On Friday March 11 2011, I finished my Japanese class and noticed some friends huddled round somebody’s iPhone. I presumed a new app was being shown off but the mood was a little different. Something had happened.
Fast forward to Sunday morning and I found myself thinking about how much I should donate to what, by now, had become an immeasurable tragedy. The previous night I had been at a party in Ehime and as a bolt-on to the event, boxes had been laid out to collect donations. This of course was a very good thing to do however, I couldn’t help thinking that the pictures I was seeing on TV didn’t really match up to a few boxes of random (but of course, helpful) objects and a box of coins. I felt that I needed to give more than just coins. Maybe five thousand. Maybe ten thousand yen. Maybe more. Ichi man is a decent chunk of money but in the circumstances, it was the very least I could donate.
As the slight malaise from the previous nights revelries subsided, I thought about this more and wondered if any of my friends would be interested in doing the same. By lunch time, “Man Up for Japan” was born (in my head only), by dinner time, I passed the idea onto AJET. Within about two weeks, 5000 people had said they would donate ichi man to a disaster relief charity of their choice. The response was staggering.
Being asked to write ‘the story of…’ is something that I’m a little uncomfortable to do. All I did was come up with a pun. The success of the campaign was down to the general decency of the JET population and an appreciation for Japan and what it has done for us. With that in mind, I think the ‘Man up’ campaign and its success is something that we should all be proud of. お疲れ様でした.
