The Saiseimaru and the Seto Inland Sea

The Seto Inland Sea (Setonaikai) in central Japan is dotted with approximately 3,000 small to medium-sized islands, often sparsely populated and located far from welfare services. The Seto Inland Sea lies between Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. The relative isolation of the area has been helped out greatly by the travels of the Saiseimaru, a floating medical clinic that visits the islands on a regular schedule all year round.

Running the ship costs about 120,000,000 yen per year, which is about $1,215,120. Each year the ship services about 542,000 patients though, so it certainly seems to earn its keep. The current ship is the third Saiseimaru, and it will be exchanged for the forth on January 26th, 2014.

Tell Me More About These Islands

The Seto Inland Sea is most often compared to the Mediterranean due to its relaxed atmosphere and mild climate. Most of the sea is actually part of the Setonaikai National Park, one of the first national parks designated in Japan. The area is covered by an extensive ferry network with many of the islands being connected to one another by small local ferries. The reason for this is that the area is a historically important trade route, and the area continues to be an integral shipping lane.

Some islands in the area have become popular tourist destinations. Most notably, the eastern islands around Naoshima (which we covered before, by the way) have become a nifty modern art destination with crazy museums on Naoshima itself, Inujima, and Teshima.

Visiting the islands gives you the opportunity to visit terraced rice fields, old fishing villages complete with old wooden houses, and it gives you a peek into a traditional way of life that has largely disappeared from the mainland. It’s basically like traveling years into the past on some of the islands here.

The total population of the Seto Inland Sea is about 35 million people, but I’m pretty sure this number includes people living on the mainland coast, and not just the islands themselves. The largest island (Awajishima) has a population of 157,000, and the second largest (Shodoshima) has a population of just 32,000. Some of the smaller islands have as little as 200 people living on them, and many seem to have under 1,000. So, that kind of gives you a rough idea of what the area’s like.

The Saiseimaru Saves the Day!

I hadn’t given much thought to before, but in different areas of Japan, there are a lot of islands. So many that it wouldn’t really be feasible to have modern hospital establishments on each and every one of them. So that’s where this boat clinic comes into play. Researching the topic of the Saiseimaru itself was a real pain though. The gracious Mami helped me out a ton on this one as most all the information concerning the boat was in Japanese, and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot out there to find.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me too much as there’s only one of these boats out there doin’ its hospital thing, but I do think that it’s really cool. Since it’s so neat, I was surprised that there wasn’t more info out there, especially with the drama that just came out based upon it. And speaking of the drama, let’s get into that now, shall we?

Clinic on the Sea

I actually first heard about Clinic on the Sea, or Umi no Ue no Shinryojo (海の上の診療所) when I was watching Summer Nude earlier this year (it was great, you should check it out). There was a preview for Clinic on the Sea as a new and upcoming drama, and something about the preview just stood out to me. It made me feel like it was going to be a good one.

And so far, it is.

As of this article, I’ve only checked out the first two episodes, but they were both very enjoyable. Since the series is currently airing, only a few episodes are out right now, but I’m thinking I’ll keep up with it since I’ve enjoyed it so far already.

You already know the basic premise from reading the first part of this article – the story follows a hospital ship on its journeys to help out those on the many islands of Japan. The main dude, Dr. Kota Sezaki (played by Matsuda Shota) is a brilliant doctor serving on board the fictional floating hospital Kaishinmaru. He’s a bit quirky, and incredibly quick to fall in love. So much that he finds himself falling for a girl at every port they stop at, but the girl always ends up with someone else by the end of the episode.

Now, I usually don’t like shows that are so formulaic like this. It seems like every episode is just Kota going somewhere, instantly falling for a girl, doing medicine on someone related to that girl, and then the girl ends up with someone else and Kota is thrown into crushing depression at the end of the episode. Sure, it’s a little predictable, but I really, really like Kota as well as the rest of the cast.

Kota’s character instantly clicked with me. He has a lot of personality and he loves the ladies. Coming from the stoic lead Yamapi played in Summer Nude, Kota is a welcome change.

There’s a handful of famous actors and actresses to be seen here as well (Terajima Susumu, Arakawa Yoshiyoshi, Shinoda Mariko) so the show definitely has that star power. There’s also a bit of mystery as Kota has told his mother that he’s engaged but too busy to come home and introduce her to his fiance. And there’s also a mystery character at the restaurant/bar his mom runs who has yet to reveal his face. Toda Erika is also searching for Kota, but we have no idea why, and she’s had minimal screen time so far.

Will Kota end up with Toda Erika’s character? Will his mother ever meet the fiance that he doesn’t (or does??) have yet? Will Kota end up falling in love with one of the nurses on the Kaishinmaru instead? Who knows!? But what I do know is that the show is so funny and entertaining that I am perfectly content with watching it and slowly finding out the answers to all of these pressing questions.

If you like, boats, medicine, crazy characters, or anything else I’ve mentioned, you should check out the show. It’s nifty. It’s not gonna knock off any of the powerhouses from my Top 10 Dramas list, but it’s an entertaining show nonetheless.

So tell me, had you ever heard of these mobile sea clinics in Japan? What do you think of them? Gonna check out Clinic on the Sea? You should!

