Students in Fukushima, seen here studying American junior high school yearbooks.

Memories of Fukushima, Japan

From: Graham Shelby
Length: 02:29

Long before most Americans had heard of a place called Fukushima, commentator Graham Shelby spent three years teaching English there. He's been watching the ongoing crisis in Fukushima from a distance that's much greater geographically than it is emotionally. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Memories of Fukushima, Japan
From: Graham Shelby

Winburn_yearbook_small Graham Shelby moved to Fukushima, Japan long before the nuclear crisis. He expected to find the strange and exotic there; he didn't expect to find so much that reminded him of his native Kentucky.

More from Graham Shelby

Shakespeare Behind Bars (03:37)
From: Graham Shelby

So a man commits a crime. A terrible crime. He's caught, tried, sentenced and locked up. Then what? What do the rest of us want from the roughly two million inmates currently ...

Caption: Graham Shelby visits a class at Burr Elementary School in Chicago., Credit: Kumiko Suzuki

An Unpredictable Business (06:20)
From: Graham Shelby

An itinerant worker reflects on the ups and downs of his chosen profession: Teaching writing workshops in elementary schools.

Caption: Graham Shelby plays with Duy (in orange) and other kids at an orphanage in Vietnam in 1994.

A Veteran's Son Goes to Vietnam (07:10)
From: Graham Shelby

Writer Graham Shelby grew up wondering what had happened to his father in Vietnam. Just after graduating from college in 1994, Graham went to find out. Among his most ...

Caption: Japanese students pose with their American teacher (back, center), a member of the JET Program.

When You're a JET...(Voxpop) (01:43)
From: Graham Shelby

Just hours before leaving the U.S., some young Americans talk about their hopes, their fears and their reasons for accepting the risks associated with moving to Japan to work ...

Caption: Fred Newman performs live sound effects for A Prairie Home Companion

Interview with Fred Newman (08:48)
From: Graham Shelby

Sound effects artist Fred Newman is an integral part of A Prairie Home Companion. In this interview, Fred talks about his roots, his partnership with Garrison Keillor and how ...

Woody Allen vs. Mean Joe Green (07:59)
From: Graham Shelby

A man-sized teenager believes joining the football team will help him feel big on the inside.

My Hero (07:15)
From: Graham Shelby

In the '80s,a boy who aspires to be a super-hero enters junior high school and encounters his very own super-villains: a group of ninth-grade girls who have different ambitions.

Diamond Day (06:54)
From: Graham Shelby

Tradition or cliche? Free tickets to a father-son baseball game lead writer Graham Shelby to question his attitude towards the national passtime and the value of things we ...

Planet Buddy (07:00)
From: Graham Shelby

Buddy was a sixteen-year-old bad boy who was experimenting with being good. I'd been a good boy my whole life and was ready to try being bad. Then I went on a field trip to ...

At the Humana Festival, the Playwright's the Thing (03:10)
From: Graham Shelby

The Humana Festival of New American plays is to theatre what Sundance is to film or SXSW is to music. For 35 years, the festival has focused on giving playwrights their due.

Piece Description

Graham Shelby moved to Fukushima, Japan long before the nuclear crisis. He expected to find the strange and exotic there; he didn't expect to find so much that reminded him of his native Kentucky.

Transcript

It’s been nearly twenty years since I first heard about a place in Japan called Fukushima. And when I did, I was ecstatic.

I’d just graduated from the University of Kentucky when I got a letter saying I’d been accepted as an Assistant English Teacher in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. My assignment: A Japanese middle school in rural Fukushima.

I remember saying the name over and over to myself Foo-KOO-shee-ma, Foo-koo-SHEE-ma, like it was some exotic food I was tasting for the first time. I’d lived in Kentucky my whole life I wanted to test myself by going to live in a place and a set of circumstances different than any I’d ever known.

Fukushima was different in lots of ways: Food, language, holidays, the way work dominated people’s lives. How much drinking people did–and expected me to do.

But in the three years I spent there, I realized that not everything in Fukushima...
Read the full transcript