Tag Archives: tsunami

The Drowned and Rubbled Land

September 7, 2018 By in Japan, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
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A building that survived the 3/11 tsunami in Kesennuma. If it looks strange, it’s because the quake dropped the land in this area by a full meter+. Reconstruction has required filling the area back in to bring it up to sea level.

For those who were following my posts from Japan earlier this year but don’t follow me on social media, my first two stories have posted. The first is a feature for VICE that looks at human fallibility in the face of disaster, and the second is the story of that peculiar stone in Yoshihama I blogged about during the trip. Of course, if you want to see both in one place, you can just visit my Pulitzer page.

It’s of course gratifying to see the stories publish and I remain indebted to the folks who got me to this place. But as a writer, it’s also hard to know what the impact of your stories is. You don’t really know who’s reading them, or whether they make a difference. Even knowing if they rise above the constant deluge of information is impossible. It would honestly be lovely to know, but that’s not why we write. At least, that’s what I remind myself once a story is published. I wrote these stories not because I felt like there was anything in the here and now that pegged their importance, but because they gnawed at me personally and caused me to dwell on one sliver of the human condition.

The crazy thing about these stories is that in the sixty days that have elapsed since I left Japan, two more disasters have struck Japan: a torrential downpour that caused landslides and flooding, and a deadly earthquake near Hokkaidō.

So, I suppose there is a bit of timeliness to what I’m writing after all. I’m wrapping up a third, and maybe final story from my Japan trip. Onward, as they say.

So Many Words

June 5, 2018 By in Japan, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Today was my last day in Japan. Yu and I wrapped up one last interview of a scientist this morning in Tōkyo and that, as they say, was it. With a few hours to kill, I went to Ueno to check out the National Museum. And as usual, I found inspiration in yet another unexpected place.

This is a photo of a Buddhist text written a godawful long time ago. It’s long, as you can see, but what you don’t know is that the scroll still has several yards way down there at the end. Look at that text. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? It looks like it was shot off a laser printer, the lines are so crisp, the black so deep. The crazy thing is, we’re looking at the end of the text right here. The beginning is rolled up and tucked away. Couldn’t see it if you wanted to.

Last count, I’ve got 100 pages of fairly small print of my own scrawl in a black Moleskine. It’s solely from the last two weeks. Sitting in my backpack, just begging to be put to use. And so the work begins, I suppose. Of finding beginnings and endings and middles and all the parts that belong, and the so many that do not.

Thank you to everyone who followed along over the past fourteen days. To the folks who left comments on Facebook, retweeted me on Twitter, or had just enough time to thumbs-up an Instagram photo: thank you, and I hope you stay tuned for the stories as they publish. It’s been a hell of a trip. Thanks for joining.

All My Best,

Matt

The Kaze no Denwa

June 3, 2018 By in Japan, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

IMG_4934A few days ago, I dropped Yu, the interpreter who made my time in Tōhoku possible, off at the train station in Ichinoseki, punched my destination into Google Maps, and drove a couple of hours up the coast to Ōtsuchi. My destination (or so I thought) was the kaze no denwa, or “wind phone.”

I learned about the kaze no denwa through an amazing episode on This American Life, which you can find here. The episode is called “One Last Thing Before I Go” and the segment, produced by Miki Meek, is titled “Really Long Distance.” It’s the story of a telephone booth in Itaru Sasaki’s backyard, which he put up before 3.11.11 to help him grieve his lost brother. He’d enter the phone booth, which has a rotary phone (unconnected to anything,) dial a number, and talk to his brother. Since 2011, Japanese grieving the loss of loved ones in the tsunami have streamed to Ōtsuchi to use Sasaki’s wind phone.

On the drive, I confess to having little idea of what I’d do once I got to the phone. And once I got to Ōtsuchi, I learned that the Atlas Obscura blurb about the kaze no denwa had an incorrect map of the location. I had a hell of a time trying to find it. Despite the notoriety of it, no one seemed to know where it was. And, being sans interpreter, I had to fall back on rudimentary Japanese and a lot of hand gestures and mouth noises. At one point, I was wandering through what was clearly personal property, cutting myself on thorns and brambles and generally cursing the Atlas Obscura entry in addition to my own incompetence. As the hours passed, my anxiety crept up as I feared that I would have to return to Kesennum empty-handed.

I finally found a very nice lady in her yard, who spoke enough English and knew where it was, to guide me on foot. And just like that, there I was.

It wasn’t a pretty day. The peaceful views of the Pacific from Sasaki-san’s back yard are now blocked by construction of the Sanriku Expressway. It had been raining intermittently from a gray sky. Gloomy, not the picture of resolution or catharsis. And I still didn’t know what I’d say on the phone. I’m not a superstitious person, and I don’t follow the ancestor-worship that survives in today’s odd blend of Shinto and Buddhist tradition that is secular Japan’s take on a national religion. I knew she wouldn’t be on the other end. So, I sat down on the bench and wrote her a letter that I could read over the phone.

A few of you have reached out and expressed your hope that I can find peace from this trip. And I thank you for it, but this aspect of the trip — the search for answers regarding my grandmother’s death — has never been about peace. Life is messy, and death makes it even more so. I didn’t know my grandmother, not really. So maybe I came to Japan to grieve, but maybe I also came to understand who I am and how the tsunami defines some aspect of it.

When I left, the clouds didn’t part and no angels sang. But it felt good to have made it there despite a few hiccups, like it was the right thing to do after all. I guess that’s a kind of peace.

Note: The coordinates for the kaze no denwa are 39 degrees, 23 minutes, 9.98 seconds North by  141 degrees, 55 minutes, 54.92 seconds East. Also, if you enter the kanji for kaze no denwa ( 風の電話  ) into Google Maps, it will take you right there. If you’re headed there and want some tips, shoot me an email. Due to increasing traffic, it’s only open to the public 10a-3p Sunday through Saturday, so factor that into your planning.