Sites Referenced:
Japan-Guide
Web-Japan
Wikipedia
EMECS

Yes, Japan is Sinking

But only a little bit. Mostly, no, it’s not. There is a lot of seismic activity going on in Japan. It’s the most seismically active country in the world, but that should come as no surprise to anyone given the terrible earthquake tragedies that have happened in Japan over the years. Japan sits atop an intersection of several tectonic plates and the shape of the country has been gradually transformed by these plate movements.

But while Japan’s shape is changing, it is, on the whole, not sinking. Some parts of Japan (the mountains mostly) are actually getting higher as the plates collide. However, earthquakes such as the Tohoku one in 2011 do cause some parts of Japan to sink. A 250 mile stretch of land along the Tohoku coastline dropped by about 2 feet as a result of the quake. On the other hand, other parts of Japan got wider and the seabed off the coast of Tohoku raised by about 10 feet.

This picture is from Yonaguni, not actually a sunken continent.

As mentioned above, continents have sunk before. Take Zealandia, Mauritia, and the Kerguelen Plateau. While they did find themselves submerged a long, long time ago (think 23 million years), it still makes you pause to think what might happen to Japan eventually if everything goes right. Or wrong, depending how you look at it.

I actually didn’t know that these “sunken continents” existed until not too long ago, but I find the idea of them fascinating. I guess it makes sense once you think about it though. Once continents break up into microcontinents it’s only a matter of time before some of them start going under. But like I said, Japan is not one of these places. Not yet, anyway.

Propagated Sinking Myths

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjTw9qaiE5w']

Despite the evidence, there are still a decent amount of Japanese people who believe that their country is indeed sinking. In 1973, Sakyo Komatsu wrote the best-selling earthquake novel Japan Sinks. The novel led to a film that same year, a television show in 1975, and a film remake and a sequel to the novel in 2006. A parody movie by the title Everything Other than Japan Sinks was released in 2006 as well. This movie sounds hilarious and I kind of want to see it.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCbPbV_W0hg']

In the movie Japan Sinks (the real one, not the parody), Japan sinks in just a few days. Realistically, this would never happen, but if it did, it would release a tremendous tsunami upon most all the coastal cities of the world. So even if you’re not living in Japan, you really wouldn’t want it to sink. Not that you would anyway though, that’s just mean.

Should Japan be Worried?

Japan’s going to be fine. At one point in time, all the continents were joined as one and Japan used to be attached to the main Asian continent. Since then, Japan has slowly drifted further and further east. While this trend is likely to continue, it is no means for concern. Japan is moving east, not down.

And Japan is no stranger to man-made land, so while earthquakes will do their best to tear Japan down in an attempt to sink it into the ocean, Japan will always be ready to turn around and rebuild and recover. In Tokyo alone, hundreds of square kilometers have been added over the past 60 years. Since pieces and parts of Japan sink so slowly, this gives the Japanese people plenty of time to fill everything back in.

So tell me, what do you think about the whole Japan is going to sink idea? Are any of the ideas posited here flawed? Have any theories of your own? Let us know in the comments!

This is the last TeamLab post (for a little while, at least). I’ve been saving this one for last, since I think it’s my favorite (or, at the very least, the most psychedelic), so I’m hoping you enjoy it. Like the others, it combines traditional Japanese art styles with various modern elements, in this case they are using video which progresses the art piece as an actual story.

Check out this video (preferably in full screen) to see it in action.

In 2009, the World Wildlife Fund (Not to be confused with the World Wrestling Federation, which is equally as smashy) announced their prediction that sea levels will rise 120cm by the end of the century. 100 Years Sea visualizes this using traditional Japanese art styles. Besides the somewhat political nature of the film, here is the artistic concept behind it, as reported by TeamLab.

“Historically Japanese artist painted and expressed waves using a combination of lines. These assembled lines give the impression of the life and energy of the sea as one living creature. Looking at the sea we feel awe, and it is probably due to this awe that Japanese artists chose to express the sea as a living entity. Japanese ancestors possibly saw the world exactly as it is depicted in a classic Japanese print. Based on this idea, we considered recombining the subjective view of that of our ancestors with the fixed objective view of the modern world. We constructed virtual waves in a 3D environment that regardless of the cut, have the appearance of the combined line style of Japanese painting. As a result we think it might be possible to gain an impression of what the world looked like to our Japanese ancestors. This movie attempts to recreate the recognition of space of our Japanese ancestors’ in 3 dimensions. In doing so, we may be able to discover a new mode of expression in which viewers feel there is no border between the world of the movie and the world in which they live. As a result viewers may be able to feel the movie more physically.” (read more)

The video version above is actually the shorter, faster version (apparently the original actually takes 100 years to complete?). It’s displayed on a gigantic 20 meters of screen, so if you get motion sick easily then maybe this isn’t the best art installation for you.

Anyways, I’ll be watching TeamLab for any cool updates, so enjoy the TeamLab hiatus, for now. So what do you think. Is sea rise going to happen and swallow up Japan? Hopefully not, but at least my favorite monkey friends are safe in the mountains.