A Photo A Week 14 – Ganbare Nippon!
I wrote about Ganbare, Nippon!! in my last post. It was a charity event with the purpose to help Japanese earthquake and tsunami victims. There were workshops (language introduction, origami, sweet deco, etc.), martial arts demonstrations, some free, some not but always affordable and for a good cause.
Here the ladies who were teaching Japanese calligraphy (for free!) were on a break. We had our chance at Japanese calligraphy later on.
Ganbare, Nippon!!
Ganbare, Nippon!! is a fundraising event to help the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan.
It’s being organized by Castella do Paulo and NCreatures, and started its momentum from the will of japanese women who live in Portugal to help earthquake victims in Japan. Pray for Japan will be participating.
Activities will include martial arts demonstrations or presentations (Iaido, Kendo, Aikido), short-duration workshops of Japanese language, caligraphy, origami and cloth work by the japanese ladies who are part of the Pray for Japan group.
Castella do Paulo, a Luso-Nippon tea house will have several sweets available for you to try out at the event.
There will be exhibits and sale of glasswork, paintings, and ceramics by several artists, as well as of zafu-futon items.
For a more detailed programme, with the rest of the activities as well as more information, check out the Facebook event page.
All the acquired funds will be transfered to the Japanese Red Cross, through the account number made available by the Japanese Embassy in Portugal.
When? Saturday, April 2nd, between 10h30 and 19h30
Where? At Palácio Foz, in Restauradores, Lisbon. The Restauradores subway station is closeby as well as the Rossio train station. Check out this map for more details.
I hope to see you there.
Japan
We’ve all been watching the news about Japan – the earthquake, then the tsunami and the nuclear situation. The problem is, when most media relay news, the information about the nuclear bit is often exaggerated.
We were (are?) planning to go to Japan this Spring, and are aware that there’s a possibility of having to postpone our trip, but we want to know facts about the situation, not over-reactive texts and TV snippets with little real content. The national, and some international news are making it hard to get actual information about what’s going on. The best explanations of what is wrong with the Fukushima Nuclear Plants that I’ve seen were transmitted by NHK World.
[ image from Things We Forget ]
Tonight, they made a report about the radiation levels in regions to the south of Fukushima, after the winds took some of the radioactive particles there. This was something I was interested in and that I hadn’t seen being explained yet. Just outside the 30 kilometer perimeter, the radiation measurement was a little over 23 microsieverts, which is less than half what we’re exposed to when we get an X-Ray. In Tokyo, the measurement was of less than 1 microsievert. Also today, British, Australian, and American Governments said that there’s no serious radiation threat to Tokyo.
Yes, the situation can become worst, because they’re still dealing with the nuclear plant’s ongoing series of problems. But why pretend it’s worst than it actually is? Just for the ratings or newspaper sales?
A couple of the most laughable ‘news’ I’ve seen on this subject:
. Fox News – managed to fail completely on their map, by placing the nuclear reactor where Tokyo would be and calling it ‘Shibuyaeggman’. What the heck? Was I surprised by this? No. One already expects this to happen when it involves Fox News.
. The Sun – apparently there’s a ‘mass exodus’ away from Tokyo. Except there isn’t, really.
There’s more. Just check out some of Japan Probe‘s articles on these ‘news’.
Anyway, what I’ve been doing to keep up with Tokyo’s actual status is read some sites I follow, and some others that I’ve been introduced to in the last few days.
. Shoot Tokyo – Photo posts with little textual content, taken in Tokyo. (found via my friend Vanessa)
. Danny Choo – everyone knows him. The Stormtrooper in Tokyo.
. Japan Trends – among other things, I loved this sarcastic article on Tokyo’s ‘food crisis’
. Waribashi’s Facebook Page – Waribashi is a Portuguese magazine about Japanese culture
There’s also a stream of a geiger counter in Tokyo. It’s been down for a couple of hours. Don’t panic (it seems some people did panic when it went offline yesterday), they’re not ‘hiding’ anything – there was also some downtime yesterday and it was back up after a bit. Or maybe they got bored and shut it down since the values were always low. Who knows? *shrugs*
To finalize this gigantic post, if you want to help the Japanese earthquake victims, you can make a donation to the Japanese Red Cross.
The Japanese Embassy in Portugal, also made some other information available (in Portuguese) about how you can contribute to help the victims. (again, thanks to Vanessa who pointed this out to me)
