2011-06-10

a long long way...

Tomorrow will be 3 months past since the earthquake in Tohoku. It is still at the beginning of the recovery and I still hear a lot of bad news and anger.
People responded very quickly and gave some help they could offer, but the civil service is not moving fast enough. The member of the parliament is busy accusing each other and trying to grab power by doing so as always, and not much help is done for the victims...
More than 80% of the money that has been donated to Red Cross is not reaching to the victims yet. I feel very sorry for the victims and also those wanted to help them by donating them. The only thing we wanted is to help them, but it's been taking a long time to assess the degree of the damage to the individuals with lack of labour and facilities... Frustrating...
First we also thought of donating the money we raised to them but having heard some suspicion with the government and inconvenience of their policy, we changed our minds and donated to five NPOs.

日本にいると、向こうでは聞かなかった被災地の日常レベルのことやら、もどかしい政治家のニュースが聞こえてきます。全く国民の声は聞こえていないのか、、、。みんなができる範囲でがんばっている時に、権力争いでお忙しそう、、、。徒党を組んで、格好が悪いとしか思えないですが、裸の王様みたいです。
日本の政治はまだ全然ましだと聞きますが、よくわからない私でさえもイライラさせられます。イギリスでもそうなんでしょうか。言葉を理解していないからわからなくて良かったことって、いろいろあるだろうなと思います。

2 comments:

  1. hi! i bought some of your chopstick stands from labour and wait earlier in the year and will be giving them away in the next week from my own blog http://mlleparadis.blogspot.com

    your work is really very lovely. all best wishes for continued success with it.

    thanks also for giving us a reality check about what is happening in japan. it's very discouraging and seemingly so pervasive (whatever country, whatever disaster) these days that people who have the power to do something, are too wrapped up in self-interest to really help those in need.

    the disaster there in japan continues not to receive the attention that it really requires from the outside world, i just hope that the japanese people can find ways from within to solve the huge problems that this triple disaster has created.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Mlle, thank you for your support for our project! I hope whoever gets them enjoys them.
    As soon as I flew into Japan I hear the news I didn't get in London. The front cover of the newspaper I got in the airplane had the chart of death/missing numbers. The media's trying to tell untold stories so we get stories from some different angles. (but also it's true that some tries to edit these stories so that it can fit the story they want to tell.)
    I totally agree with you about those people too. Fortunately one thing that is likely sure is that the government won't touch the donation, but they might just give some suggestions...

    I think this is one big warning for the future and hope what we learn from this will be very precious for generations.

    ReplyDelete