Personnel strategy in Fukushima

Several measures, from the central governmental level to private organization levels, with respect to personnel issues have been already taken to manage the radioactive substance contaminated soil and the ongoing accident in Fukushima.

The central government has established "Fukushima decontamination work promotion team"（福島除染推進チーム" in Fukushima prefecture. One of the missions of this team is to promote decontamination works in collaboration with local governments. Though the details of this team are still unclear, the importance of personnel issues seems to be recognized in the central government in the work of decontamination.

Fukushima prefectural government has announced that it would establish "the personnel bank for decontamination work" (除染人材バンク) in the next January. According to a basic policy of the central government, local governments has responsibility to undertake decontamination work for the areas where radiation levels are less than 20 micro Sv/year and more than 1 micro Sv/year. Fukushima prefectural government has thus decided to establish the personnel bank, seeks technical experts to be registered in the bank, and conduct decontamination works with the help of knowledge of the bank.

There is other movement in a private field. Skilled Veteran Corps for Fukushima （福島原発行動隊） is not a governmental organization, but a source of skilled personnel. People who are over 60 years old, have technical skills and mission based minds are permitted to join  this corps. One of the missions of this corps is to provide advice with respect to decontamination works for governmental bodies and private companies and even send the registered personnel to decontamination works.

Business Trip to Thailand (Third Time)

I am now at a departure gate in the Narita International Airport. I am going to visit Bangkok today, and this is the third time to land on Thailand.

Thailand is currently suffering from severe flood threat. The flood is causing damages in the northern part of Thailand, but it has not reached the central part of Bangkok.

I will arrive at Bangkok this afternoon, and will leave Bangkok at the midnight tomorrow.

According to news obtained so far, I am not sure whether the flood threat will reach Bangkok. If the central part of Bangkok is attacked by the flood, then, I will not be able to undertake my business mission in Bangkok, and in the worst case, I will not be able to leave Bangkok if the international airport in Bangkok halts its functions due to the flood threat.

This is similar to the situation which I experienced in Japan on March 11, 2011. Large earthquakes and subsequent massive tsunami as well as the successive meltdowns of the nuclear power plants in Fukushima completely halted functions of Tokyo. Trains were delaying and even not moving, and electricity was stopped in some areas.

Urban areas are fragile to natural disasters.

--until here, written on October 20---

--from here, written on October 22---

I am writing this post in a train back to Tokyo.

I came back to Tokyo, and I am safe and well. I was not trapped in the flood thread in Bangkok, but I felt the situation was not solved and still facing future crisis. I am not sure whether Bangkok will be safe.

This crisis tells me that a megacity is fragile to natural disasters. Once a natural disaster occurs in a metropolitan, then, at first, vast of information starts distributing. We face massive of information. In addition, this kind of information spreads all over the world in a short period.

Next, many of managers are assigned from different authorities to the disaster. For example, in the Japanese case of the nuclear crisis, the prime minister of Japan, the minister of Economic Trade and Industry, and President of Tokyo Electric Power Company were conducting operations to minimize damages of the nuclear crisis. Although each of the representatives seemed to try to do their best, communication among each other was reported not to be enough.

In the past, I have read a book, but I forget the title of the book. The title was probably “sustainability future” or stuff like that. According to the book, 50 to 75 % of human beings will live in mega cities in the future. Given the ongoing flood crisis damage social and economic activities in Thailand, people will face a similar hard situation in the future as well.

Chrysanthemum Festival

Today and tomorrow, there is a chrysanthemum festival in my town. A couple of hand-made-Japanese dolls dressing chrysanthemum is displayed at a temple near my home during this two days. This festival is held every October. It is the fourth time for me to see this festival.

When I was in my home today after my dinner, I heard pulses of Japanese drums. I went outside, and found five young women and one man were beating Japanese drums on top of a float decorated as like a fishing boat. I was fascinated with the performance.

While watching the performance, I found that people in my town seem to be connected to each other rather strongly. I have no kids, and my working place is about 1 hour away by foot from my town; thus, I have very limited connections with people in my town. On the other hand, when I went back to my hometown where I had been living until the 18 years-old, I found myself a member of communities in my hometown.

Someone regard this valuable connection as social capital. We need time and effort to foster social relationships in communities; but, once such a connection is developed, you will be able to obtain many opportunity from your community.

Air pollution in Tokyo

Japan experienced severe environmental issues during the period of 1955 to 1970. In this period, air pollution was significant in industrial complex areas. The Yokkaichi industrial area, in which many petrochemical factories were located, was notorious for its air pollution. Air in the Keihin industrial area, including seaside areas of Kawasaki and Yokohama, was also contaminated by air pollutants originating from petroleum burning. Residential areas in Tokyo also experienced severe air pollution due to heavy traffic loads. A number of people were damaged by the air pollution, and people were even killed in the worst case.

During the period, a relationship between a cause and its result was simple. Production activities required oil burning, and pollution control technique was not matured. Thus, air pollution was inevitable issues at that time. A relationship between light and shadow were really understandable. You would have good reasons to say that economic activities were enemy to your environment at a loud voice.

