japanamerica

Fukushima: A photographer's 10-year journey through wreckage and recovery Photographer Ko Sasaki drove me through the Fukushima evacuation zone in the summer of 2016. I had been there twice before to record programs for National Public Radio and NHK, but I was hired by both to report post-disaster stories of resilience and show what had changed since the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Sasaki was showing me what hadn't. Sasaki's photographs appear in The New York Times, Forbes magazine, Wired and other mainstream publications. But his obsession with Fukushima and its people comes from a personal commitment: He feels that the region is still being exploited, mistreated and misrepresented by Japan's government and corporate officials, who cling to tatemae (public face and behavior, or "keeping up appearances"), he says, without a hint of honne (genuine inner sentiment and emotional truth). 2011 He is galled by the government's plan...

After Disaster: Embracing a Living Past through “Ghosts of the Tsunami”  (Words Without Borders) I flew out of Tokyo two days before March 11. There was a mild tremor as I packed, causing the overhead lamp in my kitchen to sway. I crouched over my suitcase, arms extended in my usual high-alert stance, but the earth soon resettled and I went back to folding my socks. Mild side-to-side rocking and the occasional vertical jolt are standard stuff in Japan, the most earthquake prone country in the world. During the days of the disaster and its immediate aftermath, I was in Oregon and California, giving university lectures and an NPR interview about, of all things, Japan’s obsession with apocalypse in its art and popular culture. I would not have remembered that tremor on the ninth had it not been for what happened on the eleventh. Read More >>

The NHK documentary, "Tomorrow," focuses on post-tsunami relief efforts in northern Japan. I host this week's program on volunteerism. Broadcast specs on TV and online are  here . (It's a tad personal, since I attended kindergarten in Iwate, and my mother was raised there.)

At the following times, streaming here: NHK WORLD TV Mon. 01:30, 07:30, 13:30, 19:30 (UTC) NHK WORLD Premium Wed. of next week 17:00 (UTC) NHK BS1 (Japanese language only) Wed. 14:00 (JST)   Sun. 04:00 (JST)