Abandon Ship! Foreigners Bail.

[Yokohammer]

The tofu and especially the natto, I could probably do without. Now if they could find some way to have a shortage of dried squid....

Don't worry about that ... it'll all be dried glow-in-the-dark squid pretty soon, and nobody will want to stock the stuff anyway.

[SIZE="1"](Disclaimer: that's not a prognostication of any sort. I'm not trying to add fuel to the panic fire, just engaging in silly banter.)[/SIZE]

[omae mona]

A sex change?

Well, he heard that there was a lower rate of cancer in women than men. Seems like a practical countermeasure

[Coligny]

Well, he heard that there was a lower rate of cancer in women than men. Seems like a practical countermeasure

Well except for the boobs and uterus cancers...

[Samurai_Jerk]

I think that's a pretty good rough guideline for estimating what people will do, though I know at least one person who has made permanent, major, and irreversible life decisions based on radiation fear in Tokyo.

FYI, the JT has a commentary today called 'Fly-jin' face fallout from decision to go. The entire piece discusses fear of radiation in Tokyo, with nary a mention of earthquakes. This is just one data point, but I really do get the sense this is the concern affecting the vast majority of people who left. And like some of the blogs and twitter feeds quoted earlier in this thread, the author ends with this line of thought that still baffles me:

Most of the people I know who left town did so because their companies closed or encouraged them to work from another office. Most of those I know who stayed work for companies that stayed open (most of my friends who work in investment banks for example).

To me, this reads as if the author's point is that the radiation fears are rational, but "loyalty" should keep us in Japan anyway. I have no idea what "responsibilities of contributing to [society]" he is referring to, or which "norms" we are supposed to live in (the norm of exposing yourself to risk of cancer?).

Again, I think personally the radiation fear is a delusion. But if you're going to accept it as legitimate, this discussion of "stay anyway because of loyalty" seems insane.

The other question is why is loyalty to Japan necessary? Some of us have chosen to live here longterm and consider this home. However, there are plenty more like the eikaiwa teacher on a working holiday or the expat on a two-year stint from HQ who have no commitment to Japan and very little interest in living here.

Besides, if you use this line of reasoning even foreigners who live in the disaster zone and lost everything to the tsunami are sell outs for leaving Japan. So are Japanese people who return to their jikka instead of sticking it out in a disaster shelter.

[Doctor Stop]

I personally know two families who have permanently relocated to Hong Kong because they don't want quake risk.

If they knew about the higher background radiation levels there...

[FG Lurker]

If they knew about the higher background radiation levels there...

To say nothing of the horrific air quality for many days during the summer. Makes LA's worst smog days look mighty pleasant.

[Samurai_Jerk]

To say nothing of the horrific air quality for many days during the summer. Makes LA's worst smog days look mighty pleasant.

Not to mention the unpleasant locals.

[matsuki]

To say nothing of the horrific air quality for many days during the summer. Makes LA's worst smog days look mighty pleasant.

I dunno man, I remember those "Smog alert" days and how it actually hurt to breath if you worked up a sweat. That shit was horrible...

[FG Lurker]

I dunno man, I remember those "Smog alert" days and how it actually hurt to breath if you worked up a sweat. That shit was horrible...

That's what is going on in HK now. There are many days each year that they suggest people not go outside. The pollution coming over from manufacturing in Shenzhen is brutal.

Saying it makes LA's worst days look pleasant was a bit of hyperbole, but I'd say it is at least equivalent to the worst of the smog levels in LA, probably worse due to the lack of enforced environmental regulations in China. I hate to think what is in that HK pollution.

[Doctor Stop]

Not to mention the unpleasant locals.

Not to mention the unpleasant smells.

[GomiGirl]

1 words:
Kick-ass-sayonara-sales...

Picked up an awesome TV yesterday for super cheap from some people who were fleeing due to family pressure.

Craigs list is where I found it. Bargains everywhere.

