh I’m thinking to begin with is to allow anyone who is over on there if they’re coming to Japan I would be uh at their service in terms of helping them plan their trip and put together ideas and suggestions for where

To go what to do what to see what to eat Etc and basically patrons could use me as a free travel planner um in thanks for their Pat AG but I’m still a small channel so I don’t expect that to be a huge thing but I thought I’d give it a

Try and open that up and always there is the thanks button on YouTube if you wanted to make a onetime donation to the channel I mean at this point I’m pretty much set with my gear Etc I do need a new microphone soon but I do this as a

Hobby and I’m not trying to make money off it so if you feel like you’re getting value out of it and you’d like to help out that’s great but I’m I’m never really I’m bad at self-promotion and I don’t plan to really become any better at it because

Like I said I’m I’m doing this as a hobby I’m not trying to make money off this channel so anyway with that out of the way I want to thank you very much for watching this particular video I will catch you next time peace