Perhaps Japan Red Cross Not To Blame?

Whenever I screw things up or make an error, I want t be the first to say, "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I made a mistake."

BEATLES - HELP!

In the case of my recent blog criticizing the Japan Red Cross for delays in getting relief funds to the victims of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, I may have been mistaken.

Marriott Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo Japan

Mr. Hiro Kosugi, who is a good friend of mine and who is also the Marriott International Regional Director for Global Sales for Japan & Korea, writes in an explanation of the situation. This is an excellent rebuttal and so well written that I asked for his permission to post the entire mail. Mr. Kosugi says: 

On your blog about the Japanese Red Cross Society, I totally agree with you on their overall bureaucratic slowness to respond. However, I saw some points that you either missed, or did not touched upon that your readers may misunderstand. I hesitated to write this email, but I thought I should be the one to point them out instead of someone else you do not know.

The process of the fund allocation was clearly stated on JRC's web site as early as March 14. I cut and pasted their message from their website:

If you wish to send your donations directly to the Japanese Red Cross Society, you can donate online, or direct your funds to the following bank accounts. All funds received under this account will be transferred to the Distribution Committee, which is formed around the local governments of the disaster-affected prefectures. These funds will be distributed directly among the affected population. We are currently requesting the government to establish the Distribution Committee as soon as possible. - JRC News on 3/14/2011

As you can see, what took placed on April 15 is not that "the JRC finally decided to allocate the money", but rather "the JRC was finally given the instruction on how to allocate the money."

The real problems were 1) the time that the federal government took to create the Fund Distribution Committee and 2) the time this committee took to make a decision. Please note that it was on April 7, when Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano announced that the government decided to set up this committee. I hardly say this is the fault of the Red Cross on this particular case. It is the current Japanese Government's yet another mismanagement example.

This recovery efforts will take unbelievably long time. The money the JRCS gave to the Distribution Committees is supposed to be the first of many such monetary assistances given to the victims up north. I just hope that no money will be wasted while executing this project.

Also, your blog made it look like the JRC did not do anything until they finally transfer the money to the Distribution Committee, but that is not true, either. For this Tohoku Disaster, they have dispatched approx. 550 Emergency Response/Triage/other relief units to date, distributed 125,000 blankets, 26,000 emergency kits, etc. While I am not the right person to determine whether or not the amount of the initial relief efforts were sufficient and appropriate, JRC has done something between March 11 and April 15 for sure. 

Incidentally, I'd like you to know that the money to fund their disaster relief efforts come from their general operational budget. And this is where the majority of criticism on JRC are usually targeted in the non-emergency time.

The Japanese Red Cross Society draws their operational funds from general public like tax. You may have your personal experience that your neighborhood association come around once a year to ask - demand? - for a donation to the Red Cross with typical suggested price of 500 yen per household. The money collected from this effort is the one of the two main income sources for their operational fund. Many people complain about the "compulsory" nature of this fund collection method. I do give this money, but do not agree with the method, either.

At the moment, I am fighting my own company's bureaucracy in getting a proper amount of funding for our CSR efforts in Japan. I have been thinking long and hard about what a hotel company like Marriott can do to make a difference in the lives of these poor folks in the Tsunami-stricken region. I think I found an answer, and am trying to organize a big, company-wide project. But unfortunately, we do not have our own hotel in Japan - all are franchised, you see - and, therefore, we do not have our own employees suffering from the disaster. For my company and the Marriott Foundation, it lacks the usual priorities they look for before funding a project. When we faced Hurricanes in New Orleans and/or Cancun where we have many of our own properties, it was much easier to organize a special relief campaign…. But I will continue my efforts. I will tell you what we will be doing once my effort starts to bear some fruits. 


Thank you so very much, Mr. Kosugi. If I am mistaken about Red Cross efforts, I stand corrected. I commend you on your efforts and think it is wonderful that such a fine organization such as Marriot Hotels have decided to make the effort to do something to cooperate in the relief. I applaud your efforts.

If I made it seem that the Japan Red Cross didn't do any efforts, and they in fact did, then I am wrong. Let me though say that I have been provided with information that was taken by a direct telephone call to Japan Red Cross and some background researching that seems to indicate that they hadn't done anything at all. I am not at liberty, at this time, to name the publication that researched this information for me as I am under the impression that they are going to write an expose about Japan Red Cross activities.


