First of all, thank you to everyone who contacted Japan Zone asking if we were okay or with offers of help or refuge. Each and every one was much appreciated. I and my family are all fine and we are staying put and doing our best to carry on as normally as circumstances will allow.
To everyone who has bought a Supporting Japan t-shirt, please know that your donation to the Japanese Red Cross Society will very soon be helping those most in need in the Tohoku region. Thank you.
Japan Zone is based in Nagoya in central Japan. We certainly felt the huge earthquake on March 11 and it was quite frightening in its persistence. But no real damage was done and there were no injuries let alone deaths in this region. As scale of the disaster became increasingly apparent, I and many others here in the Nagoya foreign community felt we had to do something to help. The t-shirts are one way we are contributing, and in downtown Nagoya last night I took part in a packed meeting of people either carrying out or planning various initiatives to help the relief efforts. I also helped organize a bicycle donation drive and we shipped a 2-ton truck of bikes to Tohoku, where they are an important lifeline for people in evacuation shelters.
Japan Zone is a very small operation (okay, it’s basically just me!) and there is a limit to how much can be done in any given 24 hours. So for the time being, entertainment news updates are going to be put on hold while I try and focus my energies on, well, more important things. But if there is anybody out there who feels they could do the updates on a voluntary basis, let me know and we’ll see if we can work something out.