Not just another day

Mythologically the Greeks would say Atlas tried to move the globe from one shoulder to another, but what a day Mr. Atlas chose. I can now add to my achievements in my resume – Survived an 8.9 Richter scale earthquake. This will be one of those achievements where I have no role to play but left us all in Japan scared, muted and philosophical.
It’s been 5 and half months since I came to Japan and this is my third experience of an earthquake. The first one was in the first 15 days of landing here in Japan, I dint know what to do then, and when I mentioned this to a Japanese colleague he laughed it away. The second one was 3 days ago 7.2 Richter scale. I was mentally prepared for this one, probably because of the blind belief in technology, this left us with 15 seconds of swaying and interrupted my presentation to a customer. Life was normal after 15 seconds.
In India there is a belief third time you always get it right, and yes Mr. Atlas got it right. 8.9 Richter scale is 8000 times stronger than the one that hit New Zealand couple of weeks ago. I was on the 9th floor of the Bosch building in Shibuya, Tokyo. When the quake first started the first five seconds everyone at office ignored it for another quake which should not be given any attention. The next 5 seconds every body got up from their chairs and started looking at others, 5 seconds post that we were latching on to what ever we could find, the metal screens were swaying and hitting against the wall telling us that this was not an usual one. We wore our helmets, with a few of us going under the table. By this time I had a call from my wife back home and she ran down the stairs 4 floors as she saw some of the high rises oscillating like a pendulum. My story is of seeing it from inside the building and she saw it standing at the evacuation spot. Remember earth quake or any disaster is like bungee jumping, you never know how you will react till you have been there. While the standard procedure is to relax, wear a helmet and go under the table, my heart was telling me “ run forrest run “. Our call got cut off and we could not reach each other for the next three hours.

Once Mr. Atlas moved it to the other shoulder it dint seem to be in the right position so he moved again and that when the after shocks came, 10 mins after the quake. And this time we were not swaying we were moving up and down. This was the most horrible piece of experience of all. Our mind was already in panic mode and the after shocks just aggravated the situation. For the next few hours I could feel the chair moving though it wasn’t. It is 24 hours now and there were as many as 125 after shocks. Most of them measuring 6 and above.

I had to struggle a bit before I got home. Trains were not running and roads jammed. It was as if the whole of Tokyo was walking. Some knew they could not get home, so people thronged convenient stores for food and drinks, settled down on card board boxes in stores / ATM counters / train stations. And few others sat at hotels drinking. I could see school kids who could not go home form a group and walk home or find a place to stay over night. For the first time in 5 months no one was reading a book or watching a video on their phone, every one wanted to get home, the temperature was 3 to 4 degrees and everyone wanted to save the power for an emergency. There were people as old as 80 to 85 years walking back home, with a few youngsters holding their hands. Police had their hand full guiding people to evacuation centres, to their homes and sometimes giving them a smile to keep them normal. People distributed maps, most people who take train everyday like me will not know how to walk back home and this was the day to test their navigation skills. The Television sets at station showed the destruction that Tsunami caused and I could see the worry on the faces on people. Some body had some one there, hopefully not. The roads were jammed but people held on to their patience. Not one car honked at another and not one person jumped the signal. The bus I got back in, diligently stopped at every stop stuffing in people and no one complained.

As all husbands were away at work and wives had to stay calm to care for their children, they gathered at one place and kept their spirits alive. Some of them had run down bare footed and with out enough protection for the cold. Incidentally most Japanese women came down after half hour, they are mentally more trained than any of the foreigners in Japan are. Most men returned after hours of walk in the cold night. It was hard to sleep with the aftershocks making you feel you were sleeping on a boat, finally before the eyes closed at 4 am.

Despite all this, all casualties have been caused by the Tsunami and not as a result of earthquake alone. In my 6 km walk and another 12kms by bus back home not one building had fallen down. Kudos to the Japanese technology.

Like I mentioned at the start, the whole experience makes you philosophical. Thanks to each one of you who prayed for us, if not at the moment of panic I had all of you in the mind on my way back home and missed having you around. Let us all hope and pray this was the worst and no one else here in Japan or else where faces this again. Take care.

Coming of Age Day !!!

A very happy new decade to you all !! Its 10 years since the Y2K bug was crushed by the software industry in India. We should worship that “Bug ” which in all probability was put in there by the same engineers, these bugs later turned out to be the stepping stone or in business language can be called a pilot task to test Indian software industry.

As I begin my first day at office in a plush office in Tokyo, it incidentally happens to be a public holiday at Japan, how wish the whole year was like this.

Seijin Shiki or 成人式 could be translated as ‘Coming of Age Day Ceremony’ in English. Seijin-no-hi (Coming of Age Day) is a Japanese holiday that occurs on every second Monday of January.

Coming of Age Day or Adult’s Day honors every person that has turned 20 years old over the past year. When young people reach twenty they officially become adults in Japanese society and they now have responsibilities as well as newfound liberties: such as being able to drink, smoke, go to hostess bars, gamble and todrive legally.

The girls always wear gorgeous and very expensive kimono, although most admit to having rentals as the outfit is worth upto 1,000,000 yen. The boys usually wear a regular suit and tie but a few will wear traditional Japanese dress.

