Faculty of Extension Dispatch

It was mid-afternoon on a Friday at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport in Sendai, capital city of Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture; by all auspices, it was business as usual for Aya Miura and her office-mates. And then the building started shaking.

Earthquakes are not uncommon in Japan; because the country lies atop four major (and constantly-shifting) tectonic plates, the nation’s written history documents strong earthquakes dating back at least the last 1600 years. As the first shocks of this March 11, 2011 quake thrummed through the Ministry, Aya and her co-workers took cover under their desks, as they had been taught to do since grade school.

“I just waited for the earthquakes to stop,” said Aya. She would end up waiting what seemed like an eternity.

What Aya was living through would eventually be known as the 2011 Tokohu earthquake (or “Eastern Japan Great Earthquake Disaster”)—the most powerful known earthquake to ever hit Japan, and the most expensive natural disaster on record. The epicenter at the quake was a mere 130 km from Sendai.

Famously, the magnitude-9.0 quake also triggered massive, 130-foot-high tsunami waves, causing unthinkable damage to Japan’s population and infrastructure, as well as large-scale meltdowns at three nuclear reactors.

“After the quake was over,” explained Aya, “everyone [at the Ministry] went up on the roof and watched seawater rushing up a nearby river, but luckily our office was a safe distance from the tsunami.”

Mercifully, Aya’s family home in Sendai was not destroyed by the tsunami, but as she explained, “We didn’t get gas, electricity, or water for about a week.” More, she said, “we had to line up for hours to buy gas, and several days, I had to bike 20 kilometres to work.”

For months afterward, the Internet was glutted with photos illustrating the extent of the destruction wrought by what Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan called “the toughest and most difficult crisis for Japan.” Offers of aid poured in from all corners of the globe, and here at Extension’s English Language program, Executive Director Mimi Hui and team scrambled to do everything they could to contribute to the relief effort.

“Many of our students come from Japan, and we have many partner institutions throughout the country,” said Mimi. “The shock, uncertainty, and sadness brought about by this disaster shot through our classrooms and offices immediately.”

The point where these two timelines converge is the “Hope for Japan” program for survivors of the Japanese Earthquake.

A bursary support system proposed by Mimi and coordinated by Languages Canada, Hope for Japan offered scholarships to 150 Japanese students to study English in Canada at any of 30 accredited language schools, including the University of Alberta.

“My family friends in Canada told me about this program, so I checked out the details on the Canadian Embassy website,” said Aya. “I had a working holiday in Vancouver a few years ago and have always wanted to come back to Canada. Last year was very stressful in Japan, so the Hope for Japan Project sounded like an excellent opportunity for me to come to the U of A.”

The scholarship, through which the University’s English Language Program covers Aya’s course tuition, was lauded by Canada’s Minister of International Trade, the Honourable Ed Fast:

“Thanks to these generous scholarships, we hope that Japanese students… will enrich Canada through the strength and courage they have displayed here, which will no doubt help them become global leaders.”

For Aya, the program has already yielded positive results: last December, she completed her first semester of study (“weekly vocabulary tests, unit tests, and assignments are very hard, but I’m learning a lot”), and acclimatizes to a fickle Edmonton winter in the company of her homestay family.

She acknowledges that much still needs to be done to reverse the incredible destruction brought on by the earthquake, but remains positive about Japan’s future.

“In 1995,” she pointed out, “there was a big earthquake in Kobe, but the city has recovered as though it never happened, so I believe Japan and Japanese people will recover again in the future.”

The Faculty of Extension would like to extend its warmest wishes to our partners and friends in Japan for their stoicism in the face of unbelievable adversity.

[Ed. Note: for a poignant and unique look at the destruction brought about by the 2011 Japan Earthquake, check out the “Japan, Before and After the Tsunami” interactive slideshow on the National Public Radio website: http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144018316/japan-before-and-after-the-tsunami?sc=fb&cc=fp)