
Patrick McKenzie (patio11) on Japan Aid: Help for the Well-Prepared - zach
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/15/what-aid-makes-sense-for-japan/prepared-but-still-in-need
======
bad_user
First comment in the article is disturbing:

 _One of my wife's relatives is working with those made homeless in her
hometown of Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, which was destroyed by the tsunami. She
and many other workers along the coast would not agree with your assessment.
The Western media have made the Fukushima nuclear plant the most salient
aspect of this tragedy, not least because of the politics and economics of the
King Kong vs Godzilla battle being waged by the US coal and nuclear power
industries, and other sorts of political battles in Europe. The need for
humanitarian aid remains huge. Moreover, this is something most Americans
actually can provide -- unlike advice on stopping nuclear meltdowns._

~~~
donw
This. This this this.

You know who's fleeing the 'impending nuclear holocaust'? The foreigners who
get all of their news from English-language media.

One of my coworkers flew back to NYC because he was so worried about radiation
exposure. You get exposed to more radiation by taking a twelve-hour flight
than you would by camping in a pup tent in the mountains overlooking the
reactor complex.

The Japanese news is full of experts, explanations, and zero panic. The
foreign news is full of propaganda. Makes me sick.

~~~
nandemo
I think the main point of the comment bad_user quoted is not the same you're
making here.

That said, I do feel that the Japanese Tokyoites are calmer about the nuclear
thing. Anecdotally, more than half of my foreign friends and acquaintances
have fled or are planning to flee Tokyo (mostly to elsewhere in Japan, some
abroad), but nearly all my Japanese friends have stay put.

It's not all about the news, though. While I share your perception that
English-language media is being way more sensationalist about it, it's not the
case that all my foreign friends get all their news from English-language
media. Some of them speak Japanese, and some have Japanese spouses, but are
still fleeing. Other possible factors: foreigners have less roots here, have
more options to flee, and more incentive to leave (family is abroad, etc). So
the total perceived "cost" to flee is lower.

~~~
donw
I think what irritates me about the people booking it out of Tokyo is that (a)
it helps to panic other people; and, (b) fuel and electricity are on the short
side right now.

Long rail journeys and trans-ocean flights don't help conserve either of
these.

------
jfager
How many people in the world are actually qualified to offer any useful help
on the Japan nuclear situation? Does anyone really think that they're just
sitting around doing nothing right now?

I don't care how organized and prepared the Japanese are - they need help
right now. Even before the disaster, they relied on imports for food and fuel.
Large portions of their economy are now offline, and hundreds of thousands of
people are displaced. Even if Japan has the will and resources to deal with
all of this on their own, if the rest of us are willing and eager to chip in
to help, why should they?

It's not like your donation is going to a Real American Hero who will
personally swoop down into Tokyo and start wrapping every Japanese person they
come across in a blanket and dousing them with a bottle of water. That money
is going to be spent how it was spent here in the US after Katrina: yes, it
will help feed people who need feeding in the short term, but it will also
keep people in temporary homes until they can rebuild or relocate, pay for
school clothes and supplies for kids whose families lost everything, provide
grant money to help kickstart businesses in the affected areas once cleanup is
done, etc, etc, etc.

So, no, sorry. I'm still sending money.

~~~
donw
Please don't send any Real American Heroes to Tokyo. We're fine. Send them up
north where they're needed.

~~~
jfager
I think you missed my point.

------
portman
I have great respect for Patrick, and usually agree with him, but in this case
I think his conclusion is far off-mark.

 _Japanese citizens need our help_ , on a massive scale.

The government may not need any assistance, but the families and communities
ravaged by the disaster have an unbounded need for aid.

I've lived in Uganda and Cambodia, two countries which get a disproportionate
share of Western aid. Yet still, even with all those development dollars, a
$50 gift can _completely transform_ an individual's life. I've seen it happen.

If your house, your church, your community, and much of your extended family
has been annihilated, and you're rebuilding your life from scratch, then _you
need our help_ , no matter how well-equipped your government is.

Please give, and give generously.

~~~
donw
Japan is the third largest economy in the world.

