Japan: Views on the Sichuan Earthquake

Global Voices Olympics The earthquake in China's Sichuan province, besides taking its toll on tens of thousands of Chinese citizens, has also had reverberations far away in the Japanese blogosphere, where the topic ranked top among blogging keyword lists [ja] and sparked conversations in forums [ja] over the past few days.

Blogger Kobayashi Akihito at Shirokuma blog writes about the way that Twitter was used to broadcast early news about the earthquake, and how this indicates a change in the way journalism is now functioning:

これまでのジャーナリズムは、言うなれば「選ばれた人」だけが情報を発信するというものでした。最近は市民ジャーナリズムというかたちも登場していますが、ここでも「市民記者」という存在になれるのは限られた人であり、しかも(各サイトによって程度の差があるようですが)編集部の検閲が必ず入ります。つまり一部の人間や組織が情報を選別し、その選別に対する信頼感で、情報の信憑性が保証されているわけですね(もっとも最近では、それに疑いの声を上げる人が多くなっていますが)。

Journalism up until now has been the transmission of information by only so-to-speak “chosen people”. Recently a form [of journalism] called citizen journalism has also made an appearance, but this is also limited to people who are able to become “citizen journalists”, and on top of this (while there is a difference between sites in the degree [to which this happens]) there is also inspection by an editorial department. In other words, one segment of people or of organizations chooses information, and based on a sense of trust in this selection process, the authenticity of information is guaranteed. (Although recently there are many people questioning this idea.)

一方 Twitter が構築したネットワークの中では、誰もが自由に情報発信することができます。その分ウソやウワサ話といったものも多く含まれることになりますが、別に従来のメディアのように情報の信憑性を保証しているわけではありませんから、受け手はそれを鵜呑みにせず「これは本当だろうか?」と吟味することになります。その情報を発信したのが、普段から信頼できる発言をしている人物か。一人だけでなく、他の人々も同じことを語っているか。同じ情報を受け取った他のユーザーは、どのような反応をしているか。そういった要素をベースに信憑性を判断し、場合によっては自らも「中国で地震があったらしいよ」と発言する――それがまた別のユーザーに伝わって、という流れになるわけですね。もちろんこれは理想像ですが、今回「Twitterで目にした情報はすべて正しいようだ」という発言が出ているのは、従来のジャーナリズムとは別の仕組みで、正しい情報が伝わる仕組みが現れつつあることを示しているように思います。

Within the network that Twitter has built up, on the other hand, anybody can freely transmit information. To this extent, there are also lies and rumors included [in this information], but there is no particular reason to think that [Twitter networks] guarantee the authenticity of information in the way that traditional media do. It is therefore a matter of the receiver of information not believing everything they see, scrutinizing [the information] and asking: “Is this really true?” Is the one who is transmitting the information a person who ordinarily makes trustworthy statements? Is it only one person, or are other people saying the same thing as well? And other people receiving the information, how are they responding to it? Drawing judgments about authenticity on the basis of these elements, a person may in some cases themselves also declare that: “there seems to have been an earthquake in China” — this message is then transmitted to other users, and this is how the flow works. This is of course an idealized image, but the statements that came out this time that “all the information seen on Twitter appears to be correct” would seem to indicate that a new mechanism for transmitting accurate information — different from the mechanism of traditional journalism — is in the process of emerging.


Japanese TV broadcast about the potential influence of the earthquake on the Beijing Olympics

Whereas Akihito focused on the medium, most bloggers in fact were writing about the actual earthquake itself. In a post entitled “Will the Olympics be alright?”, one blogger expresses sympathy for victims of the earthquake while also questioning the strategy of rush construction, which apparently compromised the structure of some buildings:

まずは被害に追われた中国の、そして世界の方々にお見舞い申し上げます。
タイミングもタイミング、恐ろしいほどのタイミングで地震が起きてしまいましたね。
折からのチベット問題に加えて、この大地震。
しかも、死者は1万人を超えそうだと。
また、この被害は地震のみならず、急成長裏の手抜き工事が大きく影響しているようです。
こうなると素人のわたしとしては、果たして無事にオリンピックは開かれるのかと。
いや、むしろこれも愛国心の高揚に一役買うかも知れませんね。
オリンピックもいいですが、突貫工事で被害が拡大したという点も早急に対処してほしいですね。

First I would like to express my feelings of sympathy to all the people of China, and of the world, who have suffered.
And the timing, what terrible timing for an earthquake to happen.
On top of the problems happening at the same time in Tibet, this major earthquake.
And what's more, apparently there were more than 10,000 deaths.
Apparently the damage was not only caused by the earthquake, but was also greatly influenced by the shoddy construction behind sudden economic growth.
In this situation, a layperson like myself has to ask, will the Olympics actually take place without any problems?
On the contrary, however, this could perhaps play a role in heightening feelings of patriotism.
I have no problem with the Olympics, but I hope that they deal as soon as possible with this problem of increased damage resulting from rush construction.