Saw a lot of these “kids” at the station today and was cursing myself to not have carried a camera.

The 200 meters walk from the station to my office was the most treacherous of all.  The wind was strong and cold a numbing experience.

For some reason, I was reminded of a question that my maid asked me when I was at home back in India last week. When all the friends and relatives asked me about the lifestyle and luxuries of Japan, she asked me if there was no “water problem” in Tokyo. For a moment my mind experienced almost the same numbing experience as the walk this morning, and could not answer that question.

Lets hope India comes to Age one of these days .

Wish you all  a very happy 2011.

Have you heard !!

Few nuances about Japan.

Hashi

Its amazing as to how almost anything can be eaten with Hashi’s.

At first it seems difficult and then you wonder why do people ask for spoon and fork in a japanese restaurant. However there are many etiquettes attached to using these.

Food should not be transferred from one’s own chopsticks to someone else’s chopsticks. Japanese people will always offer their plate to transfer it directly, or pass a person’s plate along if the distance is great. Transferring directly with chopsticks is how bones are passed as part of Japanese funeral rites.

Chopsticks should not be crossed on a table, as this symbolizes death, or vertically stuck in the rice, which is done during a funeral.

Chopsticks should be placed right-left direction and should not face anyone.  The tips should be on the left. Placing diagonal, vertical and crossing each stick are not acceptable both in home and restaurant manners.

Manga

In Japan, people of all ages read manga. The medium includes a broad range of subjects: action-adventure, romance, sports and games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and business/commerce, among others. Since the 1950s, manga have steadily become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry, representing a 406 billion yen market in Japan

Hanko

If you were to open a bank account or sign any legally valid document in Japan, it is most likely that you will be asked if you sign or use a hanko.

Hanko can be easily associated to a seal in western countries. There are various classifications in this and has to be registered with the government authorities.

For personal use, there are at least four kinds of seals. In order from most formal/official to least, they are: ‘Jitsu in’, ‘Ginko in’, ‘Mitome in’, and ‘Gago in’.

Nengo – Japanese Calendar

Prior to the Meiji period, era names were decided by court officials and were subjected to frequent change. A new nengō was usually proclaimed within a year or two after the ascension of a new emperor.

In modern practice, the first year of a nengō starts immediately upon the emperor’s ascension to the throne and ends on December 31

Heisei is the current era name in Japan. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the first day after the death of the reigning Emperor, Hirohito. His son, Akihito, succeeded to the throne. Thus 1989 corresponds to Shōwa 64 up to the 7th day of the first month (7 January) and to Heisei 1, since the 8th day of the first month (8 January). 2010 is Heisei 22. A quick way to convert the current year to Heisei is to take the last two digits and add 12. Example for 2010: 10+12 = Heisei 22

According to this, I was born in Showa 54

Shinkansen

Shinkansen , also known as the bullet train, is a network of high-speed railway lines in Japan operated by four Japan Railways Group companies. Starting with the 210 km/h (130 mph) Tōkaidō Shinkansen in 1964, the now speeds up to 300 km/h (186 mph)..

The Tōkaidō Shinkansen is the world’s busiest high-speed rail line. Carrying 151 million passengers a year (March 2008), it has transported more passengers (over 6 billion) than any other high speed line in the world. Between Tokyo and Osaka, the two largest metropolises in Japan, up to ten trains per hour with sixteen cars each (1,300 seats capacity) run in each direction with a minimum headway of three minutes between trains. Though largely a long-distance transport system, the Shinkansen also serves commuters who travel to work in metropolitan areas from outlying cities.

mumbling

Was wondering if I would be the same person if I had come to a foreign country a few years ago or a few years later…

If it was a few years ago , I probably would not be married. And if it were a few years later, may be I would have been a bigger family.

Would I still miss the same people I do now ?

If I came here earlier, I would probably would have gone looking for a late night disc or something. But now I wanna sit at home and watch TV and have a drink with my friends.

Brings us to a interesting topic of why we are made to experience certain things in life. If you ask me now, I think they are all carefully lined up for us. It is up to us to draw a meaningful conclusion out of these experiences. Some of us get to the bottom of it and some of us think it is another random day.

May be you are reading this because what you are going to think after reading this was depending on you reading this

Brood !!

PS : No I have not gone crazy …

Its almost same as being reborn.

New people , new language, your friends are miles away and to make new friends is not easy.

You don’t know what food to eat. Coming from a South Indian Brahmin family eating meat is as good as being a cannibal.

You cant use the most expensive advance gadgets as you dont know whats written on them.

The only person who I readily recognize and talk to is my wife, who is currenlty loving her freedom and chooses to stay in the Indian time zone. She is in her mid-night sleep when I go to office and is having a afternoon nap when I am back home in the evening.

MTR suddenly is God’s gift to mortals like us who dont know what to eat.

I miss my car and Bangalore traffic which gave me all the time in the world to talk to my friends. In Japan talking in train is a taboo.  You can only sleep / browse on your phone / read, else you are wasting your time.

With this I start with a ” Bucket’s List ” .. and discover Nihon-jin.