3.11 – The Great East Japan EarthquakeIt feels like people are starting to forget… but is that really okay?(Original songs and a video are included toward the end ⌒∇⌒)—kenkenchan🌈✨🔰

*特別企画向けにChatGPTでこちらの記事を英語訳したものです　本文は英語です。
　https://note.com/takekenken/n/nf58bde72f2fb

March 11th – 14 Years Since the Great East Japan Earthquake
A little message from me, kenkenchan🌈✨🔰

Every year I end up saying more or less the same thing (lol), but I believe the readers change.

Some of what I say might sound strange or obvious—especially if you're from Tohoku, you probably already know it. 😄

Back then, at 2:46 PM on March 11th, 2011, the earth shook.

Half-asleep, I remember thinking, “Is this the end of the world? Nuclear war or something?”
Yup, it was really shaking.

Luckily, my house was newly built at the time by a carpenter I’d gotten to know—still a good friend.
He didn’t have much work back then, so he built it incredibly sturdy. It didn’t shake that badly, though aftershocks kept coming.

I didn’t have a cell phone, and my PC was either overloaded with info or the internet was down.

So I turned on the radio. It kept repeating messages like,
“Radiation is something that always travels through airplanes,”
“Please evacuate immediately due to ongoing aftershocks,”
and “This is an announcement from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant…”

Eventually I got sleepy and fell asleep under the kotatsu. March is still freezing in Tohoku.

My meds were kicking in, and I was dozing off, thinking, “Well, if the roof caves in, I guess I’ll just die like this.”

Water became the biggest issue. The toilet still worked, but we had to get drinking water from neighbors and fill the bathtub for daily use.

Then logistics shut down—no deliveries, all the local supermarkets and convenience stores were closed.
I even seriously considered, “Should I just bust down a door and grab some food?” (lol)

The government kept going on about “unforeseen circumstances,” but took no real action.
No supplies arrived for ages. When they did, they came from all over Japan to big organizations only.

Expired ready-meals, ripped-up clothes, even soccer balls…
Some staff reportedly got angry, saying, “This isn’t a dumpster!”

Back then, it was the Abe administration.
They said, “No revival of Japan without the revival of Fukushima.”
(Funny thing—it was originally a Democratic Party slogan that Abe just hijacked.)

It sounded cool, but in the end, it was all propaganda.
It got replaced with “Abenomics,” and within a few years, the posters disappeared from the streets.

I was pretty clueless (maybe still am?)—I had no interest in politics or the economy.
Only recently, in the past 2–3 years, I started studying it seriously.

I’ve learned a bit, I think. Maybe not much has changed, but at least I understand how the economy sort of works now.

Anyway, Abe kept claiming, “Abenomics is perfect! Nuclear power has no issues!”
Waving his hands around like some puppet—what was that even about? (lol)

Instead, he should’ve issued construction bonds and rebuilt the infrastructure properly—created jobs.
Things got moving at first, but after 5 or 6 years, everything faded away.

And the worst part? The people of Tohoku, already wounded, were then slapped with a “reconstruction tax.”
Not many people know this.

They’re literally taxing us under that name—makes me furious.
And even after Abe died, Suga and Kishida didn’t change a damn thing. They don’t even acknowledge it.

Sorry, I’m rambling a bit.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) forced many people onto evacuation buses they had prepared.
Even now, media coverage is almost nonexistent—even in Tohoku.
There are people still living in disaster housing.

In our case, everyone’s in psychiatric care, so maybe people were scared to even talk to us (lol).

Eventually, someone from our old hometown, shown in a video too, said,
“We’ll accept you back as evacuees,”
So we returned. I was incredibly grateful—we had no food and were truly at a loss.

It’s a strange fate, returning to the place we left behind.
Our house had been rebuilt and looked totally different, but there it was again. Déjà vu, maybe?

We weren’t all doom and gloom—that’s just how we are. Or maybe we’re just weird from all the psych meds? (lol)

My mom had a hard time organizing everything.
Yamachan went crazy in the car because he couldn’t smoke,
Iku (my younger brother) got irritated in the cramped space,
And our dog Mei-chan hated car rides and couldn’t relax.

Three weeks later, we were told we could return.
After that, we had more big quakes, but mentally, we Tohoku folk stopped flinching.
We knew the government wasn’t reliable.

TEPCO kept dumping radioactive waste, their management beyond sloppy.
They kept having accidents and paying out billions in compensation to cover it all up.

Seriously, TEPCO and the government screwed us over.
And that’s just on a personal level—businesses must’ve had it even worse.

Enough with the “We deeply regret…” speeches and token moments of silence.
Learn from this. The Nankai Trough is next—and it’s supposed to hit western Japan hard.

Issue those construction bonds (I think that’s what they’re called), create jobs, and prepare properly.
This is an earthquake-prone country, after all.

It doesn’t seem like anything’s changed since the 1995 Kobe quake...

Also, apparently even in Tokyo, 3.11 wasn’t really covered much in the media.
Friends from there told me. Probably even less in western Japan.
The media’s just the government’s lapdog, controlled by the Ministry of Finance.

　I doubt many people will read this—or watch the video I post every year.
But maybe my followers have changed?

The documentary I made back then—two original songs, original photos.
It’s ancient now (lol). The dog’s gone, and so is Yamachan...

Still, maybe it helps people understand a little.

Time doesn’t move backward, so the story stays more or less the same.
But I hope the government learns something from it.

Abe only visited Tohoku once—for about 10 minutes, shaking hands with bureaucrats and students.
It was laughable. Not even worth complaining about.

I’ve visited the disaster sites a few times.
They’re like deserts now. I don’t know the geography well, being a shut-in,
But the seawalls... when I visited the coast, it was just endless flat land.

Hard to feel it in my bones, I admit. Boats still lay overturned.

And yet, the Earth still turns.

Let’s end with that, shall we? (lol)
Thanks for reading this long ramble. Glad I made it in time. 😄
—kenkenchan🌈✨🔰

3.11 – The Great East Japan Earthquake
There’s a growing sense that people are starting to forget—but is that really okay?
(Original songs & video included toward the end ⌒∇⌒)
—kenkenchan🌈✨🔰