Japanese Book Stores

From NHK 4/29/2018 report

I didn't realize Japanese used sea shells as trumpets 🐚🎺just like people in Hawaii & #LordOfTheFlies do pic.twitter.com/VmWxzenckd

— 🎼AdagioForStrings🎻 (@adagioforstring) May 19, 2018

News Reader: One small shop is making a difference in a community that was effected by the nuclear disaster in Fukushima.  It's a bookstore run by a famous writer who decided to join the community.  The owner said that books  have an extraordinary power.  We went to see what that means for the local community.   

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Hawaiian conch shell trumpeting:





An alleged history of Hawaiian conch shell trumpeting



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Reporter: The sound of shell horns heralds the opening of a bookstore in Odaka, a district of Fukushima Prefecture that remained off limits until  2016.

Miri Yu/Author/ Store Owner: The store is now open.  You're all welcome to come in and browse.

Yu:  Thank you for coming.


Reporter: The owner is Miri Yu an award winning writer of Korean descent.  Many of her stories focus on family life.  Her vivid descriptions of emotional scars have captured readers.  Yu converted the first floor of her home to open the bookstore.  The 33 square meter space is filled with titles carefully by herself and fellow writers.

First Customer: I was looking for this one [book].

Second Customer: Show me

First Customer: I've read the rest of the series except for this volume.

Yu: I think if you're 100% satisfied with your life and there's no pain or sorrow then you don't need to open a book.  It's not up to me to decide what kind of place this bookstore will be.  Instead, I hope every person that visits will find their own meaning here and that they will keep coming back.

Reporter: The nuclear accident of March 2011 and the five year evacuation that followed weigh heavily on the district of Odaka. 13,000 people lived here until the accident.

Reporter: Only 2,500 have returned.  Many of them elderly residents.

Reporter: The number of stores and services remain very limited.

Reporter: After the disaster of 2011, Yu spent six years hosting a talk show on a local radio station. It allowed her to hear directly from  hundreds of residents.  The more she listened to their stories, the more she felt she wanted to be part of the community.  She moved to the area in 2015.  The radio station was closed in March, but the conversation continues.

Reporter: Neighbors often visit Yu to share food and a chat.  Yu says their stories resonate with her lifelong search for a place where she belongs.

Reporter: Yu was born in Japan in 1968 to parents who had fled the Korean War [which occurred in the 1950s, but whatever].  She grew up in poverty and an abusive father and suffered bullying in school [did anybody NOT experience bullying in school, but whatever]

Reporter: As an ethnic Korean, she felt there was no place for her in Japanese society.

Reporter: She dropped out of high school and repeatedly tried to commit suicide.

Reporter: Yu turned to writing as a way to create a place of her own.  Books provided an emotional shelter for Yu and she felt they could do the same for the people of Odaka.


Yu: Odaka was completely evacuated so people were deprived of the place they used to belong to.   Whether they are confronting pain or they're unable to find their own place in this reality I want this bookstore to be their gateway to a different world.  A bookstore can take you anywhere you wish to go.

Reporter:  In a small community still struggling to rebuild itself, Yu hopes her little bookstore can provide a place where everyone belongs.