In Living Memory of Dr. Jin

I decided to hold of on making this post for a while... about a week now but I believe that it is now appropriate to do so.

Last Sunday was Mike's farewell party as his time as he will be returning back to MIT to continue his studies. A beach party was organized by him were we could get together and have a BBQ and hang out. What transpired was very unexpected.

A Post-Doctoral student from China came to join the lab last month, his name is Dr. Jin. I never really had the chance to talk to him that much though I did see him around the lab from time to time. Dr. Jin had come out to join us for Mike's farewell party; it was also a good opportunity to meet and intereact with other people at the lab.

Though he enjoyed swimming, it would be his first time swimming in the Pacific ocean. The water was choppy that day and there were other people around at the time, he went off to go swimming but he would not return after 2 hours. After most other people had left the waters swimming, we were unable to find him.

For you as the reader, you probably know how this story is going to play out. For me at the time, I had no idea. Some people went out an hour earlier to go look for him but did not find him. Others from the group were called into join. While searching for an hour, there was a notable panic in a few people's eyes... for me, I could not declare a person missing after 2 hours of being away, especially for an adult.

A helicopter flew in over us with some of the members waving at the helicopter... I thought it was overkill, soon after a patrol boat arrived. It seems that the members made the call to the coast guard made the right call... I would not have made that call until much later. Searching continues for 2~3 hours with helicopters and patrol boat with no luck. The police, ambulence and even the news crew came out, unfortunately all of them were pretty useless and I was quite displeased.

I wasn't around when the police came around as I was looking around on the beach but eventually returned to find them there. When I got there, they were busy taking names of the members of our group and asking questions. What they asked were things like "did he drink before going swimming? where was the last time did you see him? When did he go in" and things like that. There were atleast 10 of them at the beach. What did they do afterwards? They just stood around looking at their notes. I was incredibly unhappy about this, if you're going to stand around like that then get out there and LOOK. You got the information you needed and you aren't gathering anything more, *do something about it.* That didn't happen.

The news crew came out after and started asking the same kind of questions. What they were most interested in hearing was whether if he was drinking when he went into the water. What are you people trying to do? A person is missing, this isn't the time for a "story!" Unless you are going to do something useful like getting word out and getting people, then great, if not, then what's the point? To do nothing but talk is disgraceful (literaly in the sence of "no grace").

What did they do? They went out to the ocean to take pictures of the crashing water, took pictures of us looking for Dr. Jin they even had the nerve to come out and take pictures of distressed members of our group. I can't seem to get a good image of news reporters at the moment, but I can clearly say this much, it is far better to act then to sit around talking about things. If perhaps the news inspired people to do so, I may hold them with higher regard... but for all I can imagine of a story with crashing waves and unhappy people, what good is this?

I would leave Sendai the day after to Utsunomiya to begin my internship with the hopes of Dr. Jin being found well. I would recieve a phone call today and a messege informing that his body has been found, 10 km South of where we were, the cause is unknown. I was somewhat prepared for this, though sad I was not shocked. I recieved word from one of my labmates and contacted her, she is currently corresponding with his family to figure out what to do. After talking with her, I can tell the impact this has had on her... she was also called out to identify the body and knows Dr. Jin better than I. I feel bad that I don't feel as sad as her, but what am I to do?

The funeral will be held this Saturday in Sendai. Though I had plans to climb mount Fuji this weekend; after consideration I have decided that I will not return to Sendai to attend. After talking with my friend, I don't see much else I can do and prefer not to just attend a funeral ceremony. This is not to say that I will not attend funerals in general, I would not like to attend a ceremony like this if I can't help or make people feel better. Weather permitting, I will pay my respects from the top of Mt. Fuji.

From what little I have met of Dr. Jin, he is a kind and friendly man. As tough it might be to find himself in a new culture with little knowledge of Japanese, myself and others found it easy to welcome his presence.

I would like to end on this:

Life is for those that choose to take action - it is insufficient to to only watch or listen. As important as these activies are, to only do so will have your life or a life will vanish before you in many senses of the meaning.