The worst damage occurred in Northeast Japan, but the impact has been felt across the country.
The television hit show Mad Men has cast a disparaging eye on the advertising industry and the talented people I’ve been proud to work in and with for almost five decades. But even as the media has kept us informed round the clock of the horror in Japan: the devastation of the 8.9 earthquake, the apocalyptic tsunami and the precarious and dangerous nuclear disaster in the making, it’s been impersonal reporting. Missing in the 24/7 coverage has been appropriate poignancy, personal comments and non-journalistic l observations.
I knew that a friend and really good guy and ad-man, Russell Wager (okay he’s a suit) had moved last summer from David and Goliath as managing partner and group client director on the Kia account (yea, Hamsters) to a really big job in Tokyo, Japan as the president of TBWA \ Hakuhodo part of the Omnicom Group. A really big and important job with a really big and important agency serving really big and important clients.
After the quake I’d sent Russ an email wishing him and Dawn, his wife, (also an ad person), well following the earthquake and tsunami. He responded saying they were okay – I should read Dawn’s daily blog — but that he had to walk 26 kilometers from the client’s office in Yokohama to his home in Tokyo on the day of the event. As a former agency suit myself, I admired and respected his great strength, courage and steel cajones.
This led to another email asking if we could chat about his experiences and the impact on personal and professional life in Japan which we did in an amazing forty-five minute Skype call. As we talked his words and descriptions brought frightening, terrifying pictures and visuals from telecasts and newspapers to mind. What follows is my transcription of Russ’ thoughts and comments from the day of the quake till last Friday.
A sign that not all is the coming of apocalypse. The cherry trees are blooming again in Tokyo.
But before beginning, one additional anecdote must be added. A day after our conversation I emailed Russell asking for his photo to include in this column. His response needs no introduction:
“How about a picture of hope from Japan…
the first blooming of the cherry blossoms in this sea of chaos.”
This is the picture he sent. (insert photo of cherry tree in bloom) I am as touched now as I was when I first read his email and feel others will be too. Rather than embellish Wager’s words which came in a stream of consciousness, they are presented exactly as said with topic headings.
GETTING THE NEWS UPDATES
The biggest thing here is about the reactor from what we understand from watching television. We’ve stopped watching CNN – no offense to them – but they seem very sensationalized. The Japanese news seems just to report the facts … it’s straight forward without embellishing, just facts.
The American Embassy, until yesterday (Thursday in Tokyo) morning said, ‘As long as you’re outside a 30 km area inside, stay inside’ this was upped to 80 km and then followed by the French and German Embassies statements which said, “Get out and we’ll help you get out!”
They’ve started to do voluntary evacuations to get people off the main island to Seoul, Korea and other destinations that are short hops, just a couple hours, away. At least from there you’re ‘in safety’ and then it’s your responsibility to get to wherever else you want to, need to go.
WILL YOU STAY OR GO, RUSS?
Ummm, we’re going to make a decision probably at the end of the day today. (to the best of my knowledge the Wager’s are still in Japan) Believe it or not, it’s been a week, it’s Friday here, it’s been a week since the earthquake, tsunami but we’re still here. Tokyo’s still here. But at the same time it’s been a week but they haven’t said if it’s contained and it will start to get better, then it’s better to be safe than sorry.
There are so many ex-pats who have already left. In the area we live in which has a higher concentration of ex-pats (his wife called it the gijin ghetto ) many have left. It’s a little bit quiet. We’ve gone out to restaurants; we’re trying to wherever possible to keep things in a normal way of life. We recognize that a lot of the restaurants in our area cater to the ex-pats they’re having difficult time so we’re trying to help out be going out to have meals.
FOOD SHORTAGES IN TOKYO
You read about the empty shelves in grocery stores but our take on it was, the day after the quake, on Saturday, none of the deliveries got to where they needed to get to on Friday and by Saturday people were still dealing with things normally. Then on Saturday the big rush occurs and the shelves were barren – but by Sunday they were all restocked.
There are occasional fears here and there, with people heading South or Southwest to Osaka and Kyoto and they’re stocking up on things. We went to the grocery store yesterday – you can get a carton of eggs, only one – who needs more than that for a few days – milk is on the scarce side because children need it, but everything else … there are no shortages of meat or fish of all the things one would need to survive including water, soda … it’s there. Up North where the tsunami hit, that’s where everything you see on television is as bad if not worse than what you’re getting to see.
