Birthplace:Liaoning, China
Please describe how the things were when the earthquake occurred.
I was on duty in the office when the earthquake occurred. My office is on the twenty first floor in the skyscraper located at the coastal area in Tokyo and I was there, so I felt the building shaking quite a long time. I was able to deal with the earthquake since I had been through the disaster drill provided by the company and calmly hid myself under the table. As a tsunami warning came out, I did not go out of the office nor go to the shelter because of the location of the building at the bayside area.
My job was to secure the internet infrastructure, so I checked the influence on the internet network in Japan. After the tremors had calmed, I made recovery efforts immediately where it was influenced.
On March 11, I had to work all night to get the system back, so the company distributed water and foods to us employees. I left the office at seven in the morning next day and went home by subway and on foot. It took five hours to get home that day even though it usually takes an hour.
On the day of The Great East Japan Earthquake, all train services were suspended for the day in Tokyo and some did not move even on the next day. Transportation was temporarily fully out of commission. Even though there were some areas where power failed, the lifeline in Tokyo was not too much affected including electricity and gas. Cell phone communications were temporarily blocked after the quake due to the sending restriction.
How did your family at home country react?
As e-mail was active even after the quake, I sent e-mail to my friend in China and asked him to tell my parents that I was safe. My parents did not tell to come back to China. They somewhat told me to judge it myself taking the responsibility as a member of the society.
The reason I did not go back to China was that I also would like to pursue my carrier as a member of the security team around infrastructure working twenty four hours every day.
I used my smart phone every hour to check on foods, transportations and information on radioactivity, since these are what I was concerned after the disaster.
Did The Great East Japan Earthquake leave you any impression on Japan?
As I have been in Japan for four years, nothing new and particular came up to my mind. But I was very impressed even at the disaster that Japanese “keep their rules,” as it has been their style, such as waiting for each turn to come around in line for the train at the station or for the goods at the cash register at shops in usual life.
How is your current life and work condition?
Water, preserved foods, snacks and quite a lot of things were gone from the shelves of supermarkets and convenience stores right after the quake. But the logistics recovered in a week and I had little problem getting along in Tokyo.
There was rolling power outage enforced because of the electricity shortage and I had trouble cooking on my electromagnetic cooker at home till April 8th. There was little problem in my office in the central Tokyo where rolling power outage was excluded.
I am trying to save energy as the company is. I was avoiding using electricity at home after the earthquake except for my PC. I tried not to use my heater even when I felf a little chilly.
Please describe what you think about the recovery and reconstruction from this natural disaster.
My job is to secure infrastructure in Japan. Even after the earthquake, we had aftershocks many times, so we worked twenty four hours a day for two weeks. I believe that my concentrating on my own job will lead to Japan’s reconstruction.