Their information came to me like this:

Mike,

Here is some info that our researcher dug up from calling the Japan Red Cross, and more.

XXXXXXX

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Date: 2011/4/18
Subject: Let me know if you need further info.
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXX>

According the　JRCS’ｓ　PR: The delay in sending out genkin donations to disaster affected prefectures (義援金 Genkin - money will be given in cash to survivors) maybe due to the fact that the Donation Allocation Committee came together on Friday April 8 for their first meeting since the earthquake. (Members include JRC, Red Feather/JCC + reps from 15 prefectures)

Also, the earthquake was large-scale, affecting 15 prefectures so it
took (time) to organize the committee.

First money transfer:
On April 12(Tues) JRCS was requested by the allocation committee of
Fukushima, Tochigi and Nagano prefectures and was then transferred to each prefecture's allocation committee on the 13th: 

Fukushima received Y23 bn (Y23,006,000,000)
Tochigi                   Y252m (Y     252,150,000)
Nagano                  Y  19m (Y       19,500,000)

2nd:
Miyagi (Y15,611,680,000)
Niigata (Y      16,710,000)
Saitama(Y     10,320,000)

I also found a blog site that gives us more insight on this issue - in English.

★http://sarajeans-notes.blogspot.com/2011/04/basic-info-on-gienkin-donations-in.html
Excerpt:

"At 4 weeks nothing has been sent yet - a few main issues
1. Systematic problems - how to verify?
Evacuees often have no ID or proof where they are from, who they are.
City halls have also been destroyed, staff killed - no records to check in many cases in some evacuation centers.

2. Scale issues - this time 15 prefectures have been affected
Some evacuees are housed far from home, no local government
representative to help them

* Kobe EQ damage was concentrated in and around Hyogo prefecture 


So there seems to be some discrepancy between the two stories. Nevertheless, if the Japan Red Cross has done something, I stand corrected thank to Mr. Hiro Kosugi. But, even comparing both sets of information, it seems true that Japan Red Cross has still not gotten any cash directly into the hands of the survivors at this time.



I sent Mr. Kosugi a copy of the mail I had received from the magazine. That mail thanked him and added:

I think this is a wonderful discussion to bring to the public attention. It not only makes people more aware of the hurdles, it might also motivate the government and Red Cross to reform their system to be quicker. Who knows? Anyway discussion is always a good thing.

Perhaps after bringing this to light and then back and forth discussions, something good will come of it.

We'll see.

I am so happy to get this type of well-written and logical rebuttal. I am also quite happy to admit I am wrong when the occasion arises. My only recourse at this moment is to apologize as I suspect that the Japan Red Cross did deliver some blankets and a minor number of goods - so I cannot insinuate that they did absolutely nothing.


I think, though, I still should stand by my final comment that I made in the blog post in question and that is, "There has got to be a better way." 


Let's hope this public discussion will help services such as the government and relief agencies to rethink their methods and to streamline their systems so that those in need do not have to wait even one second longer than is necessary.

Japan Red Cross? Too Slow to Help Out

The toll of the terrible tragedy in the Tohoku region of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami has yet to be fully accounted for. As of the time of the writing of this article, The Japanese National Police Agency has confirmed 13,778 deaths, 4,916 injured, and 14,175 people missing across eighteen prefectures, as well as over 125,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. On top of this, in the middle of a freezing winter, while the snow fell, over 100,000 people were forced to live in evacuation centers.

Surely, as time goes by, the trauma and toll will rise. 

LOU REED - PERFECT DAY

Soon after the disaster hit images of the carnage and destruction of biblical proportions shocked the entire world. Who couldn’t feel the fear, desperation and utter hopelessness of the situation when viewing those images? 

This one event has taught a lesson to many as to who is really in charge of the earth and that is surely not technology or humankind; Mother Nature is undoubtedly in total control. 

There probably hasn’t been a natural event on this scale since the destruction of Pompeii where the Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted over the span of two days in 79 A.D. and destroyed that city under a pile of 6-meter-high ash and pumice. It wasn’t until 1,500 years later that the city, and the extent of the disaster, was discovered.

In the case of Ishinomaki and Kesenuma in Miyagi prefecture the fury of nature showed under an irresistible tsunami onslaught that crested at 10 meters high and obliterated an area of over 470 square kilometers in Japan.

