Earthquake Man

Discussions about earthquakes in Kochi-prefecture rarely have room for conditionals. Statements like "IF there were a big earthquake," "IF your house should fall down," or "IF a tsunami came," are replaced by "WHEN the big earthquake hits and your house falls down, head for the hills because the tsunamis ARE on their way!"


Results of the last big earthquake in Kochi, 1946

So certain is a big earthquake in the region that it already has a name. It's called the Nankai Earthquake, and its magnitude will be around 8.4 (compared to 7.3 for the Kobe earthquake). Muroto - just down the road - can expect tsunamis of about 12 metres (compared to the 5 metre waves that devastated the coastlines of Thailand, Sri Lanka and India in December). My house should be safe from tsunamis (I think...), but when the dams burst upstream, there will be tsunamis from both directions. Not an entirely pleasant thought.



The Nankai earthquake strikes about once every 100 years, and given that the last big quake was only 59 years ago, the chance of it going off in the next year or two is tolerably slim (10% chance in the next 10 years). But stretch that timeline out to 50 years and the odds rise to about 80%. It's scary to think that all of my Japanese friends here in Kochi will more than likely experience it in their lifetimes. My supervisor seems to live in fear of it, mumbling how he wishes he lived in Australia. I tell him we may not have earthquakes, but that we do have bushfires. But we both know it's not the same thing, and that Japan's deep-seated fear of earthquakes is not without good reason.


Photo of modern Kochi and the same photo taken right after the 1946 quake knocked down the city then swallowed it up with tsunamis (click for bigger size).

But as Japanese as the fear of earthquakes and tsunamis may be, even more quintessentially 'Japanese' is the act of turning them into cute cartoon characters. Kochi-born cartoonist Takashi Yanase, creator of the now legendary Anpanman - the superhero who feeds hungry kids with his red-bean bread head (I went to his museum last year - a couple of photos here) - has done the impossible. He succeded in making even the horror of natural disasters cute.



The heroes are 'Countermeasure-boy' (top-right) 'Help-girl' (next to him) 'Guidance-guy' (bottom-right) and the Proff. But cute as the heroes may be, it's mean old 'Earthquake-man' (top-right) and his sidekick 'Tsunami-man' (bottom-left) that steal the show.

Those are two cartoon-characters I never want to meet!

Singapore Stopover

"People are too busy to appreciate their lives these days," declared the elderly Chinese gentleman in his perfect Queen's English, his even older and rather stately-looking Indian friend nodding in agreement on his wooden crate in the midst of one of the city's swarming shopping arcades.

But busy and multi-cultural as it is, Singapore must also be one of the easiest cities in the world to visit. There is Little India, which has the colour and curries of India, without the hassle of hawkers, open-sewers and beggars. There's the Chinese quarter (although these days it should really be the Chinese three-quarters), which has the food, temples and markets of China without the communist overtones or the communication barriers (I never did really get used to a whole nation of Asians all speaking near-perfect English, even among themselves).



And the city is clean! Cleaner even than Japan. In fact, cleanliness seems to be a national obsession, with hard-core legislation to back it up. Forget to flush the toilet and you're looking at a minimum $150 fine! Spit and you’re looking at at least $1000! Don't even think about chewing gum - you can't even buy it.

The subways are not only surgically clean and efficient, they also espouse philosophy: "Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify!" was the Thoreau quote that greeted me on the electronic announcement boards of Little India Station on my first day in Singapore.

And if efficent subways aren't enough, the people also seem outrageously friendly. In Japan, though kind to a fault, people are rarely accused of being outgoing and chatty. In India, though outgoing and chatty to a fault, people are rarely without something to sell. Singaporeans seem to strike a happy balance between the two extremes: chatty and approachable without treating you like a walking wallet.



Indeed the city is so easy-to-use and purpose-built that the friend I was travelling with was prompted to call it the Esperanto of cities. And although not entirely without its own grit and charm, you can't help feel that Singapore is almost unnaturally neat and user-friendly, certainly lacking the raw earthiness of somewhere like Thailand.



Resting on a bench in the shade of a multi-national corporate skyscraper and gazing admiringly at the statue of modern Singaopore's founder, Sir Stamford Raffles surrounded by multi-coloured lions, it's easy to forget that Singapore, with its foreign-friendly tourist industry and chatty people, is a nation under an authoritarian regimen. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il Sung have given dictatorships a bad name in this last century, but with it's green manicured gardens, smooth-flowing traffic, and crime and drug- (not to mention litter-) free streets, Lee Kuan Yew's vision of utopia does make one stop and think twice. And although perhaps big brother with his censorship and limits on freedom of speech (however subtle) would eventually drive me away, in the short and albeit superficial three days I spent there, I found myself quite fond of this buzzing little metropolis.

And contrary to popular opinion, three days was not enough.

Singapore photos