Uganda and Cambodia don't even make it into the top hundred.

Most of those 'development dollars' never even make their way remotely close
to the people in third-world countries; the graft and corruption sees to that.

I live in Tokyo, and it's pretty insulting to hear this kind of shit.

Japan can certainly use the short-term help, especially from trained rescue
workers, as well as helicopter pilots (as long as they come with their own
helicopter). Help is definitely appreciated.

But with or without 'our' help, Japan will recover.

The real problems here are the disruption in the supply chains. The oil
refineries and stores along the east coast are all offline, and in the three
hardest-hit areas, many roads are unusable. This makes it really hard to get
supplies in, even though there's plenty flowing in from the rest of the
country.

On the social side, Japan is a group-oriented culture, with deep ties
stretching all over the country. The refugees have the entire nation behind
them in rebuilding their lives, homes, and communities.

Speaking of communities, people here don't go to church. Shinto-buddhism
doesn't really work that way. While there are Christians here, they're a
small, and very tough, minority.

I'm probably going to eat a bunch of downvotes for this, but it's irritating
as hell that everybody overseas thinks that we're either all dead, or that I'm
living in a tent.

~~~
pyre
This is like saying that people in New Orleans didn't need help after Katrina
just because I lived nowhere near Louisiana. Don't take your frustration at
'the West' for thinking that people in Tokyo are as hard hit as the areas to
the north out on others. Just because life goes on in Tokyo _does not_ mean
that there is no crisis to the north. Your entire post comes across to me as
high arrogance.

If by Shinto-buddhism, you're referring to Shin Buddhism (aka Jōdo Shinshū),
then yes. People go to Temple and celebrate different holidays than
Christians, but to say "people here don't go to church" is quibbling over the
terms "church" vs "temple," IMO. You probably see a different side in Tokyo,
b/c as I understand it a lot of people move from the country to 'the city' and
don't donate back to the temples that they originated from. In a lot of ways,
they are probably like non-practicing Christians or Agnostics (i.e. not going
to services regularly, but maybe going on holidays, or requesting last rites
on their death bed). That comes across to me as less about the religion and
more about urbanization.

~~~
donw
I never said that the people up north don't need help; I have family and
friends up there, and will be spending April and May helping people to
rebuild.

What they don't need is a patronizing attitude. These people are tough, and
they will overcome.

The reason that supplies aren't getting up to Sendai is not that there aren't
any. The transportation network is broken, and fuel is in short supply.

Fukushima's got the double-problem of panic; there are hospitals 30km away
from the plant that can't get supplies because the truck drivers are terrified
that they'll get exposed to radiation, even though the equivalent dose of half
a dental X-ray... if they spend the entire day.

Panic is the real problem here, and the rest of the world acting like the
entire country has just been leveled by the fist of God is part of the
problem.

I wouldn't be so frustrated if I didn't have to deal with daily phone calls
from people back home asking whether or not I've grown a third head.

On the second bit, no. Religion works very differently here.

The temples and shrines play a vastly smaller role than churches do for
Western religious groups, even in the countryside. There are no weekly
gatherings, and most people don't identify with specific temples or shrines,
at least not in any of the countryside I've spent time in.

Religion in Japan is national, not local.

You go to your local shrine for local festivals, and that's pretty much it. If
you move, you go to a different one.

You've got a small shrine in your house for talking with your ancestors
(called a kami-dana, or god-shelf), and people keep these to varying degrees,
no matter where in the country they live.

Otherwise, social gatherings are defined by your school or work, or by
whatever other organizations you might belong to. Youth groups, church
football leagues, and all the other stuff you have in the US doesn't exist
here.

