Transcriber: Reiko Bovee Reviewer: Denise RQ
(Japanese) I would like to speak in English
to show my appreciation and pay respect to TEDx held in Fukuoka.
I am sorry but I would like to ask you to use the transcription you have
if you would prefer to listen to the Japanese interpretation.
(English) The title of my talk is "My life after Kobe earthquake."
This is something that I am actually not very good at speaking about.
But given this opportunity today, I would like to share with you
my experience and how it shaped my life and my career thereafter.
When I speak about my experience in Kobe,
I would first have to start out by speaking about my husband,
who is also here today; I believe he will speak later.
But he will never speak about his own experience,
so I think I'll start from there on his behalf.
My husband was a professor at Kobe University,
when the earthquake happened.
And the first thing that the school did was
to identify the safety of the students and the staff.
So they would find out whether the students were safe,
they had been evacuated or had been injured,
or whether their families were OK, and so on.
But after a few days,
in order to search for the ones who were still missing,
the teachers and the faculty staff would split into the districts of the city
and they would be searching the places where their street addresses were.
They would be holding stacks of photographs, enlarged photographs
photo-copies of the students' ID cards.
They would go to their addresses, but, of course, in many cases,
the apartments would be already completely broken down
so they wouldn't be found there.
So he would ask the fire department; he would ask the police;
he would go to the designated evacuation centers, ask the people
if they had seen this face on the photo.
Eventually, he would be guided to a designated area or building,
where the bodies had been carried into and rested.
You know what I mean, right?
And there, the bodies would be lined up and laid down.
They would have handkerchiefs or cloths to cover their faces.
He would uncover the faces and lift the cloths one by one
to check if the faces would match the faces on the photo ID cards he had.
Unfortunately, the students he was looking for were there, all of them.
So what we did next was
- this is where I joined -
we went back to the remains of the apartment houses,
and tried to find something, anything, in memory,
so we can hand them to their families when they arrived.
And we went to some of their apartment houses.
Underneath the crashed roof
and the ceiling, and the walls, and the kotatsu,
we found textbooks and notebooks, so many things,
that probably these students must have been studying
until that very moment of the earthquake.
And when I was pulling out some of these notebooks
with so much handwriting
- they were studying English, Chemistry -
the moment I picked them up,
the first emotion which would struck me was anger.
I am not trying to dramatize this at all,
but I want to say this
because I am speaking in a university today:
these students, some were international students,
came to Japan and they were studying at Kobe University.
After 16 years, if they were alive today,
can you please imagine the important roles they would have been playing
in any international business, or law, or politics, or whatever?
And they are all gone. 50 of them.
50 students and staff are gone. Just like that.
So, I think that was my starting point.
Immediately after this, I returned to Tokyo.
I decided to leave my job which I had in Tokyo,
and move back to Kobe permanently.
I knew I couldn't waste my time.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do yet,
but I had a sense that I had to be there and be part of a progress
that was supposed to happen there, after the earthquake.
But, of course, living in Kobe in the aftermath of the earthquake
was quite challenging itself.
In the district where we lived,
over 90% of the houses were either entirely or partly damaged.
So you have a picture
of what the town looked like when we lived there.
And of course, there were signs of hope, prosperity, and happiness
but in between there were moments of despair, and frustration, and sadness,
and of course, the aftershocks.
I can't generalize the pain.
But on top of everything, I was able to sense,
I think, we were all able to sense a visible progress of recovery
that everyone could relate to, and sort of cling onto.
Another thing I noticed was that even though this was a natural disaster,
it did not hit the people equally.
Some were more vulnerable than others.
Some areas, some buildings, some people
were damaged more severely than others.
And some recovered faster than others.
I realized that issues related to, perhaps, disaster planning,
disaster mitigation, preparedness, planning
had to be addressed on a policy level.
There were limitations to what I could do as an individual volunteer.
So eventually this became my area of interest,
and I decided to pursue urban policies in graduate school.
But in between everything that what was happening in the city,
as Kobe citizens,
where we lived for almost 7 years after the earthquake...
There was so much help from everywhere.
We knew that we were being helped.
Even though the place we lived in...
Our house was OK actually;
it still stood even though the furniture was everywhere...
We had help from everywhere,
even though we had no gas or no water for over three months,
there was construction everywhere.
Even during the night, there was drilling on the streets.
It was quite noisy during the night, too.
But we knew that these people were coming to Kobe from elsewhere
to help day and night, so hard, so nobody complained, nobody complained.
I was so thankful for so many things that were given to me,
and for so much help extended to me.
And in many cases, I had no clue where this help came from.
Then I began to realize that - or began to think that -
even though I will probably not be able
to thank each and every person that provided us help,
I would somehow be able to respond
by helping others, or helping other countries in need,
especially in times of disaster.
Which would result in, somehow,
maybe I would be able to respond or reciprocate
to the help that was extended to us.
And I had to find the job where I would be able to do such things.
Perhaps the United Nations was the solution.
And here I am today.
So in a very short summary,
that was my story of "My life after the earthquake."
16 years have passed.
I am very thankful today that I am involved in many projects
that relate to disaster recovery,
many man-made disasters, many natural disasters,
which you will hear later from my colleague, Lowie.
I am still in the process of reciprocating,
so I don't want to look back yet
and say, "Gee, I have come this far."
No, I am there yet.
But I am very thankful today that I am in this world,
and I am able to participate in such a meaningful event like this one,
to be able to think and put our hearts and heads together
to think about how we can rebuild better lives
for the people affected by the Tohoku earthquake.
This is something that I could never have done
if I had not gone through the experience myself.
Thank you very much for listening to my story.
(Japanese) Thank you very much.
(Applause)