Visiting Fukushima and Ishinomaki for an 'Internship'

To be honest, I don't understand why they call it an internship. It is actually more like a field-trip rather than an internship. But anyway, I would gladly put this as an internship in my curriculum-vitae LOL. The journey of this internship was started from 27th of September. There were in total three places that we visited, first was Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute AIST (FREA), the second one was the tsunami-damaged area of Ishinomaki, and the last one was International Research Institute of Disaster Science which is located at Aobayama campus. Primarily the aim of this internship to gain experience and exposure of research from various disciplines which are collaborated to solve specific problems. That is the reason why the course is named "Multi-Interdisciplinary."

Our arrival at Fukushima was welcomed by the staff there, and they guided us to a lecture room for a short introduction about this facility. The director of the institute itself was the one who gave us the short lecture. So basically, FREA is an Institute established after Great East Japan Earthquake in Koriyama city, Fukushima under the umbrella of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) which aims to be a global innovation hub concerning renewable energy. Several potential renewable energy sources are studied and researched intensively to ensure its global usage in the near future. In FREA, the research topic consists of 6 main issues which are, Hydrogen Energy Carrier, Heat Utilization, Wind Power, Photovoltaic Power, Geothermal Energy, Shallow Geothermal and Hydrogeology.

I was particularly interested in Hydrogen Energy Carrier.  So, the basic concept of Hydrogen Energy Carrier is to utilize hydrogen as an energy storage system. For example, energies obtained from a wind turbine, solar panel, and geothermal power are used to electrolyze water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. This Hydrogen takes a form of gas in which it is ready to use. The hydrogen is then compressed or transformed into other forms which have smaller volume such as fuel cell or ammonia. Japan aims for hydrogen society by 2020 in which Hydrogen will conquer the market of the Car industry. However, there is a catch here, the conversion energy obtained to hydrogen is pretty low up to now. And the technology itself is not cheap either, making it difficult to get into the market. Some people even being skeptical about this system. For example, Elon Musk. He thinks this system is redundant and not efficient because there is too much energy loss during the process. It would be more efficient if let say, the energy from the solar cell in the form of electricity is directly stored in a solid-state battery.  So far, in term of efficiency, solid-state battery wins. But concerning energy density and performance, fuel cell wins. So, it is a race between the two of them. I am so excited to see which one will conquer the market.

After having a short tour around the facilities, we had a small discussion, and we departed to Ishinomaki. The moment I arrived at Ishinomaki, I was a bit shocked because everything was just flat, especially nearby the coastal area. Japan seems to be effective and efficient when it comes to building something, and yet even seven years after the tsunami, the progress of rebuilding Ishinomaki is still going on. It just showed me how devastating the tsunami was. Everything was wiped out into open flat ground. It gave me chill down to my spine only by seeing that scenery,  imagining what would I do if I were in their shoes. The story of Ishinomaki was quite tragic to listen. So, two days before the tsunami happened, there had been an earthquake and evacuation alarm was delivered to everyone due to a prediction of a tsunami. Everyone successfully evacuated but the tsunami didn't happen. Two days later, an earthquake occurred again, and there was a tsunami alarm.  Ironically, everybody was skeptical, and they thought it might be a false alarm again. So everybody stayed. Sadly, that was the fateful day. The story couldn't be worse than that. By listening to the story, I felt like I was slapped right on my face. I usually was typical of the person who might ignore that kind of alarm as well considering how inaccurate the prediction is. No matter how inaccurate a disaster alarm is, I realize that it is not something to joke about. From an engineering perspective, we should learn from this incident, and strive to level up our technology into perfection. And for the countermeasures, the government in Ishinomaki does not allow any civilization exists near the coastal area, everything is moved up into the higher area. They also built a taller wall at the beachfront and close to the river bank. With a better accuracy of the prediction method, coupled with improved strength and height of the water breakers, I hope Ishinomaki becomes more resilient to any tsunami in the future. Of course, we would pray that a tsunami will never happen again, but sometimes it is just inevitable as a part of nature itself.

