News Collage from Idiosyncratic Japan

Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant seems to me like the only sane place remaining in Japan these days.

A town devastated by the tsunami two years ago embalms a pine tree.

An official in a city in Niigata Prefecture laughs at his colleague who gets caught in the heavy snow by saying "He can't walk properly, because of radiation." (His city is one of the few municipalities that are burning disaster debris.)

A 5th grader in Osaka jumps in front of an incoming train and kills himself because he doesn't want his elementary school to merge with another school. "Please stop the merger, in exchange for this little life", he writes in his last note.

The anti-nuclear group that organized the protests in front of the Prime Minister's Official Residence every Friday last year (well, they are still doing it, though the attendance has dwindled) attends at a symposium on defending Japan against China and Korea.

Same people who freaked out about thyroid cancer before are freaking out again about thyroid cancer, while hardly any of them protest against the circulation of contaminated food.

A 55-year-old elementary school teacher kicks an 11-year-old 5th grade boy in the lower abdomen, and the boy suffers injuries that take two weeks to heal. The police decides not to press charges, because the teacher says he is sorry.

Ms. Yoshiko Sakurai, who said "It's the national government's responsibility to say that up to 20 millisieverts/year is safe for adults, and 10 millisieverts/year is safe for children", is one of people selected to the Central Council for Education under the Ministry of Education and Science.

All in about half a day of news collection that I did today.

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