Cameraman Bob Grieve was recently in Japan with 3 News reporter Jessica Rowe covering the aftermath of the Japan quake and tsunamis. He blogs about his experience in the country.
By Bob Grieve
My first experience in Japan was very unpleasant indeed. I’m not referring to the devastating tsunami damage, the constant aftershocks or the threat of a nuclear meltdown, but rather to a quick visit that I made to the airport toilets in Tokyo. I was sitting on the throne, just finishing up the paperwork, when I noticed a button beside the bowl. I concluded that this was the method of flushing the toilet, but oh, how wrong I was! Before I knew what had hit me I was blasted up the crack by a jet stream so powerful I could almost taste the toilet water in the back of my throat. I stumbled out of the stall gasping and in a state of shock. I’d never felt so violated in my life! A lot of people told me that visiting Japan would be a life changing experience, and several minutes after touching down I knew exactly what they had meant.
It’s fair to say that, as a Kiwi cameraman in Japan, I was a fish out of water: I didn’t know how to eat miso soup with chopsticks; I tried to order some sushi and got a shiatsu by mistake; and it took me over an hour to try and convince my car’s navigation system to drive to the northeast region of the country, areas that were hit hard by the recent tsunamis. And boy did I pay the price for that decision - about $150 on road tolls, that is, which converts to roughly fifty billion yen.
As we made our way up north I was mentally preparing myself for the dramatic scenes my camera and I were about to witness. Like everybody else in New Zealand, I was glued to my television on March 11th, struggling to comprehend what I was seeing. 14 metre high waves rampaging through Japan’s coastline and callously destroying everything and everybody in their path. Who can even imagine such horror? However as we reached ground zero and saw, felt and smelled the damage first hand, an entirely different set of emotions kicked in.
Before I go any further I should probably briefly explain the psyche of a cameraman. When we look at the world, we see it through a black and white lens. We look at the shot potential of any given situation. We become strangely aroused by the mere thought of tracking shots, white balances and whip pans. So in that respect, what I was presented with in northern Japan was a Disneyland of shot opportunities. I looked in one direction and saw a giant fishing boat upside down in the middle of the street: GREAT SHOT! I turned the corner and saw a school bus teetering on the top edge of a three storey building: WOW THAT’S AWESOME! As far as the eye could see, uprooted buildings, castaway trucks and cars, and the scattered debris of a once thriving city. Yes indeed the pull focus possibilities were endless! But I felt strangely removed from the humanity of the whole situation. I was in a dreamlike state; none of it seemed real. Perhaps it was because this area resembled the film set of an apocalyptic action movie. I was half expecting Arnold Schwarzenegger to emerge from the rubble with a bazooka in one arm and his illegitimate lovechild in the other.
What I wasn’t expecting, however, was to meet a local man named Mr Fujita. It was late in the day, I was tired and getting grumpy, and all I wanted to do was go back to the hotel, eat some seaweed and drink some rice liquor. But instead we found ourselves struggling through an interview with a man whose house had been destroyed. He was babbling on and on, waving his arms in the air in a somewhat comical manner. Of course we didn’t understand a word he was saying; he may as well have been talking about the health risks of KFC’s Double Down burger. This was going nowhere. Or so I thought. Just as I was about to pull the plug on what I considered to be a waste of our time, something rather unexpected happened - our translator burst into tears and embraced Mr Fujita in a big hug. It only dawned on me at that moment that maybe this local resident had a pretty horrific tale to tell. And as the translator filled us in, I quickly realised that his home was not the only thing that Mr Fujita had lost on that day. His entire family was swept away by the violent tidal wave, his loved ones and livelihood all swiped from him at once. The very essence of his life had been shattered. And after frantically trying to save his family to no avail, how did Mr Fujita spend the rest of his day? He joined a group of volunteers and helped recover countless bodies, many of whom were his friends, from the deadly swamp that once resembled his beloved neighbourhood. I switched off my camera. I thanked Mr Fujita for sharing his heartbreaking story, and he looked me in the eyes and said to me, in English, “It was my destiny”.
My camera stayed off for the rest of the day. As we drove back to the hotel, passing miles upon miles of destroyed terrain; things were no longer black and white for me. The images I had been celebrating earlier in the day were coming back to haunt me. A family photo album, a Mickey Mouse toy, a child’s shoe – symbols of everyday life, discarded in the rubble. The teetering school bus on the roof became a chilling reminder that many thousands of school kids had lost their lives on that day. The stench in the air was quite possibly that of the undiscovered thousands who had perished. Mr Fujita was only one of millions of people who were left reeling from this catastrophic moment in history. And although I didn’t entirely understand his “destiny” comment, it was this man who made me truly understand the human impact of this disaster, and the resilience of the people who picked up the broken pieces and moved on.
I spent that evening in my hotel room (or should I say closet - why is everything so compact in Japan? And how the hell do the sumo wrestlers manage these tight confines?) reflecting on my journey. I was drinking sake and eating teriyaki when a magnitude 4.5 aftershock rocked my little room. I was suddenly reminded of home. I’d soon be back in Christchurch, tilting, panning and pull focusing through the destruction and cleanup in my own backyard. And I greeted that prospect with a warm optimism. My trip to Japan really made me appreciate the unpredictability of life, and the importance of triumphing over tragedy. While I don’t believe it was my “destiny” to take this journey, I can say undoubtedly that it was a life changing experience! Sure, I’m on my fifth bowl of sake as I’m writing this, so forgive this humble cameraman for getting a little sentimental. I must admit, however, that those Japanese toilets still scare the crap out of me (no pun intended)! Arigatou Gozaimasu!