I am currently living in a residential area in Tokyo, but am able to breathe air prevailing in Tokyo. I believe that acute toxicities arising from air pollution is not almost at a concerned level in Tokyo. This is thanks to recent emergences of environment-friendly vehicles and severe technical and regulatory pollution prevention measures taken in Japan for the past several decades. Although air pollution levels along main road side areas in Tokyo should be still taken cared about, I can find a residential place in the metropolitan Tokyo where I have not to take care about air pollution.


However, I cannot say anything about newly appearing air pollutants: radioactive substances coming from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. I am not totally sure whether the radioactive substances will cause negative impacts on your health in the future.

After 10 years

I was in Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001. I was there for my private trip. I was 20 years-old, and traveling over the U.S. by the national train company called AMTRAC. I arrived on L.A. at the end of August in that year, and started to move from L.A. to Arizona, Florida, New York, Boston, and to Washington D.C by the train.

I was in FBI at the moment when two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Centers. FBI had invited travelers to its headquarters, and I applied that tour, which was free of charge. When we were in a room designed for shooting practices, we travelers were forced to leave the headquarters without any explanation.

I was on a bench in a large park located in the center of Washington D.C. when an airplane crashed into Pentagon. I forgot the name of the park, but it should be famous one. The park included Smithsonian museums and Lincoln Memorial and others. I heard a large sound, and later I confirmed white smoke. And, the world has changed after those consecutive terrors.

The U.S. had a policy to put evils outside its own country, and attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. It was easy for us to understand logics preparing in the U.S. at that time. There were enemies in the Middle East, and you had to attack the enemies before the enemies attacked to you. You were always at the side of justice. With this simple logic, the U.S. has been spending huge USD and precious human resources for those wars.

This is a universal picture which you often encounter in your life. For example, cult religious groups such as Oumu Shinri Kyo played similar actions to the ones conducted by the U.S. Oumu seemed to believe that they were at the justice side, and all the worlds constructed outside Oumu were at the evil side, thus, Oumu had to attack the evils.

The same concept can be applied to our individual households. If a wife and her husband are both naïve and very honest, then they have to face many difficulties because honest people is always fighting against something (or, people who are always fighting against something are called as honest people.) If the wife and her husband find themselves at the side of justice and the remaining others at the side of evil, then the wife and her husband have a possibility to attach the remaining others.

In this sense, it is one of good ideas that we hold evils inside our own home.

Business Trip to Thailand (Second visit)

I have been and will be staying in Bangkok from September 5 to September 9, 2011 for my business purpose.

For socio-economic survey, I visited an open-air market in Bangkok yesterday. It was a very huge market. There were fish, meat, vegetable, and other foods as many varieties as I can imagine. An atmosphere prevailing in the market was totally different from other places where I visited during my stay in Thailand. Smells, sounds, faces of people and dogs floating or walking in the market impressed me very much. It was rather a chaotic atmosphere, which was similar to the one which I had during my stay in Mumbai in May, 2010.

Thailand has many faces.

Private Life

A couple of years ago I read a book with the title “Einstein: His Life and Universe” written by Walter Isaacson. This book is a biography of Dr. Einstein. According to the book, when teaching theoretical physics in a university, Dr. Einstein said to his students “You can ask me anything that you are interested in except for my private life.”

Indeed, Dr. Einstein had a deep story in his private life. He and his first wife had two boys and one girl. Or more correctly, Dr. Einstein and his girlfriend who would become his first wife got the girl before their marriage. The girl, however, was transferred to a friend of the wife soon after her birth, and Dr. Einstein had hardly or never contacted the girl after her leave. The reason why she left was unclear.

The younger son of Dr. Einstein had disability in his mental health, and did not have good physical strength. Although his first wife always took great care of the younger son, he passed away in relatively younger ages, I forgot the correct age, but probably in the 20s of the younger son.

The first wife of Dr. Einstein was his classmate in their university. Her major was physics, and had a good talent in science. She helped so much Dr. Einstein develop special relativity when he was 25 or 26 years-old. The relationship between her and Dr. Einstein was good in their initial stage of the marriage, but later, it got worse and worse. They lived together at one time, but lived in a separate location at other time, and finally they were divorced.

I think that the reason why Dr. Einstein did not want to talk about his private life to his students was simple; it was too long. It would take too long time to explain his private life as per requests from his students. Actually, the author of the biography required more than 800 pages of a paperback to explain his private life in place of Dr. Einstein.

On the other hand, how about my private life? I have little to talk about. I have a wife, but no kids. When I am out of office, I usually read novels, listen music from YouTube, write this kind of posts, or strengthen background knowledge of my profession by studying technical books. I like to walk around my town or take a bicycle just to go around. Nothing seems special, and everything seems usual.

I have made some friends through activities of a non-profit organization, Citizen Science Initiative Japan. A head office of the organization is very close to my home, it took just five to ten minutes by walk from my home to there. About once in a month, I visited the office and talked with friends about something. In recent days, out topics were mainly related to 3.11. Many of the people gathering at the office have their interests in science, and their professions are also related to science. Thus, it is comfortable for me to contact them since sometimes we do not need additional explanation or clarification when talking about science.

A record of my private life is important. Although or because my private life is not special, I try to keep recording my viewpoints on my daily life. This motivation originates from my primitive desires.