Photo of downtown Ishinomaki taken one month after the tsunami

In the immediate aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and the tsunami disaster good people from all over the world opened their hearts and pocketbooks for well over $156 million US dollars in relief monies donated to the Japan Red Cross alone. People who viewed this disastrous event from the safety of their homes wanted to immediately help out those poor men, women and children who had suffered, lost their livelihoods and loved ones and in the stricken region. 

Special: Is your charity missing out on handling potential 

sponsors and getting more donations?

Upon a recent trip to one of the hardest hit areas in Ishinomaki, at a center for disabled persons, I was told that the people in the area had nothing to eat for the first few days and one banana and one rice ball for next ten days after the ordeal! (See that relief effort here in a short documentary entitled: Ishinomaki – Black Water.)

Everyone who donated to the Japan Red Cross did so because they knew of the helplessness of the situation and they knew that the victims needed immediate relief as fast as possible. 

I thank everyone who donated. Never think, even for a second, that your kindness is not appreciated nor that your karma or your god... won’t someday reward you

Unfortunately, also at the time of the writing of this article, more than one month after the crisis began, Japan Red Cross has not allocated a single yen to the disaster victims. On the web page of the Japan Red Cross, in a post dated April 15th, 2011, they had finally announced that they had decided how much money will be allocated to which areas - so that the monies can then be sent to committees in those areas to be decided how they should be allocated! Odd, but something here seems to reek of bureaucracy.

This is outrageous. 

I thought an organization like Japan Red Cross would be acting immediately to relieve those in desperate need rather than debating in long meetings what local chamber gets how much money or making sure their bookkeepers have their antiquated accounting in order by the end of each month. But, if this event and past scandals such as the poor handling of the relief efforts for the Katrina disaster or Haiti is any indicator, the glacial speed of reaction to crises by the Red Cross leaves much to be desired. 

When people and small children are suffering and starving in the freezing cold they need help right now, not after six to eight weeks. They certainly need help quicker than the former government bureaucrats at cushy positions at the Japan Red Cross seem to be capable of delivering. Of course all collected monies and donations must be dutifully and faithfully accounted for as a matter of course, but when children are cold and starving they need relief now - not in one or two months after the books are closed.

One would hope that the Red Cross would be one of the quickest ways to personally help the victims by donating out of their own pockets. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. It is a sad statement about the way the Red Cross operates that whenever these sorts of crises arises, there seems to be much more criticism than praise over Red Cross efforts.

There’s got to be a better way.

-Thanks to Michio Hashimoto for photo

The Power of Words

Roger Marshall sends along this excellent video that I'm sure you'll all enjoy. It has a great message... There's not a one of us who couldn't learn from it.


Enjoy! 

Thanks Roger! You can see Roger's own blog here: http://executivesearchjapan.blogspot.com/

The best summation of the nuclear problem in Japan that I have read is here at Japan Focus. This sums it all up quite nicely. I think that those who claim that Japan is now too dangerous failed to understand the nuclear problem Japan faced with cheap energy after World War II.

Japan went to war in World War II because of energy. In that war, Japan lost over two million war dead and nearly one million dead civilians. her cities were carpet bombed into ruination.

To forget that fact, then expect that Japan - a country with frequent earthquakes - as well as power plants built on know fault lines would be a completely safe place to live - free of risks - is just plain daydreaming.

Reality speaks differently. From Japan Focus:


Even though no existing reactor has been designed to withstand a level 9 earthquake or its likely accompanying tsunami and therefore all should be closed, it would be unrealistic to demand that.

However, to stabilize not just Fukushima, but Japan itself, the disastrous and irresponsible decisions taken by governments over the past half-century to pursue nuclear energy as a sacrosanct national project, have to be reversed. The immediate priority must attach to close the Fukushima and Hamaoka (and other extreme high-risk sites including Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, the world’s largest nuclear generation complex);⁵ to secure, stabilize, and remediate the Fukushima sites, resettling and compensation the refugee population and rebuilding shattered infrastructure; to cancel all planned and under construction reactor works (including Hamaoka Number 6 and Kaminoseki in Yamaguchi prefecture); to suspend all existing and experimental projects for uranium enrichment, plutonium accumulation, use, and fast-breeding; to stop the planned export of nuclear plants to countries such as Vietnam (personally promoted by Prime Minister Kan as late as October 2010); and to adjust public and private investment priorities to a completely different vision of energy production and consumption.

