by Lynn Ng

“I lived three years in the countryside of Hokkaido!” This is often one of the first things I tell people. For the longest time, I prided myself a rural-experienced urbanite, for I had experienced the ups and downs of the rural life. So, as I made my way to a small village in mountainous Fukushima, I was thrilled to once again put on my rural rose-tinted glasses. Aboard one of four daily buses that travel into this village, I imagined the rolling hills, rice paddies, snow-capped mountains, clear rivers that awaited me at the destination.

What the road into the village was like, with the abundant nature I imagined myself to be immersed in upon arrival.
Copyright © Lynn Ng 2022

After an hour of romanticizing rural Fukushima in my head, I arrived at my accommodation – a former shophouse now used to host volunteers and interns of community revitalization projects. This house sits between a steep brown hill and a small rocky stream. Unruly grass grew everywhere and an ambient radiation measuring device hides itself nearby, behind tall grasses and rusted fences. Outside the dark, empty house, I shouted: “Konnichiwa!” Silence. I wondered if I had arrived too early, that the staff had not been expecting me, yet. Or had I arrived too late and the staff already went home? I attempted to check my communication history for a number to call but alas, the signal was bad. I began to realize how inexplicably ill-prepared I was.

The air radiation monitoring device nearby reads 0.189 microSieverts/h – more than double of Berlin’s ambient dose rate (0.073 microSieverts/h) [1].
Copyright © Lynn Ng 2022

After a brief moment of internal panic, an old lady came running from out of nowhere across the street (where the steep hills were) towards me. She shouted to me something I could not understand and knocked on the windows of the house. I worried how badly my Japanese comprehension had withered away after just a year. The staff popped out of the office quickly. How she had heard the two knocks on the glass but not my incessant konnichiwas, I wondered. I turned to thank the old lady but she was no longer there. “There are no locks here, anywhere here,” the staff member said. I asked about Wi-Fi. “None,” she said, and then added, “there is a convenience store about fifteen minutes on foot, but it closes in about thirty minutes.” I put down my bags and prepared to run to the store.

Within mere minutes of setting things down, however, a small earthquake struck the village. The public radio announced that everyone in unstable housing structures should go to the nearest evacuation center. I wondered if this house was structurally viable. I wondered where the closest evacuation center was. I attempted to google. There was no internet. Abandoning all thoughts of heading out at all, I crawled onto a chair and allowed myself time to reflect on these realities of my first day, and of my upcoming week here: a week of unlockable doors, no groceries in the vicinity, and no Wi-Fi. On this first day in rural Fukushima, urbanite-Lynn experienced culture shock. I sat by the kitchen table shivering in my Tokyo-appropriate clothes. My stomach growled. I stared gloomily at the portable humidifier I bought just before boarding the bus. Why hadn’t I bought food or hot packs instead? As I had decided to leave all of the day’s problems to tomorrow, the old lady from before knocked on my door with a bowl of pumpkin stew in hand. I wondered how she gained access and remembered that there were no locks in this whole place.

The heartwarmingly delicious bowl of pumpkin stew.
Copyright © Lynn Ng 2022

I wrote these reflections while chewing on bits of soft pumpkin in the dim kitchen. I pondered upon this culture shock of the vast disparity between my imagination and the realities of living in this village. The ambient radiation numbers displayed on the tucked-away measuring device had easily become a non-concern. I wondered how other rural migrants here felt on their first day – had they also met this mysterious old lady? Or had they spent the day walking around finding phone signals? How did their imaginations match up with reality? On this first night, as I headed off to bed, I tripped on the uneven tatami, pinched my fingers twice on the wooden doors, tucked my valuables under my pillow and slept to the sounds of the stream flowing softly outside while a hundred questions raced through my mind.

[1] Ministry of Environment Japan. (2019). Ta chiiki no kūkan senryō-ritsu to no hikaku [Comparison of ambient radiation to other areas]. Available at:
https://www.env.go.jp/chemi/rhm/portal/digest/dwelling/detail_003.html