Patrick McKenzie (patio11) on Japan Aid: Help for the Well-Prepared

But enough about your own problems - how is Japan?

Patrick also lives 400 km outside of Tokyo, which is then 300 km to the center of Fukushima Prefecture, which is then 80 km away from Miyagi, where the tsunami did the most damage.

Thats almost 500 miles (750ish km). He may have felt an earthquake, and a strong one at that, but he did not survive a natural disaster and he certainly is not in the middle of a nuclear disaster. From his perspective, everything is perfectly fine.

On August 30th 2005, I moved from Pennsylvania back to my hometown in the West. Hurricane Katrina hit that previous night, and despite the gas bill costing a bit more than I had originally budgeted, as long as I kept the news radio down I was none the wiser as to anything going on down there as I crawled across the country.

Patrick, as much as the HN Japanese guy he is, is in the same position I was. He life is a little inconvenienced and it sounds like he is a little busy doing whatever his disaster/emergency related Salaryman job does. That said, I like his perspective, and I think it helps up understand that all of Japan is not sinking or melting. The parts that are though do need our help, and I think it would be good of him to distinguish between where he is being just fine and the North area that certainly is not doing well, even if the situation up there is under control.

Japan is the third largest economy in the world.

Uganda and Cambodia don't even make it into the top hundred.

Most of those 'development dollars' never even make their way remotely close to the people in third-world countries; the graft and corruption sees to that.

I live in Tokyo, and it's pretty insulting to hear this kind of shit.

Japan can certainly use the short-term help, especially from trained rescue workers, as well as helicopter pilots (as long as they come with their own helicopter). Help is definitely appreciated.

But with or without 'our' help, Japan will recover.

The real problems here are the disruption in the supply chains. The oil refineries and stores along the east coast are all offline, and in the three hardest-hit areas, many roads are unusable. This makes it really hard to get supplies in, even though there's plenty flowing in from the rest of the country.

On the social side, Japan is a group-oriented culture, with deep ties stretching all over the country. The refugees have the entire nation behind them in rebuilding their lives, homes, and communities.

Speaking of communities, people here don't go to church. Shinto-buddhism doesn't really work that way. While there are Christians here, they're a small, and very tough, minority.

I'm probably going to eat a bunch of downvotes for this, but it's irritating as hell that everybody overseas thinks that we're either all dead, or that I'm living in a tent.

Please don't send any Real American Heroes to Tokyo. We're fine. Send them up north where they're needed.

This is like saying that people in New Orleans didn't need help after Katrina just because I lived nowhere near Louisiana. Don't take your frustration at 'the West' for thinking that people in Tokyo are as hard hit as the areas to the north out on others. Just because life goes on in Tokyo does not mean that there is no crisis to the north. Your entire post comes across to me as high arrogance.

If by Shinto-buddhism, you're referring to Shin Buddhism (aka Jōdo Shinshū), then yes. People go to Temple and celebrate different holidays than Christians, but to say "people here don't go to church" is quibbling over the terms "church" vs "temple," IMO. You probably see a different side in Tokyo, b/c as I understand it a lot of people move from the country to 'the city' and don't donate back to the temples that they originated from. In a lot of ways, they are probably like non-practicing Christians or Agnostics (i.e. not going to services regularly, but maybe going on holidays, or requesting last rites on their death bed). That comes across to me as less about the religion and more about urbanization.