On the last day, we visited the International Research Institute of Disaster Science at Aobayama. The first 30 minutes was a short lecture given by a researcher from Thailand. He showed us how He simulates a tsunami in a computer and observes its consequences.  I just knew that even without an earthquake happened, a tsunami might occur as well. This usually occurs when the epicenter is located far enough from the coast, making the quake is undetectable, and there are no obstacles for the wave to travel in between.  This kind of tsunami ever happened in Japan. For that, we have to rely on our satellite technology to detect the incoming tsunami. After He finished his presentation, we had a small discussion, and we watched a documentary film about the tsunami tragedy from the perspective of Ishinomaki local citizen. The story was heart-touching. It showed us how they lost their family and relatives, how everything was destroyed at an instant.  Overall, I gained and learned a lot of things from this internship.  

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My Experience on Akagi Tsudoi

Yo yo, how are you guys doing with your summer holiday? Mine was marvelous in the August part (in fact I still have one month left of my summer holiday). Nope, It's not about me traveling around Japan. I'm gonna tell my story what I've been through from 18th of August to 23rd of August. So, the story began when I had no idea what I was gonna do to spend my summer holiday. I was thinking about having a productive and positive holiday. It can be volunteering, doing part-time, studying, or anything. But, who the fuck is gonna study during the summer holiday? Meh. And I remembered that last year there was something called Ashinaga summer camp volunteering in which I was about to apply last year but felt reluctant after seeing the prerequisites on the website. One of them says you have to be able to speak daily conversational Japanese. I was barely able to understand when a Japanese is talking to me, let alone to speak decent Japanese. So, it turned me down. But after getting my N3 level last December, I feel like 'Hey, why shouldn't you give a try? If you are not accepted, you have nothing to lose'. Then I consulted a bit with my friend, his name was Omar, and He already joined as a volunteer for several camps. He said that most of the international volunteers He met couldn't even speak beginner level of Japanese. To hear that, I was like 'It was just me being a coward I guess' haha. 

So, l guess I should explain briefly what Ashinaga is. From what I know, Ashinaga is a non-profit charity organization that takes care of orphaned students. So they give scholarships for them to pursue their education and higher education. They even provide a chance for the students to study abroad if they are willing to. The form of scholarship that we are talking about is in the form of a soft loan with no interest. The students have to pay it within 20 years (but it's not that strict). What interesting from Ashinaga is, they are not just a walking ATM. Because not all problems can be solved only by money, am I right? They act like a family for the students, and they give moral support as well aside from financial aid. The purpose of this summer camp (they call it tsudoi ーつどい which literally means gathering in English) is to give a chance for the students to build a strong relationship with other students with the same background and to provide exposure to the world outside Japan with the presence of international volunteers. Based on their story that I heard, the loss of parents for young children may have traumatized some of them, to the extent that they have a difficulty to interact with people. Financial struggles also exacerbate their mental condition. Some of them even thought of giving up on their dream. And by meeting with people from the same background, and listening to the stories of others, the students can hopefully cheer each other and replenish their motivation to chase their dream. 

So yeah get back to the topic, this story should center around my experience joining tsudoi. It started from Saturday, 18th of August, I was worried at first. I mean, I was not sure if I would be able to communicate with the students. I mean, JLPT means nothing when it comes to speaking because the test doesn't include speaking test. And I rarely talked to Japanese, most of my friends are international students. But hey, I met Louise from France and Yasmin from Morocco who couldn't speak Japanese (peace :D). And they had already joined tsudoi before, so I guessed it's gonna be fine haha. The international team consisted of interns and volunteers. Most of them were interns while the volunteers were just Alwan and me. After we arrived at the place, it was basically a public facility where you can rent it, pretty much like a dormitory for athletes, we were welcomed by the leaders. What shocked me about this facility is, there isn't even a single private shower. There is only a public bath. Because the schedule was so tight, we only got the chance to take a bath in the evening. I've never been in a public bath before. So, when I went to the locker room to put my stuff with the others, they casually took off their clothes while having a chat. I was shocked. They were all naked. My jaw literally dropped. I ended up not taking a bath on the first day. On for the next days, I took a bath when everyone was not around XD. Back to the topic. So, the leaders are also Ashinaga scholarship recipients who had already joined tsudoi several times. And they are college students, the same with me, so I guess we could get along easier :/. Their job is to be the leaders and mentors for the high school students later. The first two days were leaders training; the leaders were divided into several groups with one or two international team members. International team members should tag along with their respective group aside from leaders meeting. When the leaders had their meeting, we also had our meeting. Mainly to prepare for what we were going to do on International Team Time on Wednesday. I was placed in group 4, where I met Yami san, Kensuke san, Mi san, Mitsuki san, Cikako san, Maikuru san and Marina san as the leaders. When I introduced my self in Japanese, everyone was like "Nihongo ga joozu desune" which means they praised my Japanese. C'mon, it is just an introduction where you have done it over and over to the point that you remember every single word you have to say XD. Aside from introducing myself, my Japanese is 'bara-bara' (not fluent). I thank you all for patiently listening to my broken Japanese XD. Whenever I didn't understand a word, I would check a dictionary, so the conversation was paused a bit LOL. When had group time, we would play various silly games. I shit you not, it was totally silly that you would never do that outside this camp. At least for me. There was one game that I couldn't stop laughing on. It was called aishiteru game. So basically you have to say aishiteru (in English it means I love you) to someone, while for the person who receives the aishiteru word is not allowed to laugh. In order to make your opponent laugh, you have to put your best honest expression as if you actually love her LoL. From my experience, the girls couldn't help to laugh if you stare directly into their eyes while you say the aishiteru word XD. Kensuke was good at it, I wonder if He is a playboy. The expression that He made when He said aishiteru is so ingrained in my brain that I can laugh anytime just by recalling it. Silly but hilarious. But with these stupid small games, we gradually became more open toward each other. I felt wonderful. This was my first time to burst laughter with Japanese people. Rather than training, I felt like we were having fun around eh? 

