That's the gist of a rumor circulating on Twitter in Japan for several days now. Just like the "fishing ban in California because of radioactive bluefin tuna" rumor, this one still going strong today with a fresh batch of retweets by people with large followings. Today I fished this tweet by someone with over 6,000 followers, saying "IOC rejected the badges made of Fukushima debris".
This Olympic fantasy can be summarized as follows:
The Japanese team was escorted out of the stadium during the opening ceremony of the London Olympics on July 29 (Fact).
Japan was the only country who was removed. (Not verified) Why?
It's because the Japanese athletes were wearing badges made of wooden debris from Fukushima, and even though they were allowed in at the Heathrow Airport IOC objected, and wanted to remove the athletes from the field for the fear of radiation contamination.
The Japanese media didn't say anything when that happened, but the UK's BBC explained the situation.
A group of Japanese supporters weren't allowed in at one of the Olympic venues, even though there were a plenty of empty seats (Fact). Why?
It's because Japanese are discriminated against, because of the Fukushima I Nuclear Accident and people outside Japan are fearful of radiation contamination.
It all seems to have started with a blog supposedly written by a Japanese woman who lives in the UK and supposedly went to the stadium to watch the ceremony. She said,
After they walked about a half of the track, Japanese athletes were blocked by the officials who guided them to the side exit. Why? I called my Japanese friends but no one seemed to notice anything.
The photographs that she took to prove the incident were posted on another blog:
Then came this tweet on August 1, which rapidly spread. This person came up with the reason why the Japanese athletes were led out of the stadium. The tweet claims:
野田が出発前に選手たちにお守りとして福島の瓦礫製のバッジを。ヒースロー空港を通過したが、ＩＯＣが問題視。開会式の入場で英ＢＢＣらはこの事実を生放送。ＮＨＫは急遽その場で無言で放送。３００人の日本選手は一周した後に誘導されて会場外へ。ＪＯＣはこの事実を認めず「選手らが間違って外へ」
It's because of the badges that Noda gave them. Badges were made of debris wood from Fukushima. They were allowed in at the Heathrow airport, but IOC took issues with that. BBC mentioned this incident live during the opening ceremony, but NHK didn't say a word. 300 Japanese athletes were escorted out of the stadium after going round the track once. JOC {Japan Olympic Committee) wouldn't admit, and says "Athletes made a mistake".
Then, the whole affair was repeated ad nauseum in many blogs including blogs written by influential people on Twitter in Japan (i.e. many followers). One of them said,
You have to have intelligence, instinct to discern truth from coverup, and in this case the truth came out right away on the internet...
As this incredible (in a literal sense), distressing "news" spread on Twitter, there was a site that translated the tweets and posts of this brouhaha into English.
And very predictably, like it has happened over and over again in the past 17 months - most notable incidents include black steam gushing all over the Fukushima I Nuke Plant compound (it didn't), americium discovery in Hachioji (someone removed the symbol that indicated detection limit), uranium and neutron beam discovery in Kashiwa, Chiba (that neutron sensor was sensitive to the gamma ray), 30% of Fukushima children having thyroid "cancer" (not "cancer" but cysts and nodules), Reactor 4 falling apart (when the operation floors were being systematically taken down) and radioactive iodine and cesium discovery in fresh snow (measurement by an amateur mistaking the peaks of natural radioactive materials) - the "news" was translated back into Japanese and spread as "authoritative, English-language" news (i.e. since it is in English it must be true).
Just like Russia Today's news, as one of my Twitter followers said to me, "But, but it was in Russia Today in English, it cannot be false, can it?"
Or worse: if you don't believe these reports, there's something wrong with your brain.
I looked for the supposed BBC coverage that "explained" the IOC's problem with the debris badges or why the Japanese athletes were led out of the stadium, but couldn't find any.
These badges were indeed made and given to the athletes by the Ministry of the Environment, to help spread the message of (of all things) wide area disposal of disaster debris to promote recovery in the disaster affected areas in Tohoku. But the wood debris came NOT FROM FUKUSHIMA but MIYAGI (Minamisanriku). Elementary school children in Miyagi wrote messages on the ribbons, and the Japanese Olympic athletes wore them proudly.
"Come back with Gold medal!" "You'll be great!" "Ganbatte!"
Yes it was a silly idea, but what's the point of making up stories? So that more people become aware of the contamination problem? Does the end justify the means?
Only a handful of bloggers and twitterers even bothered to note that the wood debris was not from Fukushima but from Miyagi. The rest either ignored it, or decided that the Ministry of the Environment lied. So what do they do? They attack Goshi Hosono's Facebook.
Even less people paid attention that it was not 200 athletes but only 40 who wanted to participate in the opening ceremony to begin with. It is not unusual at all for the modern-day Olympic athletes to skip the ceremony in preparation for the competition. The US women's gymnastics team skipped the ceremony to rest up at their hotel rooms, I heard. Those who did pay attention came to the conclusion that most Japanese athletes were not allowed to attend the ceremony.
It is not reported widely in Japan that the best seats (front rows) at the Olympic venues are empty because the corporate sponsors and government officials who were allocated the pricy seats don't bother showing up. The organizers are very slow in coming up with the remedy, other than having British soldiers sit through the gymnastics event. So, in the information vacuum, the Japanese assumed the Japanese spectators were denied the seats because they were from Japan, the land of the contaminated! as you can read in this blog.
And they tweet and tweet. Are we Japanese people discriminated against? Are we hated because of the radiation contamination? Maybe the entire country of Japan will be rejected by the Olympic!
Since I cannot prove or disprove (as I can't find BBC coverage), I will leave this saga as it is. If you have any information or fantasy to share, please post it in the comment section.
On the separate news on the topic of discrimination, a young, naturalized Japanese woman won the team Bronze medal in archery - first ever for Japan to win any medal in archery. Ms. Ren Hayakawa grew up in South Korea, and came to Japan in 2007 to live with her mother who had remarried a Japanese and had moved to Japan. She became a naturalized Japanese citizen. But right after she and her teammates won the Bronze medal, online message boards in South Korea were filled with hate messages calling her "traitor". Online message boards in Japan in turn were filled with hate messages telling her to go back to South Korea, and she was shocked. Or so Asahi Shinbun reported. In an individual match, Ms. Hayakawa just lost to a Korean player with extremely one-sided score. I think she lost heart.
And the net citizens of Japan cry discrimination on a fantasy (it's not proven either way) that people around the world avoid the Japanese like plague because of radiation contamination.
Things are getting too hilarious, even for me.
(Ms. Hayakawa, shoot them all down!)
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