WHEN THE EARTHQUAKE HIT …
I was sitting with my client in their 21 story building, it’s relatively new, only 3 or so years old and of the latest design to withstand anything. I’m on the fifth floor which is the building’s lobby and reception area waiting for my next meeting and all of a sudden the building starts shaking. We’re having an earthquake. Two days before there was also an earthquake that was as I recall a 7.1 and that didn’t last as long. But when this one started and it just kept going and going and going. Doors were slamming, most everyone was calm, a lot of people just got down on the floor, some tried to get under tables but everyone was generally pretty calm.
After what seemed like two minutes, but was probably shorter than that, everything just froze in time. The Nissan Building was creaking and swaying and when it finally started to subside, with my co-worker I said, “Okay let’s get!” We were told by people who were there to “Stay. Stay!” But there was still rumbling and the building was still swaying although it had died down a little bit. We waited about :25-seconds and said, “That’s it. We’re out! Now!!”
We raced down the escalator to the third floor. Ran down another escalator through the gallery and then ran outside through basically the front door. And as we were running outside intending to go to the right, people were pointing at us and telling us to go to the left and were also looking up. The building next to the Nissan building on the right, a 23 or 24 story building not yet complete, but all the scaffolding was up including a huge crane on the roof that was swaying back and forth. The people were telling us don’t go over there because if the crane falls off, that would be very bad.
So we went to the left to a big field and after about ten or fifteen minutes, it’s like, okay. My coworker had a plane to catch that night and she knew it was going to be a disaster trying to get to Narita airport so we figured we’d start to get her to the bus station and we started to walk and just like that … people had started running as the 7.4 aftershock hit and the crane started to literally bounce like it was on a spring. It was bending over and snapping back, bending over and snapping back. That stopped us from going around that building and its crane. Scary.
This all occurred between 2:45 and 3:15 p.m. after the couple of aftershocks had hit and from that point forward the freeway was shut-down because a lot of the freeways here are elevated and they didn’t want to take additional chances and wanted to keep some of it free so emergency vehicles were able to use it. They shut the airports down. Busses really weren’t moving. Everyone was trying to get out and get to their homes but within one hour from the quake everything was grid locked.
THE AFTERMATH OF 8.9
All of a sudden it’s four o’clock and I’m about 26 kilometers from my apartment in Tokyo … where my wife and dog are. The biggest thing I was trying to do was naturally try and get hold of my wife and I couldn’t because she was in the apartment when the quake hit and ran to the evacuation area where cell phones didn’t work. Whether it was jammed, over-loaded, it didn’t work and she didn’t have WiFi, so for about two hours I had no idea about how she was. Finally after a couple of hours she went back to our apartment. Thank goodness our electricity was still on as was the WiFi. I tried a couple things, posting on Facebook, “if anyone hears from Dawn, please let me know if she’s ok.” That was my way of contacting her because we could get Internet service, but that was it. No answers.
Not that this is a plug for Apple, but I thought if she’s somewhere near WiFi … I tried Facetime on my iPhone and it connected even though the phone service wasn’t working because it was using the web. That’s how I learned she was okay.
THE WALK TO TOKYO
It’s now about six o’clock. And I said, “Okay, I’m gonna make the walk!” A couple of my coworkers said things like “you’re crazy’ but after some thinking, maybe not so crazy. And three of us started walking. I’ll start with the overall thinking: a 13 mile walk, not a bad thing to do. Some of us have done it at times on hikes or whatever. I thought about this afterwards to put it in perspective: the first thing you do before going on a hike is to put on your jogging or workout clothes, but we were different.
First change into your good suit and tie then put on your best dress shoes because you’re going to be walking working where your clients are … and make sure you bring your briefcase and pack it heavier because when you go to the client you need to make sure you have all the materials for anything that may come up in a meeting and then on top of that you pull your coworker’s suitcase on wheels and then and only then do you start your 13 mile, 26 kilometer walk.
Each of us had our own briefcase or backpack, one had mapped it out on by GPS on his iPhone and was leading us through the streets and it was very orderly. There was no yelling, screaming, looting, no panic. It was we gotta get to where we gotta go and can’t go the normal way cause trains, taxis and busses are getting us there – let’s just start walking. As we walked we saw people just sitting in their cars because they’re stuck in traffic. And we were making better time than they were. A couple towns/prefectures we were walking through were pitch black. So that was interesting. But we never felt unsafe even though it was in blackout and you’d never been there before.