[cstaylor]

Picked up an awesome TV yesterday for super cheap from some people who were fleeing due to family pressure.

Craigs list is where I found it. Bargains everywhere.

Yeah, I picked up a 09' 20" iMac for 6man for my niece.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Picked up an awesome TV yesterday for super cheap from some people who were fleeing due to family pressure.

Craigs list is where I found it. Bargains everywhere.

I got a great deal on Fukushima-san spinach, milk and oysters.

[cstaylor]

I got a great deal on Fukushima-san spinach, milk and oysters.

You can send that daibiki to FGL.

[Greji]

I got a great deal on Fukushima-san spinach, milk and oysters.

Good buy and that'll really save on your electricity bill. Now you won't have to use the light in your fridge....

[FG Lurker]

You can send that daibiki to FGL.

I'll forward it your way, you're the dude with the Geiger counter. Maybe it'll give you something to actually test it on.

[cstaylor]

I'll forward it your way, you're the dude with the Geiger counter. Maybe it'll give you something to actually test it on.

I've been using it on food we've been buying. Nothing nasty yet.

[FG Lurker]

I've been using it on food we've been buying. Nothing nasty yet.

Without something to test it on there is no way to know what an unfavorable reading (vs background radiation) is.

[cstaylor]

Without something to test it on there is no way to know what an unfavorable reading (vs background radiation) is.

Background radiation is between 20~53CPM at the moment. So if the numbers go substantially above that, there's something fishy.

[Coligny]

Without something to test it on there is no way to know what an unfavorable reading (vs background radiation) is.

few place on the interwabs sells calibration... items... (usually glass beads that glow under uv light, there is a small museum near Takayama with plenty of old time glass.. things... wonderfully glowy). It's extra low radioactive stuff, but with a known value... usufull for test, maybe not good enough for calibration.

[Mulboyne]

Here's a couple who moved from Yokosuka to Hiroshima for the birth of their first child. He's an American, working as an English teacher, while she is Chinese working at a foreign firm in Japan. It was on her company's advice that they left the Kanto region at the end of March. The couple has always wanted a home birth so a local midwife (pictured on the right) and physician helped them out with a room.

Source (Japanese)

[L S]

[rooboy]

Most of the people I know who left town did so because their companies closed or encouraged them to work from another office. Most of those I know who stayed work for companies that stayed open (most of my friends who work in investment banks for example).

The other question is why is loyalty to Japan necessary? Some of us have chosen to live here longterm and consider this home. However, there are plenty more like the eikaiwa teacher on a working holiday or the expat on a two-year stint from HQ who have no commitment to Japan and very little interest in living here.

Besides, if you use this line of reasoning even foreigners who live in the disaster zone and lost everything to the tsunami are sell outs for leaving Japan. So are Japanese people who return to their jikka instead of sticking it out in a disaster shelter.

Hear hear. W/double servings of rationality, fuck knows the silly cunt 'Professor' Phelan needs it. What a joke, a professor.

Yeah, thats right, gaijins who aint married to Japanese and don't and fucking won't get permanent residency or more should stick around and take it up the khyber with possible radiation or possibly lose their fucking jobs as a result of shit happening. Ya can't have it both ways, lecturing us about 'ware ware Nihonjin' and promoting 'Nihonjinron' myths as truth, and then accusing us of being some kind of fucking traitors.....................typical Asian no logic, no idea of how being contradictory aint logical and aint acceptable in the wide world.

But for the record Japan's being good to me, most J people I'v met I like, some I respect, I have diff jobs where I don't have to put up with the bullshit of being at one place and seeing one boss all the time. I aint going anywhere and I dont mind being a gaijin in fact and perception by Japanese.

Japans giving me a way out of going back to Oz where both the centre right and centre left parties have fucking destroyed what was good about Oz life and society over more than a decade.

