I, who had come expecting to find something I could mourn, witnessed Fukushima’s resiliency then with my own eyes.
Our train from Tokyo to Sendai, a city in the northern Tōhoku region, swooped by many little cities, deeply lacking in the grandeur and luster of Tokyo. We were traveling into Fukushima that had been hit the year before by the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. It was the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan, and was followed by tsunamis and the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. More than 15,000 people perished.
I was slightly anxious. I knew not to drink the tap water, but I was still worried about the radiation. Sendai wasn’t that far from Fukushima, the center of the nuclear meltdown. I knew our train would make a stop there. From everything I had seen in the news, I grew solemn at the thought of witnessing the maelstrom’s ramifications.
After a while, the landscape began to take a more agricultural turn. The sun’s rays found a way to pierce through the gray clouds and glittered on the surface of thousands and thousands of rice paddies. The patties reflected the sky as if they were pools of glass, tracing through the green grasses for miles. The mountains in the horizon sloped peacefully around the urban centers, enveloping them in a cooling haze. It seemed to be the natural disposition of the land.
The train slowed, nearing one of the cities along this idyllic landscape.
I was shocked—we were stopping at Fukushima. It seemed busier than any of our previous stops, lined with the usual newspaper and snack stands, manned by the usual uniformed platform officer.
Of course, I had heard about how resilient everyone had been, how strong. But I, who had come expecting to find something I could mourn, witnessed Fukushima’s resiliency then with my own eyes. The dead were still lost and the radiation still lingered, but just by looking at that crowded platform lined with people, you would never know it.