What is called for, in short, is the reversal of a half century of core national policies and the switch to a renewable energy system beyond carbon and uranium.⁶ Such a strategic decision, turning the present disaster into the opportunity to confront the key challenge of contemporary civilization, amounts to a revolutionary agenda, one only possible under the pressure of a mobilized and determined national citizenry. At this crucial juncture, how Japan goes, the world is likely follow. The challenge is fundamentally political: can Japan’s civil society accomplish the sovereignty guaranteed it under the constitution and wrest control over the levers of state from the irresponsible bureaucratic and political forces that have driven it into the present crisis?



For the country whose scientific and engineering skills are the envy of the world to have been guilty of the disastrous miscalculations and malpractices that have marked the past half-century - including data falsification and fabrication, the duping of safety inspectors, the belittling of risk and the failure to report criticality incidents and emergency shut-downs – and then to have been reduced to desperate attempts with fire hoses and buckets to prevent a catastrophic melt-down in 2011, raises large questions not just for Japan but for humanity. Could the rest of the world, for which the US government holds out the prospect of nuclear renaissance, do better?

The “nuclear state Japan” plans have plainly been shaken by the events of March 2011. It is too much to expect that they will be dropped, but the struggle between Japan’s nuclear bureaucracy, pursuing the chimera of limitless clean energy, global leadership, a solution to global warming, the maintenance of nuclear weapon defences (America’s “extended deterrent”), on the one hand, and Japan’s civil society, pursuing its agenda of social, ecological and economic sustainability, democratic decision making, abolition of nuclear weapons, phasing out of nuclear power projects, and reliance on renewable energy, zero emission, material recycling, and non-nuclear technologies enters a new phase after March 2011.

Actions Have Consequences and Other Rude Awakenings

Please take time to read follow up comments below... Especially this: 

"Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice."- H. L. Mencken

In an occurring theme in life, many someday learn that actions have consequences - in spite of how much they wish words could cover for their deeds. 

Still, again, many foreigners seem to be so concerned with what I think that they just cannot stop writing to me and showing their insecurities about how they panicked and ran from Japan.

ERIC IDLE - PENIS SONG

I have been asked by many Japanese people over these few weeks "Did you leave?" And when they find out that I didn't, they usually open up and start complaining about the foreigners. Of course they do. This is not unique to the Japanese. In any country in the world, they wouldn't like it. I think many Japanese are open about this to me because they know I'm half-Japanese and have been here for most of my life.


Here's an interesting letter from another foreigner whose been here for years and speaks perfect Japanese. Billy-Bob (not his real name) is also the CEO and president of a company in Tokyo. He writes:


Mike,


Saw your blog about "flyjin".  I have been looking for a word for them, and will start using it with pride.  Edogawa-ku, where I live, has been completely transformed since the earthquake.   It had the highest level of Indians in the Japan.  99% of them vanished over the first 3-4 days.  Several friends who employed them at their companies
have been left holding the bag on incomplete projects.  Another friend who works at a real estate agency says that they now have 12 apartments under their management with outstanding rents and no way to contact the contractee.  But with the law, they also can't evict for several more months.   It is a shame as it IS going to give more examples of what can happen if you rent to a gaijin.   


On flip side, I have been surprised at the appreciation by some Japanese that I am still here. I personally feel more Japanese than American so it was never an option to abandon Japan.  But I have still been surprised at how many Japanese "notice" the fact that I stayed.


-Billy-Bob


Thanks BB. Well, another excellent example of how these people who panicked and ran away from Japan have not only made things difficult for themselves - as it should (actions do have consequences) but they have messed things up for the other foreigners in this country.


I think I mentioned many things about this in the past. That even now many of those who left keep trying to make excuses and try to deflect criticism shows that they haven't learned anything. There are many others who think that they do not deserve criticism or pay cuts - or even being terminated at work...


Well, Flyjin and Flyjin apologists, as someone so deftly pointed out, if you don't like the criticism in public or at work, then you have already proven that you are free to leave anytime you like without any ties to responsibility or the welfare of others or your company.


