Two weeks after that disastrous earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and today is my birthday. I had the intention to write on this subject earlier in this blog, but I couldn’t manage to produce even a single sentence on expressing what I thought of that natural calamity. I was on the bus, on my way back to my parents’ house in KL when mama called me, telling me about the news. “The land became flat”, mama said, “Everything was washed away by the giant wave”.
I wasn’t that eager to know more of the whole story, as earthquakes and typhoons were too common with my life when I was in Japan that they blended in such a perfect harmony. Experiencing shakes in the university library where I was standing in between two enormous book racks, awaken in the middle of the night seeing the light on the ceiling above me swaying left and right, having to stop my experiments in emergency because of a sudden shake – those are some (among many) of my experiences whenever the word ‘earthquake’ comes to my mind.
But this time it was different. This time tsunami came along too. Tsunami, which means ‘The great wave’ in Japanese has damaged almost everything that came in its way – rolling through the towns, churning up cars and homes in a black soup of destruction. I turned on the TV as soon as I entered my parents’ home, switching to the CNN and the BBC channels, to get the latest news coverage. Heartbreaking news, one after another. My eyes were fixed to the TV screen, speechless, unable to say anything.
Oh my God…. It was far worse than I thought.. And I climbed my bed, half believing the news was a terrible joke, half praying that when tomorrow comes everything’s going to be alright.
But of course I was wrong. It was a catastrophe. It had happened, whether I choose to believe it or not at the first place. The devastating news was everywhere – on the newspaper, on the TV, on the internet, in forums..
I woke up on the next day and began sending emails to all my friends in Japan. Luckily they are living mainly in Kanto and Kansai areas, luckily the tsunami didn’t reach their places. But there were non-stop big shakes, one after another, and they said they were very panicked. A friend had to walk for more than two hours from her office to her apartment because trains had stopped operating. An ex-classmate, Utako cried when thinking about her family that is living in one of the affected areas, Ibaraki because she didn’t manage to contact them. And then the nuclear plant and the radiation cases. My heart grieved.
It was heartbreaking enough to think that I’ve been to those places, marveling on the beauty and serenity of those places with my friends. It was painful enough to think that once upon a time, a 20-year-old me was there in Ooarai Ferry Terminal, queuing with my friends to get inside a ferry to go to Hokkaido and start our 10-days journey around that scenic island by car . And it was agonizing enough to think that my beloved friends and Senseis are struggling to absorb everything that had happened to their country, accepting their fate.
My beloved Professor, Kamiya Sensei, wrote in his email to me, after describing his day – ‘I wonder why God made this happened to us. But we have to accept it. Life must go on. It is our responsibility to rebuild this country ’. God, I almost cried when I read his email.
Sensei, I’ve been thinking a lot lately too. But even I didn’t get the answer why God made this happened to your beautiful country. Maybe He already knew that the Japanese are strong enough to go through these hardships, just like what had happened during the World War II where Japan had risen and became one of the most developed countries in just 50 years. Or maybe He wanted to remind Japan, on how it feels to be the one who’s on the receiving end after playing the ‘giving’ role after so long. Or maybe, it’s the beginning of something that only God knows. Maybe hundred years from now, historians will look back and figure out what the beginning really is.
A senior who’s living in Japan, Puan Jann*h, messaged me early this morning, telling me she has to bring her 2 little children back to Malaysia next week because the radiation level of the water in her area is not safe anymore for infants. Her husband has to stay, though, and help Japan rebuilding its economy. And when suddenly I thought about the heavily-pregnant Fumiko, I started to feel worried about her and the baby inside her tummy. And I really felt awful when I realized that she has nowhere to go..
It’s my birthday today, and I’m praying to God that He’ll save the people that I love back there in Japan. I know it’s not appropriate to fly to Japan during this difficult moment, but someday, I’ll definitely go back to see the faces that I’ve considered as part of my own family. And maybe at that time we’ll do some sort of celebration, just like last year, when we celebrated Sussan’s wedding.
Ameen.
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Winter, 2006.
It was a cold winter night just like others that I’ve experienced before. But the difference was there I was, lying on my futon, alone in my apartment, almost motionless since I barely had energy to do anything. My breaths were weak, and I did not dare to move actively. There was a glass half full with saliva and blood. My parents called me in the evening but I could hardly speak. Ayah kept asking me whether I was feeling fine but my voice didn’t come out when I wanted to reply. I was frustrated. And truly exhausted. I cried. I’ve never felt this weak and helpless before.
Everything was fine until the day Shibata-san saw blood on my handkerchief after I coughed hard in our lab. “Good Lord!”, he said, “Azu, what happened to you? We should go to the hospital straight away!”
After several hours and several checks at the hospital, the doctor told us that I got a TB – Tuberculosis. I was surprised, never in my life I thought I’d ever get that disease. But somehow, day by day, the disease worsened, and the doctor said I had to be quarantined inside my house for a month. He also said I wasn’t admitted to the hospital because I was a foreigner, but luckily enough, I only had to pay 30% of the whole expensive medical treatment since I had an insurance special for foreigners in Japan, so I didn’t complain at all.
Battling with TB wasn’t easy, you aren’t allowed to see anyone. Well, except for the nurses in charge who kept coming to my apartment, wearing masks to check me every twice a week. And the occasional trips to the hospital as well, because the doctors need to take x-rays of my lung. You can’t be too active, you just can move a little bit – and very slowly. You can’t speak, because even if you wanted to, the voice won’t come out. You’ll just squeak – and then you’ll cough hard and the blood will come out from your mouth. And once you coughed, you’ll keep on coughing again and again and it won’t stop until you’re too weak to do anything anymore. Sometimes I managed to sleep on my futon, but usually I only managed to fall asleep under the bathroom sink, because of the non-stop coughs and blood kept coming out from my mouth and I had nowhere to go except to the bathroom. And the cold winter didn’t help either, it just made the disease worse.
I was listening to my breaths, feeling hungry but there was nothing in the kitchen that I could eat, when suddenly someone knocking on the door. 「おぉ～いアズ、ドア開けろよ。俺らやで。食いもん持ってきてるんだよ。」(“Ooii Azu, Open the door. It’s us, We’re bringing food for you”)
Slowly I opened the door and I saw faces with masks. There’s Koi-chan, the leader. And there’s Uji-kun, Yossan, Chibi. And Shibata-san, Okuno-shi. And others. They were holding plastic bags. And a pot.
“Azu, how are you? Feeling better? We bought some food for you. And cakes, we know you love cakes. Oh, and we cooked udon for you too. You must eat it while it’s still hot.”
I was speechles. And as I stand in front of them with teary eyes, I whispered to God, ‘Thank you so much, dear God. Thank you for making me realize that I have a family who really cares about me, regardless all the differences between us’.
Chippokena Jibun Wo, Sora No Ue Kara Nagamete Miyou... 
