MONJA MIHAJLOVIC
Although being exhausted from my crazy walking adventure through Kobe, I went to the university on Monday the 11th of June to meet with Dr. Matsuda because he and his students were taking a trip to Ashiya (a nearby town), to do an interview with an elderly gentlemen who suffers from mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure during the 1995 earthquake. During that earthquake, Kobe was more or less completely demolished, I think around 70,000 buildings were destroyed and another 55,000 were damage and over 6,400 people died. Obviously, there had to be a significant cleanup effort and he was volunteered to help (even though it was not in his career field). During that period, he was exposed to asbestos, which Japan was I believe one of the last countries to outlaw the use of asbestos, they only outlawed it last year. So, he helped with the cleanup and although he and the other workers were given face masks, he often chose not to wear it because it was uncomfortable. He also happened to have them misfortune of living close to one of the areas that housed the waste from all of the fallen buildings. Although this is not exactly in my research field, it was extremely interesting to witness the research that the students are doing and to see what current hot topics in Japan are. I think asbestos exposure is going to be a big topic over the next couple of decades.
In addition to having the opportunity to meet with the mesothelioma patient this week, I met with Professor Anataksa from the Department of Agriculture, where we discussed the current situation of food production in Japan. I was really surprised to find out that Japan actually imports around 60% of the food that they eat and only creates about 40%. Apparently there is a huge problem with farmers moving into the cities because there is not enough money or opportunity as a farmer. Since they are also able to get cheaper food imported from China and the U.S., they tend to choose those options over their own homemade food. It did not seem to make much sense to me because from what I see, Japan is extremely fertile, I mean there are trees and bushes of fruits and vegetables growing all over the place. They say that there is a problem because there is not enough room, since the people all live in the flat areas and Japan is so mountainous, there is no room to create such large fields for agriculture. I think that politically, it is a dangerous situation to depend on other countries for something as important as 60% of the country’s food supply. We talked about programs that educate students about the problem and they then go work in the rural areas on farms to help both educate themselves and to help promote farmers to stay rather than finding work in the cities. I feel that for the sake of safety, there definitely needs to be a swift plan to change this. Also, food that is imported is bound to contain a significant amount of preservatives and additives which are unhealthy for the population as a whole. I am honestly surprised that I have not seen more overweight people because of this. I think it is because they have much smaller portions both with food and with drinks and they walk a lot more.
One of the definite highlights of the week was going to visit the Kobe Biogas facility. I went with Dr. Matsuda and another Master’s student and we got to sit down with some of the engineers of the plant, talk about the process and then we got a tour of the facilities. The company uses sludge from wastewater to create pure methane as a natural gas for vehicles, many buses in the city are powered by this gas. At the end, they even gave us a ride to the train station in a Biogas car! It was all really impressive and interesting. They also use the gas for heating and air conditioning and create electricity with it. I think the wastewater plant is actually powered by electricity created from the nearby waste management plant. I really enjoyed the experience.
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of going to Kyoto, one of the older and most famous cities in Japan (it used to be the capital way back when). I went to the oldest temple in the city, which was awesome because the surrounding area was still built in the old ways, so the streets were made of stones and the buildings were old and made from wood and they had a ton of souvenir shops there as well as some cafes that sell local sweets. I really love visiting the temples, they are so beautiful and each in their own way. I also enjoy going into the mountains as often as possible, I think it is something we really miss out on in Florida.
I have had the pleasure of meeting a group of Bosnian/Serbian graduate students at the university, so it has been awesome because of course they have wanted to show me everything and they have taught me a lot about Japanese culture and customs. It is also great to have them there because they are able to translate a lot of the information for me since I often find that perhaps some of my research information is in Japanese and I cannot understand it. It is also amazing to be able to find people from my home halfway across the world!
I have made personal deadlines for myself for the project, so the rest of the weekend was spend working on this, there was quite a bit to be done. I would like to be close to finished with the project before I leave Kobe so that I can spend the following few weeks editing it, before we have to present.