At Wakaba no Nikki, one blogger remarks on all the disasters hitting Asia recently, including the typhoon that took 30,000 lives in Myanmar:

このところ、ミャンマー・サイクロン(あまり『ミャンマー』という呼称は使いたくないが…)、中国・四川省大地震と、アジアで大災害が続発している。ほぼ1日たって大地震の死者は1万2千人と発表されたが、今なお9万人以上の人が生き埋めになっているとか。一刻も早く一人でも多くの人が救助されることを願ってやまない。私も僅かながら義援金を送ろうと思う。

The cyclone in Myanmar (I don't really want to use the title “Myanmar”, but…), the huge earthquake in Sichuan province, major catastrophes have recently been hitting Asia one after another. One day after the earthquake it was announced that there had been 12,000 deaths, but by now over 90,000 people have been buried alive. I keep wishing that many people are rescued as soon as possible, or even just one person. While it is only a small [contribution], I think I will also send a donation.

The blogger then comments on a strange phenomenon observed before the earthquake hit:

ところで、今回の「大地震の前に、同省の綿竹市で数十万匹のヒキガエルが一斉に移動するという異常現象があった」というニュースを読んだ。日本ではナマズが暴れると言われるし、以前読んだ地震の本には、雪の上を這いずっているヘビが確認された後に地震が起こったと記されていた。冬眠中のヘビを叩き起こすような変化が土中に起こったのだろう。また私の経験では、近所の犬が夜中にうるさく鳴き続けるので目が覚めたら直後に地震が起こったことがある。このような動物の異常行動を「宏観異常現象」と言うそうで、動物達は電磁気や化学物質の変化を感知しているのではないかと考えられている。

Incidentally, I read the news about “a strange phenomenon that occurred just before the big earthquake, in which several thousand toads in the city of Mianzhu in the same province started moving all at once”. It is said in Japan that catfish act very violently, and in a book about earthquakes that I once read, it was noted that an earthquake occurred after a snake was confirmed to be slithering on the top of snow. I guess there was some kind of change underground that roused the snake out of hibernation. I have had experiences myself in which I was woken up in the middle of the night by the loud barking of neighborhood dogs, and then an earthquake hit right afterwards. This kind of abnormal behavior in animals is apparently referred to under the title of “macro-anomaly”, and it is thought that such animals are perceiving electromagnetic or chemical changes.

Blogger Tatsuro Satoh at the Voice from Kobe draws a comparison with the Great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake:

テレビで、地震による空港での混乱の状況を放映していたが、テレビ画面からも「極めて強い揺れ」を感じ取ることができた。
 場面は全く異なるが、一瞬阪神淡路大震災を思い起こした。
 記事の写真は、余震を恐れ、路上で一夜を明かした人々を写し出している。阪神泡時代震災時、私自身もある意味で、写真が写し出している人々のように、茫然としていたことを思い出した次第である。。。

On television, they were broadcasting the confusion in the airport resulting from the earthquake, and from the TV footage one could sense the “extremely powerful vibrations”.
The context is totally different, but for a moment I thought of the great Hanshin-Awaji earthquake.
The photograph in the article shows people who passed the night on the street, fearing aftershocks. I remembered that I myself was also in a kind of daze at the time of the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, like the people in the picture.

While bloggers were mostly sympathetic with the victims of the earthquake, online bulletin boards and forums expressed a different perspective. An anonymous poster in the 6th comment on a thread at 2channel about the earthquake writes:

6 : 名無しさん@八周年:2008/05/14(水) 14:51:39 ID:4t7Tb1Oe0

売国政治屋だらけで支持する政党が無い国、それが日本。
5億払ったって中国共産党に流れるだけだ。
今まで兆単位で貢いできたODAもそれが日本からの支援だとは殆どの中国人は知らない。
なぜなら共産党はその事実を絶対に教えないから。
そして洗脳教育によって日本は中国に金を貢いで当り前だと中国人は思いこんでる。
今も昔もそこに感謝の念などは全く無い。

A country full of politicians who sell out, without any political parties to support, that's Japan.
Even if you pay 500 million yen, it just flows to the Chinese communist party.
Even now most Chinese don't know that the ODA [Official Development Assistance] which provided financing is also support from Japan.
Why? Because the Chinese government will absolutely not inform people about this fact.
Through an education of brainwashing, Chinese come to get the idea that Japan financing China is something obvious.
And now, just like in the past, there is absolutely no sense of gratitude for this.

Another poster, shortly thereafter in comment number 39 on the same thread, describes how they came to 2channel expecting to find sympathy for the victims of the disaster, only to be met with hostility:

39 :名無しさん@八周年:2008/05/14(水) 14:57:27 ID:I7toTpGP0

[…]

同じように心を痛めている人も多かろうと思い、インターネット掲示板
2ちゃんねるを覗いてみた。だがそこで目にしたものは、フリーチベット
支持者(ネットウヨクと呼ばれる若者達)の心無い、中国人被災者の方に
対する目を疑うほどの罵詈雑言の書き込みの数々だった・・・。

Thinking that there would be many people similarly troubled about this, I took a peek at the Internet bulletin board 2channel.
But what I saw there were thoughtless posts by Free Tibet supporters (young people who call themselves the net right-wing)
targeting Chinese victims of the disaster, so abusive that I could hardly believe my eyes…

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