My Catastrophes

I‘m not even that old-ish, but I have lived through several semi-major catastrophes. Let’s briefly review how I subjectively lived through each of them:

Chernobyl in Austria

In 1986 the Soviets accidentally blew up a nuclear power plant in a reactor safety exercise which didn’t quite contribute much to safety. They decided to make the problem go away by at first not telling anyone including their own population. Unfortunately the winds blew west at this time, and quite some of the radiation ended up in Austria, where I was growing up – I was 13 at the time.

Picking mushrooms or berries in the forests was always a popular past-time in Austria, both for the enjoyment of the outdoors as well as for gathering these fungi and fruits, which are real delicacies. Since wild plant and mushrooms would quickly accumulate the Soviet-sent radioisotopes, such gathering was out of question for a few years post-Chernobyl. What a shame.

At 13, you are seriously starting to think for yourself and reflecting on world news more than you did just 2 or 3 years ago – at least I did. So, there was an accident three countries over to the the east, and this stopped me from picking raspberries, via some toxic invisible substance that had blown here across borders? Disconcerting.  My first real intro to the dark sides of globalization.

Catastrophe summary: Please do this with easterly winds the next time, comrades.

Great Californian Fires

In the 00s I was living in California, which is a cool place in many respects, but it’s a civilization built in an arid part of the world which miiiight not have the carrying capacity for such a large population of high-consumers. The introduced, very oil-rich eucalyptus trees add to the fire-hazard in CA. During a hot summer, a significant part of California started to burn. These were FIRES – walls of flames high as houses, rapidly moving towards the more densly populated coast. The golden-yellow paint on my car turned grey from the ash. The rain-less southern Californian sky was gloomy, dark at noon as if just a few minutes before sunset. This was like a preview of a nuclear winter. This catastrophe affected me the most directly.

I made a lot of nice friends at work, at the Salk Institute, and also in my neighborhood in the lovely suburb of Pacific Beach. The neighbors were always fun, sometimes smart, but most did not work in ambitious jobs. They went to work to earn money to party. When the wildfires hit, their workplaces were shut down. We just hung out at friends’ places and drank beer. I’ll never forget the scene when maybe 7 or 8 of us were sitting on couches across from a TV, watching coverage of the fires, and one bro remarked with amusement in his voice: “Dude, I hope my work burns!”. Has there ever been a more damming condemnation of modern capitalism?

Catastrophe summary: Very sorry for everyone who lost their houses, but I got to chill the fuck out.

Japanese Self-Nuking

In 2011 the Japanese went for a tie with the Soviets in level 7 reactor accidents and one of their nuclear power plants blew up too, the one in Fukushima. To their credit, it was not incompetence but a huge earth quake (“arse quake” with a Japanese accent) which blew up the plant. To their non-credit, their information openness was just a bit better than the Soviets’.

I was living in Japan at the time. I actually went scuba diving during the arrival of the tidal wave which resulted from the earthquake. Japan is a very extended country north to south, and I was living almost on the opposite end of Fukushima. It was predictable that the remnant of that tidal wave in the part of Japan where I was living, Okinawa, was going to be minute. Of course we noticed none of that wave during our dive. I do remember the police hectically gesticulating at us when we came out of the water. Wasn’t it too late for anything to happen to us anyway now?

The Japanese mentality is at its core dominated by fear, usually fear of foreigners and of standing out inappropriately. This all came out during this episode. “Nothing to see here!” was the motto of the times. Completely false rumors of looting Filipino sailors started circulating in the newspapers. During the time of crisis, the true colors of a place start to shine. Any mention that an open, burning nuclear reactor might be a bit of a worry was met with disproving looks followed by preachy statements about keeping the public calm.

These were the early days of wide-spread social media use, and the keyboard warrior brigades were out in numbers. The expats who were trying to fit into Japan very hard announced that “It’s an overblown hysteria by the foreign press”. Wise words were spoken back then by my mate David: “You can really see who’s an idiot now”.

Catastrophe summary: a bit of annoying radiation, more than a few annoying people.

Covid-19 in the Philippines

As of now, a novel virus made in China ravages the world. It preferentially kills old people and fatties, but is also dangerous to others. The recommendation is to limit contact in public and stay at home to minimize the risk of infection. Travel to other provinces is banned as of now in Negros Oriental. Sensible measures.

The twists which makes this somewhat unusual situation quite bearable are several-fold: I have a lot of writing to do anyway which I can do at home on my laptop; We live near a beach and I can go for a swim for mental and physical rejuvenation; and, the Philippines are already in a state of sometimes quite entertaining semi-disorder, so the virus pandemic can’t plunge the country into chaos; it’s already there. This is all good fun if you have the right sense of humor, and it prepares you for exceptional situations.

My regular drive from our suburban home to nearby Dumaguete has definite Mad-Maxish qualities to it, minus the messed-up 80s hair-dos and the tacky shoulder pads. I might very well have to evade a motorcycle with a shirtless driver and pig in its sidecar going on the left side of the road, with the driver texting while not looking where he’s going. Entertaining, yes. Will road rules collapse here during a time of crisis? There generally are no such rules left to collapse.

Shortages? Go into a store in the Philippines any day (outside of a pandemic) and ask for something slightly unusual – the answer will often be “Sorry mamsir, not available. Out of stock.”. To be fair, this usually pertains to semi-luxury items like pepperoni pizza or XXL boxer shorts. Still, facing a shortage of supplies does not instill any fear in me anymore. As of now, disinfectant alcohol is mostly sold out, but the food supply seems very safe. We have toilet paper too.

Catastrophe summary: Please someone remove the dead cat from the beach in front of our house. Heartfelt thanks for not playing loud techno at 4am in the neighborhood during these difficult times.