Yesterday was my first day back at work after the earthquake, and as you might expect, things were completely normal. My students wanted to discuss the earthquake, and although many had relatives in the Tokyo area, nobody had any friends/relatives in the harder-hit Tohoku area. That was certainly good news, but the bad news was that I had to teach words like ‘aftershock’, ‘nuclear power station’ and ‘radiation’ over and over again.
As for the factory, although there was no damage from the disaster, they do purchase a lot of parts and equipment from vendors in the Tokyo area, and it is unclear when (or whether) those parts can be delivered in the near future. Transportation is in an on-again off-again status right now in the Tokyo area. Because of intermittent power outages, poor communication, and what appears to be indecisive power company executives, nobody is quite sure when they can travel to Tokyo and whether they can go to work.
In true Japanese fashion, the news was filled yesterday with everyone trying to go to work in Tokyo, waiting in huge lines for trains that may or may not run, and long, long delays. I would be calling in sick and waiting for things to settle down, but it seems like everyone knows that the best way to get the Japanese economy running again is to get back to work and start producing ASAP. Or maybe they just wanted to get out of the house after a weekend of non-stop disaster coverage on TV.
