Greetings from post-disaster Tokyo

At first you might think it was just another weather forecast: a map fills the TV screen and a calm voice runs through a list of local readings. But listen carefully and you soon realise that the announcer is not talking about millimetres of precipitation or millibars of air pressure – but microsieverts of radiation.

Welcome to post-disaster Tokyo. Eight months after the earthquake and tsunami battered Japan’s north-east, life in the capital has largely returned to normal – edged with nervousness about the continuing problems of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Workers at the plant, located 240km to the north of Tokyo, appear to be making progress in stabilising its reactors, but nobody is ready to call an end to the world’s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. Recent readings show radiation levels around Greater Tokyo have fallen since the early days of the disaster. However, reports of highly contaminated “hotspots” still fuel public worries.

Shrine to culture

As it happens, despite having three young children, I am relatively relaxed about the radiation risk. This may be in part a function of my previous posting in Beijing, where environmental hazards include contaminated baby milk, gutter-recycled cooking oil and air quality that is generally poor and sometimes – in the words of a famous US embassy tweet – “crazy bad”.

But science and medical theory do indeed suggest Tokyo’s radiation levels are not something to worry too much about, not least because of the distance between the capital and Fukushima Daiichi. A little caesium-134 or 137 here or there should certainly not prevent visitors from enjoying what continues to be one of the world’s most vibrant capitals, packed with traditional culture and cutting-edge entertainment. In the past few days I have been invited to a techno event heavily promoted with nice post-modern irony as a “secret party”, and enjoyed demonstrations of the archaic samurai martial arts in central Tokyo’s beautiful Meiji shrine park.

Rice of life

At the same shrine festival, I ran across a stall selling newly harvested rice from Fukushima, home to the Daiichi plant. Government officials insist that after early slip-ups involving the sale of radiation-contaminated Fukushima beef, all produce from the prefecture is now being carefully monitored and can be eaten with confidence. Shoppers remain hard to convince. Few seemed to be flocking to the festival stall, despite the promotional efforts of a bevy of pink-clad sales ladies.

The reason for such consumer caution became clearer to me when I got home. After all, my wife wondered aloud, why feed your children rice that has even the smallest chance of contamination? Past food scandals have strained many people’s faith in Japanese food regulators and distributors. Some Fukushima rice has been found to have levels of radiation close to the 500 becquerel per kg national limit, though it has not been distributed and the vast majority of produce tested so far shows levels that are much lower or negligible.

Fortunately, I knew a way to find out where my rice would fit on the risk spectrum. The Becquerel Centre in Kashiwa is offering a do-it-yourself radiation testing service. Radiation worries have run particularly high in the commuter town since surveys showed that it was one of the most contaminated areas in the Greater Tokyo region, and I visited one small “hotspot” in Kashiwa – now fenced off – which had radiation close to or above the government evacuation level of 20 millisieverts a year.

At the Becquerel Centre, farmers or consumers can check samples of their produce for Y980 or Y3,980 a time depending on the accuracy required. “We are selling peace of mind,” said Kazuki Kikuchi, the centre’s head of advertising.

That was certainly the case for the man in the neighbouring testing booth, who was pleased to find that water brought from the tank of a holiday home near the Fukushima Daiichi plant showed no sign of contamination.

A 20-minute test of my Fukushima rice yielded the same reassuring result. Now there is nothing to stop me enjoying my fresh Fukushima rice in the knowledge that I’m also supporting a regional economy reeling from the combined effect of the tsunami and nuclear crisis. I only wish I had bought more.