What Do Asians Think Of Westerners?

[think_too_mut]

Fukushima is a "man made disaster": in terms that uneducated media had entertained the fears of even less educated public.

Set up a tent next to the Fukushima fence on March 11 2011. and until now, you get half the radiation pilots and flight attendants get while doing their job. There has never been more. If you don't believe, just get the data. You may find 2-4 milisieverts. In EU the limit when it gets risky (not dangerous)is 100 milisieverts. Japanese law said 1 (one) and hence the evacuation.

 

Working hours: they are not working hours. It is a demonstration that you are needed. "Presenteism", the thing that Marissa Mayer (new Yahoo boss) is re-establishing by recalling all "work from home" staff to the office.

 

Japanese are taught that from year 3in life. Nobody has to marshal them in.

[baa99]

Fukushima is still leaking radiation!

 

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs Fukushima, admitted on Monday that contaminated water could be leaking into the sea. The firm had persistently denied that this was the case, despite repeated warnings from nuclear experts and marine biologists.

 

 

and

 

 

Two parking lots in the city of Fukushima were declared off-limits to the public on May 7 (2013) after high concentrations of radioactive cesium were detected in the exposed soil there.

 

Local authorities shut down the parking lots for emergency decontamination operations after a nonprofit organization found a maximum of 430,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium during a survey conducted between April 29-May 2 at the behest of local residents.

[think_too_mut]

Fukushima is still leaking radiation!

 

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), which runs Fukushima, admitted on Monday that contaminated water could be leaking into the sea. The firm had persistently denied that this was the case, despite repeated warnings from nuclear experts and marine biologists.

 

 

and

 

 

Two parking lots in the city of Fukushima were declared off-limits to the public on May 7 (2013) after high concentrations of radioactive cesium were detected in the exposed soil there.

 

Local authorities shut down the parking lots for emergency decontamination operations after a nonprofit organization found a maximum of 430,000 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium during a survey conducted between April 29-May 2 at the behest of local residents.

 

First one: a nuclear plant crippled by disaster that (even without earthquake) would wipe out some entire nations from the face of the earth, is sitting on the seashore.

The water next to nuclear reactors, immediately around them is of course, contaminated. Where else contamination lives than in nuclear reactors? Still that water is not risk for health as 2 workers who were standing in it 6 hours got released from hospital after 30 minutes. That contamination, although undeniable, is far less what EU laws declared as risk: 6 miliseiverts against 100 allowed in EU.

 

Second one is a more glaring example of undeducated journalists scaring unsuspecting public. How colossal journo's stupidity is, I explained on another site:

 

Another concern is radioactive caesium. This didn't cause any measurable health consequences following Chernobyl, but it did result in areas of farmland being abandoned for long periods as it has a lengthy half-life. Consequences on this scale seem unlikely in Japan, however, as releases of material from the reactor cores at Fukushima have been tiny compared to that from Chernobyl.

 

In one spot 25 miles from the plant an IAEA team has reportedly measured activity as high as 3.7 megabecquerels from caesium: if you remained within a metre of that spot constantly for 22 years you could acquire a radiation dose sufficient to raise your chances of cancer by a tiny fraction of a percentage point (actually it would take longer, as nearly half of the caesium would have decayed away by then: call it 30 years without breaks. You would also need to ensure that nothing dispersed or washed away the caesium. Your chance of getting cancer would then rise from say 25 per cent or whatever it was to 25.0001 per cent, or similar.)

 

Having that caesium in your house, in short, would be hugely less dangerous to you than having your bath - you might very easily slip and break your neck in the bath, or accidentally drown yourself. Nonetheless various international "experts" - often anti-nuclear campaigners, in fact - suggest that this means the Japanese evacuation zone should be extended.

[kamui]

First one: a nuclear plant crippled by disaster that (even without earthquake) would wipe out some entire nations from the face of the earth, is sitting on the seashore.

The water next to nuclear reactors, immediately around them is of course, contaminated. Where else contamination lives than in nuclear reactors? Still that water is not risk for health as 2 workers who were standing in it 6 hours got released from hospital after 30 minutes. That contamination, although undeniable, is far less what EU laws declared as risk: 6 miliseiverts against 100 allowed in EU.

 

Second one is a more glaring example of undeducated journalists scaring unsuspecting public. How colossal journo's stupidity is, I explained on another site:

 

 

TTM, I guess you have contact only to Japanese who still trust the Japanese authorities (politicians, e.g.) and I guess you are missing completely the fundamental change which is currently taking place in Japan. Many Japanese now understand that Fukushima wouldn't have happened if there wouldn't have existed an extreme corrupt triangle between Japanese atomic energy businesses, the bureaucrats who should have controlled them and politicians - the so called "Nuclear power village.â€

In regard to setting up an elaborate corrupt system which even was able to control public opinion (including leading newspapers and TV) even the Thai elite could learn from the people involved in Fukushima.

See more here for example:

Culture of Complicity Tied to Stricken Nuclear Plant- NYT

and here: Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend -NYT

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In regard to Japanese work ethics: I think only the Japanese have a term for sleeping at work: inemuri (I own a well researched book written on this topic)

Japan's Sleep at Work Culture

posted by John Spacey, Japan Talk, June 23, 2012

 

Sleeping at work is so common in Japan that there's a word for it in Japanese — Inemuri (居眠り).