So, no, they're not like agnostic christians. They're like Shinto-Buddhists,
which refers not to the biggest sect (Jodo Shinshu), but to the religious
blend that is most common in Japan (the Nichiren are also shinto-buddhists,
for example).

~~~
pyre

      > What they don't need is a patronizing attitude. These people are tough, and
      > they will overcome.
    

So the rest of the world should just ignore the tragedy that happened because
it isn't really a tragedy and the people are tough enough to get through it?

    
    
      > Panic is the real problem here, and the rest of the world acting like the entire
      > country has just been leveled by the fist of God is part of the problem.
    

Is the reaction of the rest of the world really causing the Japanese people to
panic? Is this what you are so frustrated with?

    
    
      > I wouldn't be so frustrated if I didn't have to deal with daily phone calls from
      > people back home asking whether or not I've grown a third head
    

Don't take that out on the rest of us.

    
    
      > Youth groups, church football leagues, and all the other
      > stuff you have in the US doesn't exist here.
    
      > So, no, they're not like agnostic christians.
    

I never meant to imply that Shinto-Buddhists and Agnostic Christians were
exactly alike. I'm sorry if you took it that way. I was hinting towards that
fact that they might not participate actively in the religion as much as older
folks do (and generations past might have), while at the same time self-
identifying with the religion. Much in the way many Agnostic Christians
identify as Christian, but don't belong to any church or attend any regular
services.

Personally I don't see how being an Agnostic Christian has anything to do with
youth groups, church football games, etc. Are you claiming that all (or even
most) Agnostic Christians participate actively in a church community? I was
using the term to represent people that self-identify as being Christian (or
maybe only sorta feel like there must be some god in a generic sense), but
don't really participate in the religion. Am I using the term wrong?

    
    
      > most people don't identify with specific temples or shrines
    

_Now_ maybe, but it's my understanding that in the past the temple at which
your family was formally registered meant something more than what you are
implying. (Though this was really imposed by the government of the time)

I'll admit that my viewpoints may be skewed because Jodo Shinshu 'temples' in
the US and Canada were modeled after Christian churches because the Japanese
immigrants were trying to fit in, and going to a more traditional temple would
have just been another way that they were different. On the other hand, I've
met 'ministers' that grew up (and studied) in Japan, and they didn't really
say that things were so much different here. So I don't know.

------
bad_user
So, I know that the Japanese are well prepared for earthquakes - I watched
documentaries on Discovery about it :)

But my God, this earthquake went off the charts. Then 500 other earthquakes of
magnitude 5 to 7 happened. Every one of those earthquakes would have been a
problem in my city, as we've got plenty of old buildings.

So it's really hard for me to believe that the Japanese are so well prepared.
I also saw pictures of survivers and of various affected areas and the
situation is rather not good.

The thing I admire Japanese for right now - they don't complain much and they
don't go creating more mayhem on the streets.

But that doesn't mean they don't need help, and if I were in Patrick's shoes,
I would be careful about stating such things - maybe because of this article,
some poor neighborhood / city that has been badly affected won't receive help
in due time, as public opinion does tend to have crazy effects like that.

------
sovande
I'm starting to get feed up about patio11 and the all's well attitude and
"we'll manage, thank you very much". The last head-count is seventeen thousand
dead and rising. It is obvious that all is _not_ well and that people in the
affected areas need help and fast.

~~~
bioh42_2
Japan has a population of ~ 300 million and is one of the most advanced and
wealthiest nations on Earth.

I am sure those affected need help but what makes you think others can provide
help better/faster then Japan itself can?

Perhaps the US navy has lifting capacity that Japan could use, but what else?

~~~
kqr2
Actually, the population of Japan is about 127 million.

<http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+japan>

~~~
bioh42_2
Huh, where did I even get the 300 number? I was sure of it! Kids, don't trust
your brain, check the facts you think you know!

------
charlief
At your discretion, how did you land this Patrick? Perhaps this can be better
answered on your blog, but did the NYT contact you after coming across your
article?

Original article submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2319629>

~~~
Natsu
He commented earlier on HN that lots of people from the news media had been
contacting him. Here's a link to what he said:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2330783>

~~~
charlief
Thank you. I still hope Patrick responds because I wanted to hear the specific
story. In what you linked, I imagine he was referring to reporters in
information-hunting mode.

