When my friends back home contacted me to see if I was OK after the March 11 disaster, I told everyone the same thing. "We're OK. We live 500 miles (800 km) from the disaster zone. We haven't been affected at all." We didn't even feel the earthquake, not even slightly. We have had no blackouts. We continue to have food, water and daily necessities.
But, of course, this is not all true. The disaster has affected everyone in Japan, including the 650 people on our small island in the middle of the Seto Inland Sea. "What will happen to Japan?" laments my neighbor, Kazu-chan. It's a big question.
Kazu-chan, my next door neighbor, manages the International Villa on our island that hosts over 1,000 foreigners each year. After a ¥15 million renovation last year, the beautiful villa overlooking the Seto Inland Sea sits strangely vacant, in peril of becoming Japan's next haikyo, or "modern ruin."