Victor Kochaphum
Victor was born in Thailand, and at two years old, he and his family moved to San Francisco, USA. He started studying Japanese in college, and was an exchange student in Kyoto for one year. Currently, he is an ALT in Tanohata, and is 29 years old.
March 11th
“That day, I was eating lunch with a friend in Miyako who was planning on returning to his country. The earthquake struck as we were paying.” Victor had grown up in San Francisco, so he had already experienced very strong earthquakes. “There had been a large tsunami warning transmitted to my cell phone. My friend wanted to evacuate to his apartment right by the ocean, but I told him we needed to go for high ground.”
They evacuated to the grounds of an elementary school on high ground, and watched footage of Miyako being overcome by the tsunami waves on his tiny cell phone screen. “At that time my phone ran out of batteries, so we didn’t know the waves had gone over the seawall. I didn’t want to believe it.” The roads to Tanohata were blocked preventing his return home, so he went to a Japanese friend’s house to stay. Along with his friend’s Namibian wife and friends from England, the Philippines, and Australia, they took refuge for five days.
* Five foreigners and four Japanese spend time in this room.
Fear of the Nuclear Accident
There were many people who returned to their countries after the nuclear situation worsened in Fukushima. However, “I had very strong ties to the Miyako region so I didn’t want to go home. I knew that it was important to support my friends in a time like this.” In the three years he had lived in Japan, Victor had made many friends through various activities. “My parents told me to come home because they were hearing a lot of incorrect information flying around. I told them about the situation and managed to persuade them that I was safe and they didn’t need to worry.”
To Kobe
Three weeks after the disaster, Victor received information from friends in Kansai that there were supplies left by a returning ALT in the Kobe Board of Education. “It took me 16 hours on April 15th to drive to Kobe.” It surprised him that, “in Iwate, there were no convenience stores open and no supplies, but once I crossed into Niigata things looked like normal.” Why did he go all the way to Kobe? “ I wanted to let my friends know that I was alright. I wanted to see for myself that places outside of Tohoku were safe.” He heard on the news that refuge centers needed more supplies, and decided to bring them from Kobe.
Moving Forward
“Everyone I know has prepared a disaster bag because there’s always a chance a disaster will strike again. We still can’t believe what’s happened. We’ve managed to get through day by day, but we still haven’t gotten over the fear.” Victor is quite skilled at Japanese, but during the crisis he had a difficult time understanding emotional or deep subjects. It left him frustrated. “There are students whose families that were killed. I wanted to be able to understand their fears and sadness. Even if they look okay, they’re dealing with a lot of turmoil inside.”
At the end of July, Victor returned home for a short time. The first thing he wanted to do was, “give my mom a hug. I couldn’t talk to her for four days after the disaster; she was so worried she cried.”
* He delivered as many supplies as would fit to Yamada.
http://iwate-ia.or.jp/cms/media/kikanshi/2011/2011autumn-kikanshi-E.pdf
（Iwate International Association September 30, 2011）
