Lifestyle & Travel
Ida Torres on May 6 2013
We've heard it said that "laughter is the best medicine". For
Taiwanese Terry Chung, he believes that the "power of smiles" can help victims of Japan's Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 as they try to recover from the triple disaster that hit them. He thinks that by collecting enough smiles, he can put one on each of the victims as well.
Caroline Pover, a British writer and publisher who has lived in Japan since 1996, has been so taken by the idyllic, seaside landscape of Ohara,
Miyagi Prefecture that she is now spending a big slice of her time raising awareness and funds to help the disaster-stricken town. Ohara, a remote town devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, had a bus stop which was heavily damaged by the disaster – a town fixture now completely improved and renovated through Pover’s efforts, and she doesn’t plan on stopping there.
Different people have different ways of dealing with their traumatic experiences from the earthquake and tsunami disasters of 2011. For 16 year old Yusaku Yoshida, he thought of leaving a reminder for future generations in Otsuchi,
Iwate Prefecture on what to do during another massive earthquake. And that reminder was turned into a wooden monument, unveiled in a ceremony in the Ando district.
The
whaling season in the north-eastern coastal waters of Japan has officially begun as four whaling ships left Ayukawa port in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. This season, they are aiming to catch 60 minke whales for research purposes, as is their loophole to be able to continue with the practice and "tradition" of hunting whales, despite the international community's protests.
A group of former health nurses conducted a survey among public health nurses in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the worst hit places areas of the
Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. The major finding of the survey is that 60% of the responding nurses said they experienced some sort of mental crisis while conducting counseling for the
survivors they were assisting.
Parents in the city of Koriyama,
Fukushima Prefecture – just about 55 kilometers west of Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s stricken nuclear power plant – are worried about radiation levels that, while considered safe for most adults, may have negative health effects on their children, who are traditionally more prone to radiation effects. In this regard, and with the help of anti-nuclear lobbyists, they filed a lawsuit in behalf of their
children asking the government to evacuate them to an area where radiation levels are normal as anywhere in Japan.
Richard Helmstetter, former vice president and current adviser of the world-famous Callaway
Golf Co., has a very special place in his heart for Japan. Having lived in the country for 18 years, it was a no-brainer for him to support Japan during the
Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. After the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, he has still continued to provide aid by providing financial
support to Kikakushitsu Takamura USA, a volunteer group based in Tokyo's Nerima Ward.
Former pop-star Cyndi Lauper, an icon of the 1980s in the U.S., has donated a piano that she purchased while visiting Japan last year to a hospital in the city of Ishinomaki,
Miyagi Prefecture. The celebrity visited Japan's still-recovering Tohoku region on the one year anniversary of the March 2011
Great East Japan Earthquake in order to offer support and cheer up the victims. It was in Ishinomaki that she found the small piano at a musical instrument shop.
A large fishing boat that was not only washed ashore but carried inland several hundred meters by the devastating March 11th, 2011 tsunami is finally going to be taken apart and removed. For the last two years, the 330-ton
Kyotoku Maru No. 18 has stood in the disaster-hit town of Kesennuma,
Miyagi Prefecture, serving as a kind of bewildering symbol of the destruction that affected Japan.
On August 2012, the government of
Chile promised to give a giant Easter Island statue to the town of Minamisanriku, in Miyagi Prefecture to replace the one that was toppled over and destroyed by the March 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami. On Wednesday, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera made good on that promise as a magnificent 3-meter Moai statue was unveiled in Tokyo before being brought to the town.
