Memories of “That Day”

5 years on, Memories of “That Day” – from a programme ‘Disasters You Can’t Learn about from Textbooks’, aired on 1 March 2016.  Yuzuru’s part is on the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami of March 2011.

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My initial brief translation: Yuzuru Hanyu goes to an area near the sea, near Sendai airport.  He talks with a man whose house is the only one left standing in the area after the tsunami.  The first floor is almost completely destroyed.  He saw the tsunami coming and quickly fled to Sendai airport.  He ran up the steps in the nick of time, but he saw many others being swept away;  if he had been 30 seconds slower, he would have died too.  He will leave his house as it is, as a memorial to the disaster.

Yuzuru looking at the deserted landscape: “It feels like time has stopped there.”

Yuzuru’s hometown was also hit by the earthquake.  He was 16 at that time and was practising in the Sendai rink when it happened.  The rink suffered damage and his home was destroyed.  He and his family took shelter in a school hall with about 450 people.  The cold was severe and there were many aftershocks.  10 months after the quake (Jan 2012), 17 year-old Yuzuru went back to the school for a TV documentary and recounted his experience.  “Earthquake coming again, earthquake coming…. I could not sleep, being anxious and scared.  The aftershocks came often and the sounds were very loud.”

In the years to follow, he has had sleepless nights.  3 years later, when he won the Olympic gold medal in Sochi, at the press conference the next day, he was asked about his own personal experience of the earthquake.  He said, “I’m sorry I don’t really want to think back about this.  I would prefer not to comment on this.”   The emotional scars were still there.     

5 years from the disaster that left this big scar;  this January (2016), he returned to that school again.  Some things have been set up to show it as an evacuation centre just like those days after the disaster.   Memories and complex feelings arise in him as he walks around.

He shows the space where his family of 4 had to sleep.  He said the rice for the ‘wakame gohan’ (rice+seaweed) was hard but it was very delicious.  Trying it now, he said yes it’s this taste and he still feels it’s delicious.  At first, it was 2 onigiri (rice ball) for each person, then it became 1 piece for 2 persons.  His family gave him one whole piece because he was a growing boy (still in the period of growth).  He showed how he ate the onigiri, taking very small bites to make it last longer.  The tiny bits of wakame stuck to the cover of the plastic box were also eaten so that nothing was wasted.     

At the end, he said, “A life without the earthquake disaster does not come to my mind.  I am able to accept it now.  This is normal. Even though earthquake disasters are not normal. I am able to think that walking forth from here is very normal.  I can think that way because I am in the same place as that time.  Because we are the people who are alive, we have to fulfill our lives. I feel strongly that we must live in a way that we can be proud of, for those who have passed away and for those still suffering today."

–Thanks to YzRIKO for the initial video – with no subs.

Translation by: yuzusorbet


"Memories of That Day" (3.01.2016) por nonchan1023

Updated with Eng-subbed video by nonchan1023 (much thanks to her).