Daily Mail Tells "Toxic Truth" About Japan

[Mulboyne]

Daily Mail: Toxic truth about Japan's 'miracle' - Post-tsunami harmony is a myth and the reality is startlingly different
...Japan is a society of immeasurable strength. And for this it can thank 'wa', or harmony. This is a collective feeling close to a sense of perfection. It ensures everyone knows their place and acts accordingly. Or so the Japanese like to tell themselves – and the outside world. Yet post-tsunami Japan is far from harmonious. The bullet trains may be running, but in the fishing villages and tiny ports that litter the jagged coastline north of Sendai, thousands are surviving on aid handouts. The emergency cash promised by the government is yet to arrive...Now...victims break down when I meet them. Mother-of-two Mrs Hiroake has lived with her family on two mats in an evacuation shelter in Ishinomaki since the tsunami hit. 'We are living in a limbo with no privacy,' she says. 'Our lives stopped. People here are suffering mentally'...With unemployment running at 90 per cent, the needy are starting to revolt. One third of families are refusing to move to temporary housing, opting to remain in shelters to hang on to their precious food benefits. Sixty per cent of the 28,000 temporary homes remain unoccupied. A staggering 90,000 people remain in shelters...more...

[canman]

I don't want to sound like an apologist for the gov't, but it seems to me that they are trying to do as much as they can. I understand that people want jobs, but you just can't rebuild thousands of fishing ships and give them to people in weeks. Also, as for the housing situation, some people stay at the evacuation shelters so they can continue to get food, but then they complain about no privacy etc. I know this is a complex problem and that there are dire consequences, but I'm not sure what more can be done in such a short period of time.

[Mike Oxlong]

How about getting the donations of money to the victims? There's a post somewhere about how a large portion of the very significant amount of donations is tied up in red tape.

Of the more than \251.4 billion collected for survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, only about 15 percent had been distributed by the beginning of this month, largely due to the scale of the disaster and the lack of local manpower to distribute the funds.

Donations are managed by a government committee established in early April, and allocated to the victims of the disaster starting with prefectural governments and following with cities, towns and villages.

But the scale of the twin disasters wiped out many local governments, rendering them incapable of distributing all the money on their own...

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110614f1.html

[canman]

I hear ya Mike, but when people are scattered all over hell's half acre and there is little or no infrastructure left to rely upon, I don't think it is a easy as we would all like to believe. And I know TIJ, the bureaucracy and all the red tape that is included is maddening, but I hope they are trying to do things in an equitable way, not just doling out money like the US did in Iraq, and then complain that most of it was given to the wrong people or that it is gone missing.

[Typhoon]

Daily Mail: Toxic truth about Japan's 'miracle' - Post-tsunami harmony is a myth and the reality is startlingly different
...Japan is a society of immeasurable strength. And for this it can thank 'wa', or harmony. This is a collective feeling close to a sense of perfection. It ensures everyone knows their place and acts accordingly. Or so the Japanese like to tell themselves –]...more...[/URL]

The Brits should talk.

They never recovered from WWII, but went straight from empire to chav.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Without meaning to sound disrespectful to the deceased and other victims, it's not like the affected areas were thriving as it was before the disaster, but all of sudden it looks like it was paradise.

I think it's a tad unfair to be overly critical of relief efforts, especially considering the magnitude of the disasters...which still continue and may get even worse considering nobody really knows how bad Fukushima Daiichi is and if they do, they aint saying.

It's time for head down, arse up and Japan's showed in the past it's pretty good when it ca do this while wallowing in self-pity.

I just hope that when people are cleaning up the debris, they separate their burnables and non-burnables....

[Mike Oxlong]

Just wondering if anyone had seen any figures to indicate that more of the donations to the survivors has been distributed...?

[legion]

How about getting the donations of money to the victims? There's a post somewhere about how a large portion of the very significant amount of donations is tied up in red tape.

But they want to increase tax to pay for the reconstruction, no problems collecting money, seem to have a problem spending it where and when it is needed.

I think this situation shows how modern governments lack balls, in the past they would have force marched everyone out of the area.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Just wondering if anyone had seen any figures to indicate that more of the donations to the survivors has been distributed...?

I get the impression there are hundreds of companies across the cuntry making a killing out of collecting donations for disaster relief and then pocketing them...

It seems to me that the disaster relief business has been one of the biggest business booms in Japan for decades.

[GomiGirl]

I get the impression there are hundreds of companies across the cuntry making a killing out of collecting donations for disaster relief and then pocketing them...

It seems to me that the disaster relief business has been one of the biggest business booms in Japan for decades.

We ran promotion of one of our apps where all revenue earned from sales of the discounted app for a two week period was donated to the Red Cross.

We scanned a copy of our furikomi receipts and posted that on our website showing how much we had transferred and it clearly showed the money had been sent to the JRC.

On a personal level, I am very careful about events I attend etc if they call themselves "charity" events. I also don't put money into random drop boxes as I have donated significant funds directly to charities that have accountability and transparency about how they distribute their funds.

[Mike Oxlong]

That's cool, Gomi. Any indication about how much JRC has collected, and how much of that has made it to the survivors?

[Coligny]

We scanned a copy of our furikomi receipts and posted that on our website showing how much we had transferred and it clearly showed the money had been sent to the JRC.

Everytime I had to deal with them I was left with a strange aftertaste...

Accepting only monetary donation was my biggest red flag.

Euro-run Red Crosses and charities are quite open to recover anything that could be usefull to people in need.
So when the JRC refused donation of a babyincubator, nursery beds and patient beds, all made in japan in the 70' and build strong enough to outlive the last human on earth; saying they only accept money I was more than surprised...

Guess you can't buy underage hookers and coke with hardware donations...

[Catoneinutica]

I read somewhere (EX-SKF?) that the majority of donations to the J-Red Cross hasn't reached the victims because its being funneled to the construction companies, allegedly for housing and public buildings (read: hakomono). Someone with J-go skillz should be able find out more.

[Mike Oxlong]

[SIZE="4"]70% of public donations delivered to March disaster victims[/SIZE]

Nearly 70 percent of public donations made over the March earthquake and tsunami has been distributed to people in the Tohoku and other affected areas, welfare ministry data showed Wednesday.

With 227.3 billion yen of the 326.9 billion yen in total received by the Japanese Red Cross Society and other aid organizations as of Sept. 30 given out in 15 prefectures, the rate rose from about 50 percent in mid-August, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said.

Hokkaido and four other prefectures suffering relatively minor damage have already completed distribution of the money they received to victims. The rate topped 80 percent in most municipalities in the three hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, it said.

But nearly 100 billion yen remains undelivered to the victims more than six months after the March 11 disaster, as some areas, particularly the Miyagi capital of Sendai, have yet to confirm the extent of local damage, local officials said.

According to the ministry data, aid organizations have so far completed sending 290.1 billion yen of the total amount to concerned prefectures, and of the amount 227.3 billion yen has reached victims...