As another has pointed out: 


"They (Flyjin apologists) do not understand that "freedom: does *not* mean that you can do what you want when you want to do it. Nor does it mean that you do not need to take responsibility for your actions. We are living in sad times." 


Flyjin keywords? Link to: coward, irresponsible, irresponsibility, panic, foreigner, poor management, no risk management or assessment skills, no respect, poor leaders, no leadership, undependable, losers....


NOTE: To those Flyjin apologists who have threatened to kick my ass, let me just state one thing clearly. I do not, I repeat, do not allow you to insult me this way. When you refer to me as "Self-centered, overly righteous jerk" Make that, "MISTER Self-Centered, Overly Righteous Jerk." And smile when you say that. I will see you in the playground after school!

Unfounded Fears and the Triumph of Marketing: Rome More Radioactive than Tokyo

The problems with the Fukushima reactors continue. The fears about wide spread contamination from the Fukushima nuclear reactors continue in the west. This fear leads many people to have irrational and baseless, unfounded worries.

KABUKI ROCKS - O-EDO  カブキロックス お江戸

(O-EDO IS THE OLD NAME FOR TOKYO)

Trust that, if you are living in Tokyo, 230 kilometers away (or farther), from the crippled reactors, in your daily lives, you are taking much higher risks in your lifestyle than the elevated background radiation risks posed by fallout from Fukushima. Especially if you drink excessively, smoke cigarettes, work or live near a busy street, eat too much processed foods, use too much salt in your food, don't exercise... Blah, blah, blah...

Of course, if you live near Fukushima, within 30 kilometers (18 miles) that is another story but, believe me, the vast majority of the world's population does not live within a 30 kilometer radius of the stricken nuclear power plants. The majority of the world's population find many ways to shorten their lives on a daily basis, thank you.


Yes, the problems at Fukushima are serious but, once again, we must stick to facts. The exclusion zone around Fukushima is 30 kilometers (18 miles) in accordance with IAEA rules. I feel sorry for those folks living near the plant.


Folks in Tokyo are 230 kilometers away. We are in no danger. The facts bear this out. Daily radiation readings in Tokyo show the levels to be within standard daily "background" radiation levels. The daily levels now in Tokyo are 1,000 times lower than the dose of radiation you'd get on a one-way airplane trip from Narita to New York. Yet some people still panic. To see those daily radiation readings, with information on how to make sense of them, go to here.


Here's another kicker for the panic crowd: Levels of background radiation in Tokyo are less than 1/2 and up to 1/6th the level they are in Rome, Italy on any given day! Don't believe me, the Italian press has reported this fact. 


Rainews.it 24 reports in Tokyo meno radioattiva di Roma:

Roma più radioattiva di Tokyo. E' la sorpresa delle analisi effettuate dalla squadra della Protezione civile italiana, composta da sei persone, giunta oggi nella capitale nipponica. 

I rilievi fatti dai tecnici - comunica l'ambasciata italiana - danno una radioattività di fondo misurata sul tetto dell'ambasciata di 0.04 microsievert/ora. Per riferimento, il valore di radioattività ambientale tipico della città di Roma è di 0.25 microsievert/ora.

Google Translation: 

Rome is more radioactive than Tokyo! That's the surprise announced by a team of analysts from Italian Civil Protection, consisting of six experts, who arrived today in the capital ofJapan.

The remarks made ​​by engineers - at the Italian Embassy - give a background radioactivity measurement on the roof of the embassy in Tokyo of 0.04 microsievert per hour. For your reference, the value of radioactivity in the environment on a typical day in the city of Rome, Italy microsievert is 0.25 per hour.

Here is the link: http://www.rainews24.it/it/news.php?newsid=151021&utm_source=Rainews24+via+twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=news

Even though that was almost a month ago, the last radiation reading for Tsukuba (75 kilometers north of Tokyo towards Fukushima) on April 16th at 8:00 pm was 0.10 microsievert per hour. My God! That's twice it was a month ago! We'd better panic!


But still, that's less than half the rate on a typical day in Rome.

You can bet that when the facts do not bear out the fears you hold, that mass media marketing and massive promotional budgets were spent to create the things you believe in.


That is the way it is supposed to be in a consumer society. 


But some of us are not robots and can think for themselves and do some fact checking without believing mass media hysteria and nonsense. How about you?