It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...."Flyjin"

As Japan continues to grapple with its nuclear emergency, special scorn has been reserved for the "flyjins", foreigners who made their living in the country but fled in the wake of the March 11 earthquake.

Rebuilding Japan: Special scorn for 'flyjin' foreigners who fled country
The Telegraph
Global Bussiness
4/21/2011

"You are the first foreigners I have seen in my bar in a month," said Hidetsugo Ueno, the bartender at High Five Bar in Ginza. "Are you sure you should be staying here in Japan?" he added, with a smile.

Skittish members of the financial community were the first to empty out and Hong Kong has issued around 300 long-term visas to bankers and traders who wanted to continue working in Asia, but not to live in Tokyo.

"Around 80pc of the visas are to employees at international financial institutions earning at least HK$100,000 (£7,775) a month," said Chan Kwok-ki, Hong Kong's immigration director. Five of those went to employees of ICAP, who sent traders to the island as a temporary measure.

 In addition, almost all Chinese and Korean residents in Japan have now left the country, despite no advice to do so from their home governments.

The sudden flight has dismayed the Japanese.
 
"It's not good that they all left so suddenly," said Mutsuko Izawa, a housewife who lives in the town of Ujie, 85 miles the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. "Of course this means that in the future, when a company has a choice between hiring a Japanese and a foreigner they will not hire the foreigner because they will be worried if they are going to stay.

"For senior people in big companies, I think they had a responsibility to their Japanese staff to stay. I can perhaps understand if they wanted their families to leave, but a company operating here needs people who will be here when times are more difficult," she added.

"I think this has reinforced the impression amongst Japanese that a lot of foreigners only look at Japan as a place to work for a few years, earn a lot of money and then they go again," she said. "They're not really interested in the society or the country. This isn't their real home. These disasters have really just shown how true that is."

The managing director of one British firm in Tokyo said he had evacuated only one of his staff because he had a wife and a young child.

"We thought it was only the right thing to do in the circumstances, but only because they had a small baby," he said.

"No-one else left our company and I think that was the right thing to do as if four or five senior executives had suddenly decided to jump ship then it would of course caused great resentment. There are a lot of executives and companies in Japan today who are facing a backlash against them. The feeling is they have lost credibility with their local employees because they left and I think that will cause longer-term problems."

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I fully agree with this! It's silly that practically all foreigners evac'd so suddenly after this happened when no foreign embassy's issued any sort of evacuation notice. When I was still there I checked the US embassy site everyday just so I would know if they did start issuing evac notices, and they never did. When I got the email from my program saying that they were revoking our visas and bringing us home, naturally I was a little confused. If the gov isn't evacing people, why do we have to? But what's done is done I suppose. I don't want to think of my self as one of these "flyjins" simply because I would have stayed if I had a choice in the matter.

My employer Gaba seemed to be understanding and told me to apply again in the future, so no worries there of them not hiring foreigners in the future (not that they really have a choice in the matter of hiring foreigners or not being an English teaching establishment). I don't know how many of the workers there left, but my manager wasn't surprised when I told him that my visa was canceled because one other student at my learning studio called in the day before and reported the same.

What really irks me though, is that I know at least two fellow students on different programs who were able to go back to Japan to complete their studies! Although it sounds like one of them got changed to a school in Osaka, the other one is back at Waseda. *sigh* whatever. I wish our program hadn't panicked unnecessarily with the rest of the world and these "flyjins" and made a better decision to keep us there and follow what the government was doing (i.e. not emergency evac'ing everyone).

Nowadays it's an important skill to be able to interpret the media and filter out the hysterics from the truth. Many, it seems, do not possess this skill hence the wide spread evacs of all foreigners in Japan (okay not all but a good number of them fled).  I just wish this fear mongering on the media's part would come to an end, especially in cases like this! It's already scary enough, no need to hype it up by x10.

PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

Nuclear power sure is a bad idea

Now all three of the reactor's have failed it looks like. Another explosion happened early this morning and they've extended the evacuation area to 30 km. I'm not going to let it stress me out (ha, well i'm not going to let it stress me out even more) unless it gets to 100km. Then i'm evac-ing.

Some TV stations have gone back to a semi-regular programming (channels 12, 4 and 16) and my area still hasn't been put on the black out list (which is good).

I wish that all the info coming at me about the situation regarding the nuclear plants was less mixed and confusing.
Here's what the governor of Tokyo has to say about the matter:

"There is no damage in Tokyo resulting from radioactivity. Due to 
radioactive discharge at the plants, the words "radiation exposure" are being overly 
emphasized and unduly arousing fear among people; however, looking at 
nationally observed values, there will be absolutely no effect on Tokyo which is 
located a considerable distance away from the plant sites. In order to 
reassure the citizens of Tokyo, we are currently organizing and preparing to 
publish collected information on the TMG website." (sent to me by my program coordinator in Oregon)

I've been advised by my program coordinator to maybe go south for a week to watch how this plays out but I can't afford that and have no where to stay non-the-less. 

ugh, life.

Jamie

information about the Nuclear problem

http://morgsatlarge.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/

This guys seems to have a good head on his shoulders and offers some websites at the bottom of the page with more information about the plant.

Media outlets are blowing things outta proportion when it comes to the nuclear plant in Fukushima. Right now the most pressing issue is 1) keeping the plant under control (which doesn't seem to be an issue)  2) getting supplies to the people who need it and 3) rescuing those who need to be rescued.

I just wish the after shocks would stop (my cell phone has this awful alarm on it that goes off before one hits. It's so loud and urgent sounding that a couple times i've ran for cover only to feel a little tremor shake the walls --nothing to be worried about). I suppose I should be thankful for this feature though, for when a big one really oes roll through. 

Panic attacks won't get me anywhere

I'm sitting here in my room, TV off because I can't handle it anymore, contemplating plane tickets online. Should I book a plane ticket home for the end of my program, or tomorrow?

I can't tell if the news and government are down playing the seriousness of this or if they really have it under control. Friends and family have been sending me local news reports that all state different opinions, my own host mother doesn't know what to do, and my school/program coordinator hasn't gotten a hold of me (or any of the other students here).

It's so hard to judge because Fukushima is pretty far from Tokyo (about 160 miles or so which in retrospect isn't really that far away) and they've only evacuated people within a 12 miles radius of the plants (or at least as far as they've told us).We're still feeling after shocks (a couple hours ago a 7.0 hit a northern prefecture) and all the "officials" on TV looked just as scared as I'm starting to feel (though it's not so much that i'm scared but more unsure).

*Some related stories: http://www.katu.com/news/national/117868844.html <--what does partial meltdown even mean?!
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20110312/UPDATE/110312014 <-- even Oregon is worried!?!!?
http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/12/explosion-at-japan-nuclear-plant-disaster-death-toll-rises/?icid=main|main|dl1|sec3_lnk1|205878

I don't want to expose myself to possible health issues (but I don't want to run away if it's really under control) and I don't want to leave my host family behind (will they all fit into my suitcase!?!)

I just don't know what to do but don't want to freak out unnecessarily. Anyone out there got any ideas? Should I wait it out? Should I run? Can I even get a plane ticket back home at this time??  My life has never been so complicated.