Opinii (7): The 7.3
Linda Liszt
I am a Transylvania girl, we don't have them earthquakes there, for me they have always been those horrible things that they get in Bucharest. One of them, a Richter 7 (less than the one last Friday), almost killed my Dad in 77 as he happened to be in Bucharest, half of the city went down with it. When I felt the first one in Bucharest I was 19, it was a 4.2, which here in Japan scares people less than their own farts. And this is a public farting culture.
Back then I was freaked out for a week.
Ever since I'm in Japan I started to manage the "little ones" (+-5) with brain tricking techniques such as X is jokingly moving my chair or oh, my bed is a bit dodgy. Didn't work for the 7.3. It lasted one full minute, as guess what, I got a Christmas promotion, 2 in 1!!! There were two, very close in epicenter and with almost identical intensity, at a 4 second distance. The luck!!
You will probably wonder, like the rest of the world, if I'm so scared of them earthquakes why the hell I am in frickin Japan. I still do not have the answer to that question. No clue how and why I ended up here, wasn't on my priority list, wasn't interested in manga and tanga, Asia wasn't on my list altogether, maybe except Mongolia...
I so often listen to this Kaiser Chiefs song:
I have truly never been this far away from home. Japan… is something else; and I still cannot put it into words. I tried the other day in a post on this blog which turned into an article in Dilema Veche, because I was tired of people pushing me to write about Japan. I should have stuck to my instincts, since all people understood was that I terribly missed being touched... which I do, but that's really not the point. Just cannot explain Japan.
And, contrary to what would be rationally considerable, the earthquake didn't make me run away. Almost like... Europe will always be there waiting, Japan might not... I know it sounds crazy, am probably still under shock so please take it as such.
The events as they happened: I was at home trying to play with my new Japanese netbook borrowed from friends (thanks again R and A) when I realised it wouldn't read my external hard drive. So, rather pissed off, I dragged my ass to the office on a Friday evening, hoping the computers there would do a better job.
As I entered the common room/printing room and sat on the chair pestering, things started moving. First I thought it was an easy one and told myself, as usual, that X was again moving my chair. And then it wouldn't stop. and it wouldn't stop. and it wouldn't stop. I looked to my right at one of the girls, she was wearing a mask (as they do round here, still haven't gotten used to them completely) and so only her eyes were exposed and I will never forget them getting big!!! That is how I figured out it wasn't one of the 5 ones, and my brain couldn't be tricked this time. And all I could think of was: thank God the stupid netbook wouldn't read the stupid hard drive! On the way to the office I was almost crying with anger thinking this is the worst place in the world for my laptop to crash, I really didn't need it happening here, I don't need another week spent on retrieving-documents-installing-shit-on-a-netbook-in-Japanese, I don't have time for that, all I want to do is work work work. And during the earthquake I remember this strange state of happiness that somehow the universe has aligned things to make me understand how unimportant all that was, plus not to leave me alone, experiencing this by myself in my flat. Epiphany? Don’t know. But it helped through the fear.
It was better being with Japanese people then alone because they didn't even blink and knew exactly what to do, zen all the way. I was frozen. They took me downstairs somehow, cannot remember, just remember that, as we were outside the building, one of them said it wasn't as bad as March 11, and that kind of left me wondering
What’s a 9 like then??????
Pe curand...
I am a Transylvania girl, we don't have them earthquakes there, for me they have always been those horrible things that they get in Bucharest. One of them, a Richter 7 (less than the one last Friday), almost killed my Dad in 77 as he happened to be in Bucharest, half of the city went down with it. When I felt the first one in Bucharest I was 19, it was a 4.2, which here in Japan scares people less than their own farts. And this is a public farting culture.
Back then I was freaked out for a week.
Ever since I'm in Japan I started to manage the "little ones" (+-5) with brain tricking techniques such as X is jokingly moving my chair or oh, my bed is a bit dodgy. Didn't work for the 7.3. It lasted one full minute, as guess what, I got a Christmas promotion, 2 in 1!!! There were two, very close in epicenter and with almost identical intensity, at a 4 second distance. The luck!!
You will probably wonder, like the rest of the world, if I'm so scared of them earthquakes why the hell I am in frickin Japan. I still do not have the answer to that question. No clue how and why I ended up here, wasn't on my priority list, wasn't interested in manga and tanga, Asia wasn't on my list altogether, maybe except Mongolia...
I so often listen to this Kaiser Chiefs song:
I have truly never been this far away from home. Japan… is something else; and I still cannot put it into words. I tried the other day in a post on this blog which turned into an article in Dilema Veche, because I was tired of people pushing me to write about Japan. I should have stuck to my instincts, since all people understood was that I terribly missed being touched... which I do, but that's really not the point. Just cannot explain Japan.
And, contrary to what would be rationally considerable, the earthquake didn't make me run away. Almost like... Europe will always be there waiting, Japan might not... I know it sounds crazy, am probably still under shock so please take it as such.
The events as they happened: I was at home trying to play with my new Japanese netbook borrowed from friends (thanks again R and A) when I realised it wouldn't read my external hard drive. So, rather pissed off, I dragged my ass to the office on a Friday evening, hoping the computers there would do a better job.
As I entered the common room/printing room and sat on the chair pestering, things started moving. First I thought it was an easy one and told myself, as usual, that X was again moving my chair. And then it wouldn't stop. and it wouldn't stop. and it wouldn't stop. I looked to my right at one of the girls, she was wearing a mask (as they do round here, still haven't gotten used to them completely) and so only her eyes were exposed and I will never forget them getting big!!! That is how I figured out it wasn't one of the 5 ones, and my brain couldn't be tricked this time. And all I could think of was: thank God the stupid netbook wouldn't read the stupid hard drive! On the way to the office I was almost crying with anger thinking this is the worst place in the world for my laptop to crash, I really didn't need it happening here, I don't need another week spent on retrieving-documents-installing-shit-on-a-netbook-in-Japanese, I don't have time for that, all I want to do is work work work. And during the earthquake I remember this strange state of happiness that somehow the universe has aligned things to make me understand how unimportant all that was, plus not to leave me alone, experiencing this by myself in my flat. Epiphany? Don’t know. But it helped through the fear.
It was better being with Japanese people then alone because they didn't even blink and knew exactly what to do, zen all the way. I was frozen. They took me downstairs somehow, cannot remember, just remember that, as we were outside the building, one of them said it wasn't as bad as March 11, and that kind of left me wondering
What’s a 9 like then??????
Pe curand...
Comentarii
Trimiteți un comentariu