Good Stories from the consequences of the earthquake

[Paul]

One of my JTE's has a former student, now 20, going to school and working PT at a conbini. The JTE stopped in to the conbini to get something and the student was working the register when he checked out. The JTE was buying something small but only had 10,000 yen bills in his wallet.

Evidently this is how the conversation went;
Former Student: Sensei you should just put the change into the donation box. (Something like 9,800 plus yen)
JTE: No way I need the money

FS: Sensei think about the people up in Tohoku
JTE: I know, I know. (He replies dropping the coins into the box)

FS: Sensei, NO, all of it.
JTE: Sorry I can't

FS: Well, you know I was saving to buy a car right? (JTE Sees this student often)
JTE: Yeah, What happened? Did you buy the car?

FS: No after I saw the pictures from Tohoku and all the people that have been displaced I donated all the money I had saved. Something like 100Man or roughly $12,000.00 (US) I can live with my old car, it's still in good shape.
JTE: Jaw dropping, walks out the door.

The JTE told me about this and he said he was embarrassed about not leaving the rest of the change after the kid told him this story. At first he said he was a bit incredulous, however the JTE also knows the kids parents as well and they confirmed it for him that their son did actually send all the money he had saved for his new car to Tohoku.

This is a 19 or 20 year old kid. Excuse me, not a kid, young man. There is hope for this country still!

[Otaku]

That's a cool story.

[peet]

Great story, Paul.

This one is pretty funny on the surface, but also some real good will from unexpected sources:
Yakuza quietly organizing and delivering supplies and donations

The Inagawa-kai has been the most active because it has strong roots in the areas hit. It has several "blocks" or regional groups. Between midnight on March 12th and the early morning of March 13th, the Inagawa-kai Tokyo block carried 50 tons of supplies to Hitachinaka City Hall (Hitachinaka City, Ibaraki Prefecture) and dropped them off, careful not to mention their yakuza affiliation so that the donations weren't rejected. This was the beginning of their humanitarian efforts. Supplies included cup ramen, bean sprouts, paper diapers, tea and drinking water. The drive from Tokyo took them twelve hours. They went through back roads to get there. The Kanagawa Block of the Inagawa-kai, has sent 70 trucks to the Ibaraki and Fukushima areas to drop off supplies in areas with high radiations levels. They didn't keep track of how many tons of supplies they moved. The Inagawa-kai as a whole has moved over 100 tons of supplies to the Tohoku region. They have been going into radiated areas without any protection or potassium iodide.

The Yamaguchi-gumi member I spoke with said simply, "Please don't say any more than we are doing our best to help. Right now, no one wants to be associated with us and we'd hate to have our donations rejected out of hand."

[Paul]

Here is another good story, ever since this happened I have stopped receiving ANY spam email from Rakuten.

Oh and how about the 16 year old boy and his 80 year old grandmother that were found on Saturday I think it was, both were fine. They were buried in the ruble but fortunately were in their kitchen when the quake hit and the kid and his grandma survived by eating yogurt and drinking coke from the fridge. Evidently they carved out a small space for themselves and waited it out.

Physically both were fine.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/asia/Rescuers-Amazed-At-Survival-Of-Young-Boy-Grandmother-118381324.html

[sonofobed]

The Yakuza were the first to organize any sort of aid during the '95 Kobe quake too. A friend has mentioned to me that the news are forbidden from mentioning that the Yakuza are helping out again this time.