One month and one day ago I had just checked-in to the Grand Arc Hanzomon Hotel in Tokyo. Getting the lift up to the 15th floor (Japanese 15th floor), I then placed my bags down, showered and sat wondering how to spend the last night of my trip to Japan.
Within seconds, the decision was made for me.
Standing in the middle of my room, I began to feel the floor beneath my feet sway. It was not too dissimilar to the feeling I get when a double-decker bus goes past. But, the swaying began to get bigger and bigger. Soon, the whole room was moving as my balance was rapidly declining. I was able to catch a quick glance out to the National Theatre next door; people were streaming out, before I was thrown on to the bed. It was then that it hit me: This was an earthquake!
The next few minutes were blurry and shaky and probably against all earthquake safety advice, as I clambered out of my room into the hallway.
Making my way down the fire escape, as the building was still swaying; it was like a platform game, having to move various obstacles off the stairwell to free my path. I’ve never made my way down 14 flights of stairs so fast.
What then followed was confusion: What has just happened? How big has this been? Where do I go? The calm and polite staff carried on with their roles; a smiling, middle-aged man insisting the building was ‘earthquake-proof’. But, as an ignorant foreigner, from a land where natural disasters equate to heavy rain, I still felt unsure as the aftershocks kept coming.
After an evening of sitting in the hotel’s banquet rooms and a night of constant aftershocks back in my 15th floor room, I went down to the reception area the next morning to find the strangest of things: A girl blowing up helium balloons for what appeared to be a wedding. And indeed, having checked-out and sitting in the lobby area before moving on, there was indeed a wedding in the hotel that very morning.
Also that morning, looking out of my window to see if the traffic jams out of Tokyo remained, I saw only joggers and the occasional car going passed. In fact, I saw a number of joggers.
There were a lot of joggers in Japan, particularly as my hotels were next to Osaka-jo Koen and the Imperial Palace. All warps of life; all ages, shapes and sizes. The Nihon-jin go for a jog. So, they were damned if they were to let a major international disaster prevent them from their Saturday routine.
While the signs of the previous day’s event were apparent: Shops disposed of supplies; disrupted transport services; Tokyo’s bustling streets not quite as busy, life, to an extent, carried on as normal. While some left the city, others remained and went to work as if any other day.
Before I went to Japan, a friend sent me a link to the BBC Three situation-comedy series ’15 Storeys High’. Like most things on BBC Three when I was at University, I missed it. But, starring Sean Lock, whom I like, I had often perused the DVD case.
When back from Japan, I ordered the DVD online for the nice price of £5. I then proceeded to watch it over and over, enjoying its slow pace and deadpan humour, as you’d expect from Sean Lock.
Mixing, as it does, the situation-comedy of Vince, a moody, sour-faced life guard, and his scared-of-life lodger, Errol, and the sketch comedy of the lives of the other residents of the Kennington tower block in which it is set, the show has a great balance and fresh feel.
Well acted by Sean Lock and Benedict Wong throughout, ’15 Storeys High’ follows the route of most British sit-coms, looking at the dull and depressing lives of two men that live together. ‘Peep Show’ has its point-of-view perspective; ‘The Office’ has its documentary style; ‘The Thick of It’ has its fly-on-the-wall feel; and ’15 Storeys High’ has its mix with sketches of the lives of others that you would never normally see.
Probably not a typical snapshot of life in a tower block, ’15 Storeys High’ does show the varied lives of those living in Britain today, with a very British sense of humour.
Some have criticised the Japanese attitude upon my return to London, but if an event like this were to happen here there would be widespread panic that would be at the detriment to all. One only has to look at the mass panic-buying of supplies when a few inches of snow fell to see how the British would struggle with a major earthquake, tsunami and threat of radiation. For that the Japanese have to be admired.
With widespread damage, money and possessions lay strewn across the land, yet police in Miyagi Prefecture have reported rates of much higher than usual handing-in of money found. Despite all that has happened, life will carry on as ever; the normality perhaps providing comfort to those whose lives have been affected.
I’m able to sit here, now on the other side of the planet, watching progress of the situation, able to comment on comedy series that I have watched and enjoyed, as my life is as it was before. But, with further earthquakes hitting Japan and the nuclear threat being raised to maximum, no one can say what will happen next. One hopes the end is soon, and that the Japanese resolve will not need be tested further.
Ban, the dog found 3 weeks after the earthquake, floating on debris a mile out to sea, sets the example for the rest of the world. Ganbatte!
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