Anthropological research on hazards and disasters

  This reading basically viewed natural disasters in an anthropological perspective. In most cases, natural disasters have been interpreted in a scientific way. On news, scientists or researchers showed up and explained the main cause of disasters. Truly, disasters are also related to humanity and largely affect our life. There are three major trends in anthropological research; 1) behavioral responses approach, 2) social change approach, 3)political economic / environmental approach. 

 In spite of technological advancement, humans can't manipulate nature. This article also criticized that technology isn't well-prepared to prevent natural disasters. Honestly speaking, it is very difficult to predict when they will hit us. As a matter of fact, humans endeavored to protect themselves from the hazards. Unfortunately, it did not work well on 3.11 incident. The force was very rapid and powerful. After the disasters, society transforms and evolves. At first, life style will rapidly change. People who were previously victimized would be more cautious and try to keep in an order  as I think. 

   I realized that disasters are quite complex. It comes up with sociopsychological questions and requires knowledge with wider spectrums of fields. If I hear disaster hit one specific region, I only concerned aobut the negative notions such as loss of life, family, and shelters. On the contrary, there are some positive sides after the disaster. In fact, political and business are largely engaged in this matter. Actually victims all kinds of supports which can be psychological or economical and new materials. I strongly agree on the quote "Disaster boom economy". Once a company helped one damaged regions, its reputation will go up and take economical advantages especially profits. Also, damaged places need more workers in order to recover their places. Currently, Fukushima tries hire works from South Korea with paying enough wages, but Korean strongly oppose to send those workers. Despite aftershock from natural disasters, business still goes on. 

Listening to others

   As I read other's episodes on 3.11, I realized I was too fortunate to stay in Korea. I usually go back home for breaks. Anyway, most people who were in Japan went through hardships. Some people even thought about death at that moment. When I read that post, I was a little bit shocked. Mostly, they felt fear from earthquake. Generally, I heard many people evacuated to safer places and stayed with groups of people likely friends, cousins, and family. Temporarily, Tokyo was panic due to shortage of electricity and traffic. Tokyo is still limited to use electricity in public area. However, Tokyo is almost settled down as I see.Despite the chaos, some people seemed to use twitter and notified their safety. I think that was a good idea. Therefore, I realized a great power of technology. And some people shared pictures while earthquake hit their places. Some of their houses were badly attacked by the quakes. 

My Experience

   On March 11th, I was in Korea. On that day, my family and I were celebrating my father's birthday. After having a huge feast, everyone was suffering from  food comma and turned out to be couch potatoes. Since we got bored, my father turned on TV and kept changing channels. Accidentally we saw the news about tsunami in Japan and got shocked. Tsunami destroyed one peaceful village in a sudden moment, which was very heartbreaking especially mom who lost her daughter made me so sad. She didn't mean to miss her daughter's hand, but she lost her daughter by the pressure of tsunami.

   Tokyo was also facing on earthquake, blackouts, and radiation. So my cousins, friends, and acquaintances asked my safety. I told them I was still Korea so they were released. 

   Fukushima Nuclear Plant explosion scared me the most because radiation does not have color and smell. It is hard to figure out whether it come into my body or not. Moreover, it highly risks our health such as cancer and genetic code destruction. It can even affect my offspring so I would rather not to get married if radiation is in my body. 

  Radiation also reached Korea and zinc and cesium were found in the water and vegetables. And Korean weather forecasters kept claiming that radiation would never reach to Korea due to a seasonal wind. According to them, the seasonal wind blows in an  opposite direction to Korea. However, it was nonsense. Actually, the direction can change any time. 

   I had a huge debate with my mom about going back to Tokyo in April. She said it was too dangerous to stay in Tokyo. Since I have only semester left, she wished me on good luck and allowed me to go. 

   At Busan airport, I saw Koreans who put a lot of water bottles in their luggage bags. And I also brought plenty of water bottles and food from my place. I heard there would be a difficulty to get bottled water. 

  After this incident, I thought a lot of things about the world and myself. Humans are fragile creatures and cannot conquer the nature. 

Korea and earthquake in Japan.

  I believe Korea is safe from earthquake, but it is not true. Annually the frequency of quake has been increasing. Moreover, Korean buildings can only stand 6.5 scale, which are weak compared to Japanese building structures.

  This article is written by a professor at the Korean Language Education at Seoul National University.

He wrote about the interaction between Korea and Japan. Korea was also affected by the natural disaster in Japan such as earthquake, tsunami, and explosion of nuclear plant. Accordingly, Korea helped Japan's recovery.

If you want to read the article, please click on the link.

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/314_84009.html

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  Hi, I am You Gene.
Throughout this course, I am interested in foreign media's reaction on this incident or nuclear energy.
I haven't decided my project theme, yet.



   I will try to post interesting articles and data on my blog.