------
Vivtek
Boy, the commenters there don't seem to agree with him much.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
Neither does Yuhei Sato, who is the governor of Fukushima prefecture:

" _Mr Sato said centres already housing people who had been moved from their
homes near the plant did not have enough hot meals and basic necessities such
as fuel and medical supplies. "We're lacking everything," he said._ "

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12763273>

~~~
nialo
These are not necessarily contradictory. Fukushima can quite easily be lacking
all of those things because they're stuck on the wrong side of Japan, where
more people who don't know how to fix roads or speak Japanese won't help.
Similarly, adding more supplies to the piles on the wrong side of the country
won't help either.

The point here is that the bottleneck is distribution of things that already
exist, not getting them to Japan in the first place.

------
adrianwaj
I'd like to see K-MAX unmanned helicopters dropping boric acid and seawater on
the reactors - or whatever is best.

"Japan nuclear crisis: radiation levels stop helicopter from dumping water."
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8385559...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/japan/8385559/Japan-
nuclear-crisis-radiation-levels-stop-helicopter-from-dumping-water.html)

Unmanned K-MAX helicopter achieves airdrop milestones
[http://www.gizmag.com/k-max-unmanned-helicopter-
milestones/1...](http://www.gizmag.com/k-max-unmanned-helicopter-
milestones/17969/)

------
charlief
_Many Americans are wondering what we can do to help. It's natural to want to
send money, food, blankets and the like to the survivors. But for now, what
may be most urgently needed is all possible assistance and expertise in
bringing the situation at the nuclear facilities under control._

I don't know what benefit there is in prioritizing what is more-urgent and
less-urgent. These efforts are not mutually-exclusive, let us provide both.
What good is it to generalize the utility of an option to the entire scope of
the disaster. Let's try to deal with each sub-problem individually.

------
patio11
My consolidated response:

1) Shortages in Fukushima, etc, are not caused by lack of food or money. Japan
has plenty of food and money. Japan has a temporary logistics problem with
getting food to particular refugee sites, because of a number of issues, most
critically that the infrastructure for delivering gas in the east got a severe
monkey-wrench thrown into it and it is difficult to truck in enough to do
distribution. With specific reference to Fukushima, the widening of the
exclusion zone caused refugees to have to be moved twice is as many days,
which also caused some issues.

The three closest ports for receiving refined gas got shut down by the tsunami
(along with most local refinery capacity), so it has been getting transported
by road from the other side of the country, and that has been hampered by
damage to certain roads. One of those ports will be brought online today. As
that situation gets better, the shortage of supplies for refugees will ease
very rapidly. They're working very hard on that right now. Aid will not speed
that process: any charity chosen at random is not better at doing gas delivery
than Japanese gas companies, and no part of the relief efforts is blocking on
lack of money.

2) Panic is not helping anyone, and foreign panic is feedback looping right
now, particularly in the foreign communities. The only reason I have talked to
the media at all is to stress the importance of them not panicking and not
provoking panic.

3) I respect enormously people's desire to help, but satisfying desire to help
is a very different thing from actually helping. The second is very important,
the first not so much.

I was on a program on the BBC the other day. Another guest was a foreign aid
worker from an organization I will not name. Host: "Where are you?" Him: "Not
quite sure, north of Tokyo. The map is in Japanese." When asked about their
plans for doing counseling, he said that they would find somebody locally who
speaks English, because in his experience at X disasters across the world
there is always somebody, and do counseling through the interpreter. One could
be forgiven for difficulty in finding the value of his organization's
assistance at the moment.

The US military's response has been invaluable -- choppers are very helpful
right now, and have been saving lives. If you don't come packing your own
distribution network designed to function parallel to the civilian ones, your
ability to convert any amount of desire into hot meals at a school in eastern
Japan is very limited right now.

After the immediate situation is addressed, Miyagi, Iwate, and the like will
have large reconstruction efforts. Japan has the political will and resources
to handle this.

A note: It is a very fluid situation. My blog post was written on Sunday, 3.5
days ago. The NYT asked me for a condensed version 2.5 days ago. Please keep
in mind, when you're hearing from anybody (including me), you're hearing
something which was true X amount of time ago in a situation evolving very
rapidly.

