I figured that not everyone bothers to read all the comments. But this last post about the dump got a few that I wrote long replies to. I have a more detailed summary of the situation but have not "perfected" it, and probably never will. So having spent the morning writing replies, I will just repost them as a full-on post. Please keep the questions coming. It helps me to know what I should spend time writing about.
And just to lighten the mood, a photo of Mona doing her lion impression, and Punky chikkin' by the heater. (we stopped the fire stove for now because the glass broke and there is only one month of stove-required weather anyway.)
COMMENTS
i'd love some of those futons and doors. they'll all be burnt will they? seems like such a waste!
are there any empty houses about?
Posted by: becca | April 21, 2011 05:10 AM
Why is all the bedding in the trash? It still looks good.
Posted by: MOM | April 21, 2011 06:18 AM
wow, look at all of those futons....
Posted by: illahee | April 21, 2011 06:50 AM
Kevin, I appearently missed something. I thought I read all your blogs. I only remember you being in the shelter because of the potentially weak dam and then all this. Why was all this stuff distroyed? Water damage, earthquake damage or old age damage? Why could the farmer not keep going with the dairy farm except that it was marginal even before the quake and he wanted out. I didn't know the quake damage in your village was that great.
Posted by: billy | April 21, 2011 07:01 AM
Sorry, Uncle Bill, I have not kept up the blogging recently. I have a draft of a post with more detail about everything laying around here somewhere, but to answer your question in brief:
There are several houses which actually collapsed. Many more that are unlivable due to structural damage.
I just visited a friend who lives in an area where we could not access due to collapsed road and landslides. (after the quake they were brought to the shelter by helicopter). Their house has literally "jumped" about a foot off of its concrete foundation. That house will have to be torn down and rebuilt. There are many more like this.
The cow farmers are out of business because their barns where they keep the cows are half collapsed. The dead cows are because part of the barn collapsed on them.
I suspect that the dairy farmer already had plans to get out, but he is in the family biz, and couldn't. This is his chance. His son was already set to go to high-school in Hokkaido, where the wife is from, and where dairy man went to study dairy-ing.
If it were not for the tsunami, we would be in the Japanese news a lot. I was asked a few days ago to join a webcast news show about our village. I didn't want to say "this is nothing compared to the tsunami area", because there are people still in the shelters who have lost their home or business (mushroom man also out of business, and prefectural treasure last wooden shoe maker also out of business, our only supermarket may have to rebuild - if they see it as feasible). But really, this was nothing compared to over there in the tsunami area.
Our house, and all the other houses on our road were fine because we are on a very solid rock base. Just 500 meters away, on the other side of the river, where it is a very sandy base, there is a lot more damage.
Also, the extent of the damage is not yet known, since many roads are still under snow. If the roads are damaged, or if there are landslides blocking them, many farmers may not be able to get to their fields in the mountains in time to start the spring planting. (though people are pretty good with heavy machinery and organizing emergency efforts like that here). A bigger problem would be if the rice paddies are damaged and can not hold water. This is not such an easy problem to fix. It could mean a lot of people can not make rice, or not as much.
I just received another order for our rice today and I had to refuse because I don't know yet if we can make it this year, so I wanted to keep what we have left for ourselves to eat.
But probably the *biggest* negative effect of the quake will be the loss of people (not dead, just moving away). We were already considered an official "village in danger of dying", and now even more so. There is at least one hamlet that is now extinct (granted there was only one old house with an elderly couple living there) but still, even some of the larger hamlets will not be the same.
Of course this effects my business as well, since the people are a big part of our tours, but there are areas nearby that I can expand into, so I am not worried. Once foreigners start coming back to Japan I will be OK. And we have other ideas too.
Posted by: kevin | April 21, 2011 09:38 AM
@mom and illahee
Yeah. It is hard to go there because I want to get all of it, but no where to put it. Mayu had homework yesterday to think of things to do for the people in the tsunami area. Of course there were many ideas like writing letters sending cookies, etc. I suggested sending some of this stuff! I have already collected a bunch of perfectly good musical instruments that the school was throwing out. I was officially told to stop, but am allowed later to "steal" them.
Those can all be sent over there and maybe brighten some kids days. I don't know...
But yeah, it is painful to see what gets thrown away. Whenever I go to the dump to clear out our house (still going there after four years) they weigh the car on the way in and on the way out. I am afraid sometimes it will weigh more on the way out. But I have gotten some good stuff there that I use all the time.
Part of this massive purge is because many houses are now unlivable, people have to tear down the house, and have no place to store their stuff, so I guess this is a "fresh start". Some if it is because going 30 minutes to the official dump was too troublesome, and now for a limited time, we can just go five minutes to the school parking lot. People are taking the opportunity to get rid if things they always wanted to get rid of. Me too.
Posted by: kevin | April 21, 2011 09:51 AM
@Becca
I would love to send you some, but I think it would be cheaper to just go to the nearest Jusco and buy a new one.
Before the quake there were 80 empty houses in the village. It was very difficult to get people to allow anyone to rent or buy them for a variety of social reasons. I had tried to find a place to house employees so I could expand my business, but found nothing. There is (was) a waiting list to get into the village.
Now I suspect many people will take this opportunity to use whatever money thet get from the government to tear down the open houses that are deemed "unlivable", instead of rebuild them, since they are not being used anyway, and it costs money just to have it there - they have to pay for shoveling the roves, maintenance, tax, etc.
It will be a very different landscape.
This has been a very depressing comment answer session...
But maybe, just maybe, some people will be more willing now to offer houses to outsiders. And since probably no one wants to come to an area that 1/3 or more of the population may be fleeing from, it might be easier.
Posted by: kevin | April 21, 2011 10:15 AM