Now Aussies are getting illegal, mostly Muslim migrants forced on em by a Labor govt that even Labor party members and ex Labor party members like me are starting to hate, Labor supporters with eveybody else are saying "Why the fuck are you bringing in thousands of single Muslim men from 3rd world shitholes where you kill people you don't agree with, have child brides and can batter your wife or any other female with the approval of the other men."

To make it worse, Aussies pay welfare to these people almost asap so of course 'asylum seeking' is economic migration illegally. They jump the queue while certified refugees sit in hellhole camps and wait, they burn down buildings when they don't get their own fucking way after they barged in bringing their homegrown problems and the Labor Govt has spent billions on halal food, cigarettes, accommodation, and later when they get accepted as residents they get welfare and billions more on measures to protect Australians from the terrorists among em.

Meanwhile old Aussie pensioners who saved us from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan can't get a pension rise and get the same as a Muslim male with an attitude from 300 yrs ago who has done fucking nothing to get all the benefits and won't stay in Afghanistan or elsewhere and fight in their govts' armies.

Fuck em - and Japan has the right atttitude to asylum seekers and refugees. You soften the rules, you get floods and floods of people and many of em have a sense of entitlement to benefits they never aint fucking contributed to.I won't be going home to Oz cause I see the future because of the demographics - these people also surprise, surprise have the most kids.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Here's a couple who moved from Yokosuka to Hiroshima for the birth of their first child. He's an American, working as an English teacher, while she is Chinese working at a foreign firm in Japan. It was on her company's advice that they left the Kanto region at the end of March. The couple has always wanted a home birth so a local midwife (pictured on the right) and physician helped them out with a room.

Source (Japanese)

So are gaijin who relocate within Japan flyjin.

[Yokohammer]

So are gaijin who relocate within Japan flyjin.

They're cleverly avoiding danger while maintaining the appearance of not fleeing, so they're "slyjin."

[matsuki]

I was doing my best to ignore the "Flyjin" word but now it's getting annoying, coming from Japanese and seems like the next rationalization of sabetsu against FG. I tried to have fun with it, "You aren't one of us, you can't use that word!" but that goes right over their heads and then the talk of "We Japanese" loyalty to Japan/work starts up.

How about all those Jappy people running back to their families in the countryside to avoid the radiation? They surely outnumber the FG you label as "outsiders" and whose "loyalty" to a country they are not a cizen of you question...and yet they are doing exactly the same thing. The only difference is what country their families are in...but that's all this angst really boils down to, isn't it?

[cstaylor]

but that goes right over their heads and then the talk of "We Japanese" loyalty to Japan/work starts up.

I'm sure the deck hands of the titanic had the same heated discussions over those in the lifeboats.

And make sure to offer them some fish from Ibaraki wrapped in spinach from Fukushima while playing this for them: http://www.hark.com/clips/lhvmxksxlw-its-a-huge-shit-sandwich

[Samurai_Jerk]

I was doing my best to ignore the "Flyjin" word but now it's getting annoying, coming from Japanese and seems like the next rationalization of sabetsu against FG. I tried to have fun with it, "You aren't one of us, you can't use that word!" but that goes right over their heads and then the talk of "We Japanese" loyalty to Japan/work starts up.

How about all those Jappy people running back to their families in the countryside to avoid the radiation? They surely outnumber the FG you label as "outsiders" and whose "loyalty" to a country they are not a cizen of you question...and yet they are doing exactly the same thing. The only difference is what country their families are in...but that's all this angst really boils down to, isn't it?

Like I said before, my company's Japanese owner left for his hometown and then emailed the rest of us and said, "you can take the rest of the week off".

[Greji]

I was doing my best to ignore the "Flyjin" word but now it's getting annoying, coming from Japanese and seems like the next rationalization of sabetsu against FG.

I just remind them that inside my flyjin I got a hefty Johnson and ask if they would like to compare. That ends all talk on any topic about wareware....

[matsuki]