When the high school students came, we were split into two groups, leaving me in group 6 with Yami san, Kensuke san, Mi san, and Chikako san. After the opening ceremony, as usual, we must introduce ourselves once again in front of everyone in the group. In group six, there were, Monta san, Sumacchi san, sisho san, saito san, yuipi chan, haruka chan, ai chan and erika chan. Unexpectedly, they are all talkative which made me feel comfortable as soon as I met them. They talked a lot to me, and it was my first time that a Japanese proactively approached me as a foreigner to chat in Japanese. We spent time together on almost every occasion, from playing games, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cooking together and so on. Aside from that, we had a progressive discussion starting with small talks. They asked me about my impression of Japan, future dreams, even the future of AI. What a productive summer holidays. I also told them a bit about where I come from, Indonesia. Most of them didn't really know about Indonesia, so I got to tell them a bit. Of course, with broken Japanese. 

Three days passed so quickly that I didn't even realize. On the first day, I thought, 'Oh, this is gonna be a long three days.' But it turned out to be so fast because I was so invested in it. On the third day, it was the peak of the event. There was one session called 'My life story' where everyone sat around in a classroom and talked about what their life story. You were allowed to tell pretty much anything. The reason why this session was put on the third day was with the hope that each member of the group at least has become more open toward each other. So, they can comfortably share their story with everyone in the group. It was emotionally intense. The stories are confidential for each respective groups so I can't tell it here. What I can say is, these kids have gone through harsh reality. And back then, they were alone. Some students even cried. I didn't cry at the moment, but I was so sad that I couldn't utter a single word. But I was glad to be able to join this session. By knowing their past, a strong bond grew between us. At the end of the session, I tried to cheer them up and motivate them. I tried to convince them that no matter how painful their past was, a bright future awaits everyone who makes the most effort. And on the last night of tsudoi, there was something called "campfire". Every participant gathered in a field, centering a medium-size bonfire. We were having fun at first, we sang the theme song, and we danced. And then, every representative from each group moved forward. They spoke out their will and resolution loudly while holding a fire torch. Everyone was silently listening to each representative. This session is so iconic. I almost cried in this session. This was the moment that I definitely will not forget. On the last day, we had to write a message to everyone in the group on a sticky note. And later, you pasted it on a carton paper. I slept late to write all of these messages LoL. I want everyone remembers me forever, and I want everyone to feel that they are important to me. So I wrote a pretty long letter for each member of the group. You know that you become attached to a person when you feel sad if you are about to say goodbye. That was what I felt to everyone in the group. And finally, after the closing ceremony, we parted away :'). I hope we can meet again later :D. 

I would like to thank every intern for helping me as a volunteer on many occasions. Theresa, Shane, Yasmin, Louise, Winky, and Xan. You guys are awesome. And to everyone that made my experience on tsudoi unforgettable. 

These are the photos that sum up akagi tsudoi.

*Forgot that I am not allowed to upload any pictures of someone without their permission.  

Campfire

Me delivering my impression on closing ceremony with my broken Japanese

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