March 23 - Today's guest blog is by Rosalyn Adams, a consular officer from our Consulate in Chengdu, China. She volunteered to come to Tokyo to help us assist American citizens in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Jim
"Speaking Chinese ... in Japan"
David Peterson and Rosalyn Adams, Consular Officers stationed in India and China, are now helping at one of the U.S. Embassy information desks at Narita International Airport.
It's Saturday, but everyone on the Tokyo Consular Task Force is working. I'm at Narita airport, where we have teams in both terminals. Due to fuel shortages, it has been difficult for people to arrange transportation from areas affected by the earthquake. Yesterday, the Embassy chartered buses from Sendai to Tokyo. In these situations, priority is given to American citizens and their immediate dependents - if there is space available, we board Japanese citizens and third-country nationals as well.
Two officers stayed at the airport until 2 a.m. to wait for the buses and help the passengers as they arrived. One of the officers, Mike, is at the airport again today. I'm not sure how much sleep he's had.
We spent the day talking with various airlines about availability (still lots of seats open for travel to the U.S.), answering questions and checking on the Sendai bus passengers waiting for their flights.
Occasionally, people stopped to photograph our table. At one point, a representative from the Embassy of Mexico came over to thank us for what we've been doing and asked to take a picture with us.
One thing that surprised me was the number of questions I received from Chinese citizens. Sometimes they simply walked by and, not realizing that I spoke Chinese, commented on how they thought it was great that the U.S. had information tables set up at the airport. When Chinese citizens approached our desk with a question, they would always start speaking to us in Japanese - I think they were surprised when I answered in Chinese. All of us volunteering in Tokyo have varying degrees of Japanese language ability, and we could have answered in Japanese, but I think that being able to talk with the Chinese passengers in their own language helped make their airport experience a little less stressful.
Lots of people huddling with their baggage in the terminal at Narita.
While we were at the airport to assist American citizens, we fielded questions from anyone that walked up to us. It's hard to read the news here and not be affected by the terrible tragedy that has befallen so many. There were people from all over the world living in the earthquake and tsunami area, and their lives have been forever impacted. Many people have spent the days since the disaster trying to make their way back to their home countries. I play an incredibly small part in this process, but I'm going to make sure I give it my all no matter what language is needed.
Rosalyn Adams
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