Every couple kilometers we’d see a sign “Tokyo 24 km, Tokyo 22 km and we knew we were getting closer even though our feet and muscles were getting sore and we were getting tired, very tired we knew we needed to keep going. Along the way were restaurants and noodle shops with people because rather than walk they decided to eat. There wasn’t panic which is the most amazing thing about Japan and the culture is they’ve never experienced an 8.9 earthquake but they recognize their building codes are set to withstand the extreme – I don’t know if they ever thought it would get this extreme – it clearly did and it clearly held. I’m not aware of any major damage due to the quake itself, the damage was from the tsunami that was a result of the earthquake.
We left Yokohama about 6:30 p.m. and about five hours into the walk as we got closer to Tokyo we got lucky, and I mean lucky. Somebody was looking out for us, because all of a sudden a cab turned right on the corner near us, we waved our hands and the cab stopped. He took us what would have been the last 5 km’s – another hour and half or two hours – in :20-minutes. It was about 11:30 or 11:35 at night. No offense to anyone in NY or LA, it’s a 8.9 and in both cities as good as their codes are there’s a lot of damage and more panic than I saw.
AD BIZ
Two ex-pats are working with me, the rest are Japan based. As far as the clients, I couldn’t even begin to tell what the impact is going to be at this point. We are still living it day to day, moment to moment. The country is not in a buying mood and every client is cognizant of that. Many of our clients had various launches – the fiscal year in Japan ends March 31 – so all clients, automotive or not, are making a big push to close-out the fiscal year … and that’s not happening. Everyone is sensitive to the fact of doing the right thing for people, you’re not sure exactly what to do because everything is still so fluid. The rescue operations up North, the nuclear plants and we’re still getting aftershocks. I was on the phone the other night and had two 5.9 aftershocks within five minutes.
Things are going to change in the short term, but there’s constant talk from the government, our clients and the agency that the Japanese economy must get going again! Nobody wants it to spiral down. The government’s talking about infusing billions of dollars into the Bank of Japan to help alleviate that happening. There will be an effort to get the economy going again as quickly as possible. Everyone is just waiting to make sure, not so much the earthquakes, but the nuclear situation is officially under control and subsiding as opposed to its day to day and not sure if it’s getting better or worse.
CLIENT CONTACT
I’m speak with our Nissan clients every day. They’re doing business, just as we are at the agency, even though we have encouraged people to work at home due to the rolling black-outs that have started which has interrupted train service making it difficult to get to the office – a three to four hour delay is possible, There are no meetings in Yokohama, we’re doing our meetings via conference calls. It’s a lot different way of doing things, but everyone is completely sympathetic and understanding. At the same time we’re trying to move forward with what we need to do for our clients, the agency, the well being of our employees and the well being of Japan.
FUND RAISING
I don’t know where to tell people to donate but the Red Cross does sound like the right place. My understanding is they’re trying to get supplies up north – there are no houses, there are no shelters, there’s limited food and it’s freezing. Help is critical.
PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
This event a week ago on Friday is the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life and I hope nobody has to ever experience that. That said, I am so impressed with the Japanese culture, the Japanese people and the infrastructure here, on how they have handled things – calmly and very much to their culture, trying to help each other out and help anyone out. I knew that before this event and I’d seen that after being here for over eight months but his just further reinforced it.
From the personal side, I have had so many people thankfully reach out to me whether it was within minutes or hours, day or a couple days, it’s been an endless reach-out of ‘not sure what we can do, but our thoughts are with you’ and I must tell you that helped a lot. Beside the people here in Japan there thinking about and caring for – there wasn’t anything I could ask for, but just knowing the offers were there, if there were something I’d asked for, I’m 100% sure anyone would have done that for us. And that’s what really helped during the after mat.
WAGER STATUS UPDATE – THEY’RE BACK IN THE US!
Here is a portion of an email I received from Russell earlier today, “Just wanted to let you know, Dawn, Ranger (their dog) and I are back home in Los Angeles. After careful consideration we decided it would be better to be safe than sorry. We flew in yesterday. We feel even better about our decision considering today the U.S. government started passing out potassium iodate tablets to citizens in Northeast Japan and Tokyo.
We really appreciate all the love and support each of you bestowed upon us during this entire crisis. We are very fortunate to have such caring friends. We need some time to recuperate from the ordeal and resolve some issues, so we would appreciate your patience with us and recognize we may need to be alone for a little while.