~~~
jfager
Randomly jumping on a flight into Japan to wander around asking people in
English if they need help is obviously stupid. But that's not just stupid for
Japan, that's stupid for pretty much everywhere. Pointing out its stupidity
isn't useful - people who would do that aren't listening to you anyways - so
why conflate that sort of behavior with simple, non-disruptive, non-panic-
inducing actions like donating money to the Red Cross? Or why contrast it with
requests like "send nuclear expertise and helicopters", which everyone who
meaningfully could and would is already doing?

After Katrina, Japan donated $200k to the US Red Cross, made $1m worth of
supplies available, and private donations from Japanese companies and
individuals went over $13m. The US certainly wasn't short of food or money, so
why did they bother?

A $50 donation to the Red Cross _will_ potentially help. Earmark it for their
general fund, and if they really don't need it for Japan, they'll spend it
somewhere else. This is such a bizarre thing to have to defend.

~~~
patio11
_they'll spend it somewhere else_

"Spend it somewhere else" was exactly what I wrote in my blog post, but when
the New York Times says "We can give you three hundred words" then Priority #1
is "Don't Panic" and Priority #Left_On_Cutting_Room_Floor is explaining to
people how relief organizations actually operate.

~~~
jfager
"Everything you actually could do is worthless to us, but please send all
possible help for this scary thing that you don't understand and can't
possibly actually assist with" is the opposite of "Don't Panic". It conveys
helplessness and disempowers your readers.

~~~
jonsmock
That's the opposite of how I read that. I take it as a comfort that they're
doing their best, and they're the best at what they're doing. If they needed
food or money, I would gladly send it, but he's saying they don't. Great!

------
edw519
Weird reading comments with 10 year old technology. All you can do is
"Recommend", "Report as inappropriate", or add you own comment without knowing
where it will fall in the thread. Replying to someone else is basically
useless.

Maybe I'm spoiled by Hacker News, but without the give and take of healthy
debate, it's hard to learn much.

But then again, maybe that's the point.

------
mattm
If you're not aware, Japan's broadcaster NHK has an English-translated
broadcast - <http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/> or
<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv>

I would suggest watching it to get a Japanese view on things.

Watching it yesterday, people in the disaster area and around the power plant
were pleading for help as they are running dangerously low on supplies. Many
of the interviewees were criticizing the government on their inability to get
supplies to them. People in the 30km radius were complaining that they
couldn't get any truck drivers that were willing to enter the area. Also keep
in mind that this is the north of Japan. It is below freezing and has been
snowing.

------
uptown
The thing I don't get about Patrick's opinion is that in his initial write-up
he compares his personal danger and proximity to the disaster zone with
"someone ringing up Mayor Daley [the mayor of Chicago] during Katrina and
saying “My God man, that’s terrible — how are you coping?”"

Well, if his argument was that distance separates him from being able to
relate to the problems on the ground, why should anybody look to him for
guidance on how to provide aid?

------
mathrawka
I always look forward to his blog posts, but I think he needs to stop talking
about something he is not very aware about.

Yes, Japan is well prepared for disasters, but that does not mean it doesn't
need help. The preparation for a disaster mainly involves saving lives, not
helping people get back to their way of living.

What is the best way to help out? I wish I knew, but sending money for relief
efforts seems to be a good way.

Honestly, I'm fuming about his remarks and believe he is causing more trouble
the more he speaks.

------
robg
Crazy to put a face to the handle. It's what I love about old school forums
like this. The identity is a token.

------
rewind
Ignore anyone who says they don't need cash. It's nonsense. Just turn your TV
on for two minutes. We should be opening our wallets as much for Japan right
now as we've done for any country facing this sort of crisis in the past.

~~~
orangecat
It's just not clear to me how more cash will help. It seems that the major
problems involve the logistics of getting rescuers and supplies to people who
need them, and money isn't the limiting factor there. GiveWell seems to agree:
[http://blog.givewell.org/2011/03/15/update-on-how-to-help-
ja...](http://blog.givewell.org/2011/03/15/update-on-how-to-help-japan-
funding-is-not-needed-we-recommend-giving-to-doctors-without-borders-to-
promote-better-disaster-relief-in-general/)

