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Hungry girl's diary

Introducing easy and healthy everyday Japanese home cooking.
日本からの食べ物は汚染されていますか? Are all food from Japan contaminated by radiation?
今日は日曜日。例のファーマーズマーケットへ息子と散歩がてらフラフラ寄ってみたら偶然子供教室に来ている子供の母親にあった。私を見ると、すかさず『で、日本からの食べ物、どうしてるの?』と言った。『汚染されているって言うじゃない。私、海苔も韓国産に切り替えたわ。』とつづける彼女に自分でも驚く程キツく対応してしまった。最後には『ふんじゃ、もう、飛行機にも乗るのやめたら。放射線量からいったらすごいんだよ。』という極端な事まで言ってしまった。大変後味が悪く、帰りの道で、どうしてこんなに感情的になったんだろうと考えてみた。国外に限らず国内でも大騒ぎするんだから彼女の心配は仕方が無いのかもしれない。ただ、正しい情報に基づかないパラノイア的反応に日頃からフラストレーションはたまっていた。そして、この間、被爆者の方の証言を通訳させて頂いた際、その方が今回の地震と原子力の事故によって被爆した方、特に子供達に対して、自分たち被爆者が経験したような偏見を懸念していらした事が常に頭にあった。食べ物とは直接関係ないかもしれないが、放射能、という事で必要以上に警戒し、拒絶する、と言う点では同じだ、と自分の中では勝手に思った。だから多分、別に悪意があったわけでない言葉に反応してしまったのかもしれない。人に知識を持つ事を期待する方が傲慢かもしれないが、出来れば正しい情報に基づいて判断をしてもらいたい。

I went to the farmer's market with my son today. We bumped into one of the mother of my student from the cooking class. She asked me what I'm doing about the food from Japan. She was referring to the contamination of the food by the radiation from the nuclear power plant accident due to the earthquake. "Here we go again..." I thought. I was getting tired of those comments by the people who were over reacting due to the luck of knowledge and information. Ignorance is a bliss, sometime, but often it can be dangerous and hurtful. I am not underestimating the danger of the radiation, but to think food in Japan in general are all contaminated is ridiculous. However, I should understand this mother's paranoiac reaction....some people in Japan are also behaving this way even with so much information available. Things like virus and radiation are so scary to us since they're not visible.....how can we protect ourselves from something we can't see? This is why some of us choose to take extreme measure by shutting off everything related to the source to be 100% sure. Sounds reasonable, but I can't forget the testimony by the nuclear bomb surviver who came here last month. She said her agony was not only surviving the injury and loss by the bomb. She had to live her life as a "bomb surviver" and had to deal with so much discrimination from the society. She was very concerned for the victims of this March's nuclear power plant's accident, especially for children who might become the victim of this cruel discrimination just like what she had to live through. Of course this is little different from the fear of food, but it's similar in a way to be alarmed and to reject without adequate information. Japanese farmers and food industry are facing major survival crises. Many have already gone out of business. We're all trying to support them by eliminating excess fear due to the wrong knowledge and by encouraging people to keep buying Japanese products. "Do you believe the government?" this mother asked. My answer to that is yes and no. Japan is not a communist country. Even though government is not always straight forward to the public, there are number of credible resources for the information . Also, other countries are very cautious about importing food and goods from Japan now. Before they are imported to U.S., it's been inspected at least by 2 parties. (WHO website has better information on this) Be cautious, but there is not need to reject everything from Japan, at least for now. So, chill out.
by hungry-witch | 2011-06-14 03:27 | 未分類
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