Current Affairs

It is hard to believe that a year has already passed since the earth moved, the sea turned into a monster and a large corporation’s negligence all combined to quite literally shake Japan to its foundations.

But a year is a long time, and a visit to the devastated region several months ago, along with recent coverage of the affected areas, prove that the clean-up is well underway, with an enormous amount of debris now cleared.

The process of rebuilding, however, is a very different matter indeed, and there’s genuine doubt as to whether some towns will ever return to life again — even more so those in the exclusion zone. A large area that will sadly not see human habitation again during the lives of many of its former residents.

Yet for someone living in Tokyo, simply trying to imagine getting over the horrors of the earthquake and tsunami is difficult, but coupled with the ongoing uncertainties of radiation, it’s a life that is utterly impossible to grasp. The effects of which, both physical and psychological, many thousands of people will have to somehow deal with for decades to come.

A disaster that, unlike the forces the earth unleashed, could clearly have been averted. Cutting corners when building a convenience store or reforming a property is often all well and good, but the arrogance/greed/incompetence (delete where applicable) of doing the same thing with an ageing nuclear power plant is beyond reprehensible. The shadowy truth of which, along with everything that actually happened, will hopefully one day rise to the murky surface.

But just like in these few, awkward paragraphs, the ongoing saga of Fukushima Daiichi now often dominates the story of March 11, and in doing so is in danger of ignoring the continued suffering of those directly caught up in the events of that fateful day 12 months ago. A massive number of people who, from personal experience and TV footage, deserve far more respect — both for what they’ve been through, and how they have dealt with it. As one way or another, with or without assistance, life has to go on.

It’s now almost a year since Tepco lost control of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and in that time many Japanese citizens have not only lost faith in the company, but in nuclear power itself. A suspicion and fear that’s most visible during demonstrations and marches, but also on the streets of Tokyo in the form of art.

The point of which is perfectly clear.

In modern, shrinking Japan, there isn’t exactly an abundance of babies, although it hasn’t quite got to the stage yet when noticing one is a novelty.

And yet as relatively small as their numbers are, they are still clearly fascinated by the kind of face that makes up even less of the population than they do.

Coverage of Japan invariably touches on a variety of regularly trotted out cliches, but arguably one constant is that of a modern, affluent nation. A country that despite its lost decade(s), still benefits from a relatively low unemployment rate, along with an enviably first-class infrastructure.

It’s an approach that admittedly contains a fair bit of truth, but what it also does is brush over the increasing number of people who aren’t aided by any of the above — a large number of whom haven’t done so for quite some time too. And while it’s not difficult to find poverty in many parts of Tokyo (let alone the country as a whole), around Taito-ku, in an area once known as Sanya, it’s starkly and depressingly obvious.

Photographs from this area have appeared on Tokyo Times before — images that are troubling not only in the plight of those featured, but in the potentially voyeuristic element of photographing the dispossessed and homeless in the first place.

It’s an argument that I’ve wrestled with, and one that understandably is often debated on photography sites and forums. But as ethically dubious as such photos can be, with next to no coverage of these problems, both in Japan and elsewhere, it also seems equally questionable not to publish them — even if it is only on a website like this, rather than in a newspaper, or on a site of note.

So here, without further justification or explanation from me, are the rest. All of which were taken in a short space of time, in the space of a few streets.

In the field of technological innovation or adaptation, Japan is often leading the pack, yet in regards gender equality, the country is still very much a luddite. The life expectancy of Japanese women, of course, is second to none, but when it comes to any kind of economic or political parity, they are very much at the wrong end of the scale. In fact, after reaching the dizzy height of 94th in the world according to The Global Gender Gap Report in 2010, Japan has now slipped back to 98th, just about forcing Kenya and Belize to the outer extremities of the top 100.

And yet despite Japan’s woefully low position, it’s clear that things have changed — just very slowly that’s all. A shift that means those young women who came of age this year will enter a world different from the one their mothers and grandmothers ventured into. A world not exactly poles part, but one that does at least offer the option of independence, along with the possibility of heading in a very different direction.

They don’t appear very often, but with the announcement that a disruptive neighbour, unpredictable dictator and the world’s greatest ever golfer had died, it wasn’t surprising to see special edition newspapers being handed out at Tokyo stations.