I heard a ringtone today that I hadn’t for over six months. Mahna-mahna…sang my phone and I picked-up immediately because I knew it was my daughter Clara newly home from Japan. She had flown off back in early September 2010 excited to be embarking on a year-long sojourn as part of the University of Washington’s study abroad program. She was gone for two semesters at Keio University, Japan’s oldest private university, and eleven months on her own in the world’s largest metropolis. Total immersion to finish out her senior year as a Japanese Language and Linguistics major, take the JLPT in July and return home in triumph with one quarter left to complete her second bachelor’s degree. (Can you tell I’m a proud chichi?)
Clara adjusted to life in Japan quicker than I had expected and she soon had good friends with whom to share the downtime between classes and study. Skype and Facebook kept us connected in a way that somehow felt stronger than when she was in Seattle living cross-town. Catching her for a video call was just more meaningful with her 17 time zones away. I could browse her and her friends’ photo albums on Facebook and not feel like I was a helicopter parent hovering. I had a good reason to be that attentive as she needed the support. And I knew this would be a pivotal once-in-a-lifetime experience.
I did not anticipate that this experience could suddenly mutate beyond recognition.
But it did.
Clara turned 21 (in a country where the drinking age is 20) in February during the long semester break and in early March planned a trip to Kyoto with friends. I was happy to see her get out of Tokyo and travel a bit. They took the overnight bus and stayed in a hostel for several days, had a great time and were to return on a Friday evening on another overnight bus. Not. It was Friday, March 11.
That Thursday evening in Seattle I was going fallow for a while grazing my DVR and dropped back into cable just in time to see the first reports of the 8.8 (soon updated to an 8.9, later a 9.0) earthquake off the NE coast of Japan. What good fortune Clara had gone south to Kyoto and not north to Sendai! I alternated between checking her Facebook status and watching the horror unfold as the tsunami broke over the coast televised in near real-time. Thankfully soon I saw this on her status update:
Clara Nadja Lawryniuk
Ironically, she had not felt the earthquake at all in Kyoto and only learned of it from passers-by. Once back at the hostel we got to chat on Facebook and I updated her on all the news I had absorbed, the start of a week-long consult that grew more complex over time as the situation with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant evolved. That first night after the quake most transport was not functioning; all of Tokyo’s metro was shut down as were the highways, which are mostly elevated and required inspection. Clara returned to her dorm in Hiyoshi a day late and to an uncertain situation. Would there be food? Power? Water even?
Before she had left for Japan I had let the thought pass through my mind that the potential for her experiencing an earthquake while in Tokyo was pretty high, but then so is the potential here at home. It never crossed my mind that she might experience a once-in-a-millennium event. Clara mostly took it all in stride and was determined to stay the course and finish her second semester at Keio. We researched factual news to counter the hysteria that seemed to pervade most media and that invaded her home in the form of freaked-out students fleeing for their homes abroad and hell-bent on ensuring that all around them felt the full force of their panic. Midweek we decided that it would be prudent to have her wait out the Fukushima drama with a friend in Osaka, so she took the shinkansen south, met-up with her friend from Seattle and woke-up to a crushing and wholly unexpected blow.
The UW had canceled their entire study abroad program in Japan. No choice, no options, unilaterally. I replied to the email Clara forwarded me on the 17th:
My daughter is in Japan on a 2-semester program at Keio University and intends to graduate from the UW after Fall 2011. She is extremely upset that her program is cancelled. Your action takes away her one chance to have this immersive experience and accelerate her Japanese language skills. There will be no way to replace this lost experience.
We have been closely monitoring the situation in Japan and realize that the time may come where leaving Japan is the prudent thing to do. But that time is not now. The situation could resolve favorably in the next week. We were willing to wait and see how this resolves; this decree takes that decision entirely out of our hands. We protest.
But protest all you want, it makes no difference. Clara was devastated. And now she is home. Today is the first day of Spring quarter at the UW but she has no motivation to start. She will take the time off and let her grief work its way out.
I know compared to the thousands who lost their lives or were directly impacted by the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami this is small beans. But on that scale most everything is. Still, lives are impacted in many ways and Clara’s grief for her lost opportunity and for the premature leaving behind of good friends (made closer by shared adversity) is no less real. It is her experience. And mine, vicariously.