 

To properly understand Japanese culture you need to look at Japanese ideas about sleep. In Japan, people get respect for giving their best (for pushing themselves to exhaustion). Therefore, showing how tired you are is a statement — it says you're a hard worker.

 

When people say goodbye to their coworkers in the evening they don't say "have a nice night" or "have a nice weekend". They say "otsukaresama deshita". This can be literally translated as "you are tired sir". It's the nicest thing you can say to someone — that they are tired.

 

In this context it's easy to understand why people get away with sleeping at work. Coworkers assume the sleeping person must be working too hard.

 

The Rules

 

There are rules of sleeping at work (inemuri):

 

1. You must sit up and look engaged (despite the fact that you're asleep). It must appear that you could wake up at any moment and do something great.

 

2. It's easier to get away with if you're the boss. Sleeping at work is a sign of confidence — it shows you're indispensable to the company and can get away with it. Junior staff can also get away with it because no one notices them.

http://www.japan-tal...at-work-culture

 

 

TTM, don't tell me that you haven't been at meetings/events at which the highest ranking official(s) slept most of the time...

 

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It is interesting how you support the nationalistic, conservative view of the Japanese government - even by despising your own heritage - while a new generation of Japanese finally is breaking ranks with the official, manipulated view on their own country.

 

PS: I have been in near Sendai Airport (which was pictured in every Tsunami video) a year before the Tsunami hit visiting a Japanese I am working with. Her village was erased by the Tsunami (she lost absolutely everything). Even though she had she was heavily depended on support from people in Tokyo (borrowing equipment for her own work since she the didn't have enough funds for to buy new stuff) afterwards she used her own money for to pay for radiation checks of the kids of her village, since the government was lying constantly about the radiation in the area.

[think_too_mut]

Those are the anegdotes that do happen and, as in any stereotype, there is some true.

 

Your post is long and may take several screenfulls to reply.

 

The authorities in Japan could not lie. There was publicly accessible map of all the radiation.

 

What the journos took was in units thousand times greater than what it really is. Like mistaking metres as kilometres. Unsuspecting public swallowed that. The media fed and entertained their fears. That was it, the World over, including Japanese public.

 

The biggest blunder about Fukushima was to leave the law that said: "Any 1 milisievert added to natural radiation requires evacuation of people".

 

Now they want to make it 500. Like EU. Can you imagine Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt being evacuated on a sissified law?

 

That is where the problem was - a sclerotic, 50 years in power LDP, thought it can never happen to Japan. Of course, that is where you are right, the regulators and politicians were hand in hand. Had they not been, EU standards, much less would have happened.

 

One more, I do not support any kind of JP government, I have no right to vote, just living, working and raising my child there.

[think_too_mut]

Not to Kamui, if anyone understands the numbers about radiation that Fukushima (means: Happy Island) has generated and what was published in the media, please come forward. No junk from the journos.

 

Using those numbers and the perspective what the numbers mean, I would be more than happy to shred them into pieces.

[limbo]

Come on TTM, spin this one, I'm in for a good giggle if it weren't so sad.

 

 

Japan Finally Admits The Truth: “Right Now, We Have An Emergency At Fukushimaâ€

 

Tepco is struggling to contain the highly radioactive water that is seeping into the ocean near Fukushima. The head of Japan’s NRA, Shinji Kinjo exclaimed, “right now, we have an emergency,†as he noted the contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier and is rising toward the surface – exceeding the limits of radioactive discharge. In a rather outspoken comment for the typically stoic Japanese, Kinjo said Tepco’s “sense of crisis was weak,†adding that “this is why you can’t just leave it up to Tepco alone†to grapple with the ongoing disaster. As Reuters notes, Tepco has been accused of covering up shortcomings and has been lambasted for its ineptness in the response and while the company says it is taking actions to contain the leaks, Kinjo fears if the water reaches the surface “it would flow extremely fast,†with some suggesting as little as three weeks until this critical point.

Via Reuters:

Highly radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant is creating an “emergencyâ€

that the operator is struggling to contain, an official from the country’s nuclear watchdog said on Monday.

This contaminated groundwater has breached an underground barrier

, is rising toward the surface and is exceeding legal limits of radioactive discharge, Shinji Kinjo, head of a Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) task force, told Reuters.

Countermeasures planned by Tokyo Electric Power Co are only a temporary solution

, he said.

Tepco’s “sense of crisis is weak,â€

Kinjo said. “This is why you can’t just leave it up to Tepco alone†to grapple with the ongoing disaster.

“Right now, we have an emergency,â€

he said.

[think_too_mut]

Knowing how clueless but frightened the public is, strongly in power after July elections, the (pronuclear) government of Japan is using obvious (that water in the reactor is radioactive and not hermetically contained and has found a way into the sea) to restart 56 nuclear power plants, currently shut down. The scenario is: blame TEPCO more about incompetence (2 years on), government steps in, takes over, ensures no more blunders and regains the trust into nuclear energy. And restarts the idling reactors. And saves 100s of billions $ on imported gas.

 

Careful threading with by media panicked public. Get the public to make an U-turn and not punish them in next elections.

 

Angela Merkel (PhD in physics) did exactly the opposite: "I am their leader, have to follow them" and promised to her also clueless public shutdown of all German nukes by 2020. And rely on Putin and his gas.