Yoshitaka Naka, a former Baker University student, has a deep love for his roots in Japan.
He loves his family and friends, the food, people and culture of his country.
He was born and raised in the city of Osaka, and lived there until he was 19 years old, when he decided to come to the United States to study after high school.
So, being half a world away from his homeland, while seeing Japan’s worst earthquake in centuries, Naka could only describe the news about the earthquake that shook Japan March 11 as disbelief.
“At first, when I saw the tragedy, I thought I was watching a movie,” he said in an email. “But after (a) while I noticed this is happening and started to worry about my family, friends and my kind of people over there.”
While he lived in Japan, Naka said he experienced a lot of earthquakes, and students would practice earthquake drills often.
He said the biggest earthquake he ever experienced was in 1995, when a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit the area of Hanshin, and he could feel the effects of that earthquake in Osaka.
“When that earthquake happened, my house was shaking strongly, but it didn’t break it,” he said. “That was the biggest earthquake that I experienced. … At that time, I was in preschool. So, I didn’t know what to do. Strangely, people are supposed to know what to do when earthquakes happen because people are trained for earthquakes. However, when actual earthquakes happen, we can’t do anything against it but pray or stick with our family.”
But that was a 7.3 earthquake. The one that hit the northeastern side of Japan was an 8.9 magnitude, followed by several aftershocks and a 23-foot tsunami.
Immediately after the earthquake happened, Naka was unable to reach any family in Japan for a few days, but once he was able to get into contact with some of them, he found out they were all safe.
But it isn’t just people with direct relations to Japan who are feeling the emotional effects of the earthquake.
Junior Loryn Walrod visited Japan briefly for a few hours on her way to China back in 2007, and she was able to see a lot of Japan’s scenery, not only in the airport, but also from an aerial view.
“(Japan) was just very neat looking,” she said. “I was really impressed with … the detail of the gardens as far as design, and I just thought it was really impressive you could tell that they were really well cared for from that high.”
Walrod was sad to think about all the destruction Japan suffered from the earthquake.
“I can imagine … the destruction must be horrible for them,” she said. “I can’t imagine living in what they’re living in now. It just makes me really sad to think … all that stuff is torn up now.”
Even though Kathy Wilson, administrative assistant for Student Academic Success, didn’t have any direct relations to Japan, she still took a moment to pause after the earthquake happened.
“My initial reaction was just really thinking of the humanity,” she said. “And how can your heart not sink for that moment?”
