Sunday, March 20 – Ian Schumaker

Today, Ian looks at the events of the last week through the eyes, and heart, of a 14-year-old Japanese American:

Sure, I have turned on CNN before and witnessed the destruction of natural disasters in places like Chile and Haiti. I was always struck with sadness but soon the news moved on and so did I, even though I knew people were in distress. It was completely different on Thursday, March 11, when the earthquake and tsunami slammed Sendai. This was my nation, my family, my life. It made me nauseous to see these people, family and friends, in such despair. All I could do was watch the television, traumatized, as I saw places of my childhood being destroyed.

Collectively, I have spent well over a year of my life in northeast Japan. Since I was six months old, I have been regularly visiting Sendai. I would go fishing with my grandpa, practice the Buddhist religion with my grandma, attend a Japanese elementary school and experience the rich Japanese culture with all of my family and friends. One of my fondest memories is going fishing in Shizugawa, a coastal town with a population of about 14,000. I met some great people there with truly wonderful hearts. An elderly man and woman in particular stood out. They told a story of a tsunami when they were younger that swept away the small fishing town.

Ian is ready in 2009 to catch fish in Shizugawa, a coastal fishing town in northeast Japan that was ravaged by last week’s tsunami. Ian often went fishing in Shizugawa with his grandfather when visiting Japan every summer.

In 1933, an 8.4 earthquake triggered a lethal tsunami. This elderly couple were just children, but they explained their fear in such detail that it left me with enormous grief. They explained how they ran to the top of their houses and saw the catastrophe happening across their land. They saw houses, buildings, basically the whole town get washed away. This fishing village had nothing. All the fish farms were ruined and much of the sea life was killed. The clams at the bottom of the ocean were gone and it was never the same. The wildlife never fully recovered from the tsunami. When I went there last summer, it was still not the same as it was before 1933. But, quietly, slowly  the town was still recovering.

Now, I see what this most recent tsunami has done. It’s so much worse this time around. So many sad questions pop into my mind. Can they ever recover? Are the people I met still alive? Can I ever go back and fish there? I sure hope that the answer to all of those is yes. I want to take my kids there and fish and share with them the strong, loyal, Japanese pride.