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Kristi Yamaguchi didn’t know what to expect when she turned on the TV after hearing about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami one year ago today, but it wasn’t this: pitiless walls of frothing water toppling buildings and inundating farmland. Fiery, floating fields of debris. Hell on earth.

“I was horrified by the images,” she said, recalling the initial news reports of the tsunami that pulverized the northeast coast of Japan. “You can’t imagine how someone’s entire life is literally being washed away like that.”

Seven months later Yamaguchi — an East Bay resident, Olympic figure skating champion and fourth-generation Japanese-American — visited the affected Tohoku region and discovered the disaster still

had the capacity to amaze. Not just the destruction, but the determination with which the Japanese people are confronting it.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake was the fifth-largest ever recorded, unleashing energy 600 million times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. More than 15,000 people were killed. One year later, thousands remain missing.

Damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remain in fragile condition. The plant sits in the middle of a 12-mile evacuation zone, which likely will be uninhabitable for decades. The meltdown, and questions over distribution of relief funds, has caused some Japanese people to express uncharacteristic frustration with the government.

Meanwhile, seaborne debris from the

disaster drifts closer to North American shores, reminding us that while one year is a long time when grieving for a loved one or when living in temporary housing, it is but a tick of the geologic clock.

“When you’re there you see people, look into their eyes and feel what they’ve been through,” Yamaguchi said. “You feel the gratitude that they have for us just being there and for the support they’ve gotten. (But) you realize, wow, this is not going away in five years.”

Yamaguchi’s

observations are echoed by others like her, Americans of Japanese descent whose goodwill trips to the ravaged Tohoku region and visits with survivors gave them a deeper understanding of their own ancestry.

Dianne Fukami is president of the board of the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California, which within hours of the disaster established the Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund and has raised $400 million. That fund sponsored last fall’s Project Aloha goodwill trip of which Yamaguchi and Fukami were a part.

“Of course the scenes on TV were horrific,” said Fukami, a former TV journalist who is producing a documentary about relief efforts by the Japanese-American community. “But when you stand in the middle

of what used to be a neighborhood and turn 360 degrees and can’t see anything that resembles a house, it’s a different experience.”

Perhaps the most jaw-dropping example of the destruction for both women was a massive tuna boat that had been deposited far inland in the middle of what was once a housing development.

“I don’t even know how many tons it was,” Yamaguchi said. “It came all the way from Iwaki, just this enormous thing that’s sitting in an area where houses used to be. You see pieces of children’s toys and broken china and household things scattered everywhere. That’s when it hit our whole group — this is people’s lives.”

Some visitors to the affected areas see a connection between the dogged effort to rebuild

lives, homes and cities and the cultural stoicism of the Japanese.

Allen Okamoto, a real estate agent in San Francisco and board member of the cultural and community center, visited Japan shortly after the Project Aloha delegation.

“There’s a certain dignity and strength of character of the Japanese people,” said Okamoto, a third-generation Japanese-American. “They say, ‘We will rebuild. We will recover.’ When we were there the debris cleanup was amazing. They had gigantic piles of junk, but neat piles of junk. We saw a car yard with 1,000 cars piled on top of each other. But they were stacked neatly. “

Fukami went as far as to describe her trip as an awakening.

“It makes me understand my grandparents and my parents

so much better,” she said. “So much of the stories about enduring, not complaining, being resilient gave me a clearer understanding of what my grandparents and parents were taught, and why when the (World War II internment) camps happened, so few people complained.”

Both Fukami and Kaz Maniwa, a San Francisco-based attorney and cultural center board member, observed another cultural phenomenon — the influx of ambitious, well-intentioned young adults into what has been a graying population in the rural Tohoku region.

“Young people were leaving,” Fukami said. “Now you see people in their 30s, who have decided they want to have more meaning in their lives. (They) have quit their jobs and gone to Tohoku to start nonprofits, or to volunteer. They see it as a blank slate, as a model for what Japan can be.”

“The Japanese people are proud people, and they don’t want just money handed to them,” said Maniwa, a third-generation Japanese-American. “There’s a certain dignity to working for what you’re given. I saw these younger people creating programs giving others a chance to work. It’s very inspiring. One example was a man who set up a restaurant and hired all disabled workers. It’s doing really well. Another woman — in an area where all the schools are wiped out and the teachers are unemployed — set up a program where they hire teachers back to do some after-school tutoring. Those kinds of stories are inspiring.”

No relief effort of this magnitude can happen without international aid. During her trip, Yamaguchi, through her Always Dream Foundation, distributed school supplies to young children to help them express their feelings through artwork. During his trip, Okamoto made a donation on behalf of the Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund to help rebuild a baseball field in Ishinomaki.

One of the most poignant examples of relief is the helping hand the relief fund extended to the Hotel and Cutlery School at the Sendai YMCA. The earthquake struck during the school’s graduation ceremony for second-year students. Principal Yuichi Kato spent the next several days visiting each student’s home.

“Many of my students lost friends, family members and their possessions,” Kato wrote in an email. “Some no longer wanted to finish their studies with us.”

The relief fund provided 20 full scholarships allowing students who would have dropped out to continue their education. “That has a special meaning to all of us,” Kato wrote.

Recently some of those students visited the Bay Area to thank their benefactors in person.

“We had a reception for them,” Fukami said. “They presented a slide show which showed the destruction. Then they had done this John Madden chalkboard thing where they circled where students’ houses were. All of a sudden it got real really personal. That’s hard to watch.”

Yamaguchi said the Japanese people are suffering, but they are resilient.

“Throughout the years, they’ve built this character in themselves,” said Yamaguchi, reflecting on the people she met on her trip. “The tough part for them is mental, because the Japanese are not ones to express themselves emotionally. They’re doing all they can. They’re hopeful.”

Contact Gary Peterson at 925-952-5053. Follow him at Twitter.com/garyscribe.

Remembrance events
SATURDAY:,
1-3 p.m.: Tatsumaki Taiko benefit performance at Berkeley Bowl West, 920 Heinz Ave., Berkeley. Event is free, donations to Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund encouraged
5 p.m.: Vigil in San Jose’s Japantown in front of Yu-Ai Kai Senior Center, 588 N. Fourth St.
8:30 p.m.: Candlelight vigil and bell ringing, Peace Plaza, Buchanan and Post streets, San Francisco
SUNDAY:
(All at Peace Plaza, Buchanan and Post streets, San Francisco)
2 p.m.: Welcome from emcee George Kiriyama of NBC Bay Area
2:05 p.m.: Performance by Gen Taiko
2:20 p.m.: Official remarks by Consul General of Japan Hiroshi Inomata, and San Francisco Supervisor Christina Olague
2:30 p.m.: Interfaith Remembrance by the Japanese American Religious Federation
2:46 p.m.: Moment of silence
2:55 p.m.: Arranging and presentation of flowers by the Ikenobo Ikebana Society of America
3:20 p.m.: Update on Tohoku from Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California board member Kaz Maniwa
3:45 p.m.: Presentation by the Nihonmachi Little Friends After School Program
3:55 p.m.: Closing remarks by Kiriyama

Article source: http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_20143811/bay-area-japanese-americans-visit-region-still-struggling