The disastrous earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan has mostly faded from the headlines of news stories.
But St. Albert teacher Steve Johnson intends to bring attention back by putting his feet down … again and again.
“I did 600-plus kilometres of training just to prepare,” he said while speaking with the media in St. Albert on a rainy Monday.
The day before he set off from the Edmonton Japanese Community Cultural Centre on a long walk, or rather a series of long walks. Until July 26, he plans to trek and journey through as many communities as possible between here and the counterpart cultural building in Vancouver on a consciousness-raising adventure he is calling Gambaro, the Japanese word for ‘stay strong.’
He hopes to use his words as much as his legs.
“It’s a balance between the walk and the talk to get the message out there. They say actions speak louder than words so I’m combining the two.”
He wants to spend several hours each day covering a distance comparable in length to that of a marathon. The message of endurance is what he hopes to send to his friends and new family members on the island country.
He explained that, in Japan, pilgrimages are common. He thinks of this effort as “a message in motion, a dedication walk and travelling talk.”
The 33-year-old lived and taught in Japan for most of the past eight years, only returning to Canada several months before the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck near Tohoku. It was one of the top five most powerful events ever recorded in human history and resulted in widespread damage and destruction. More than 7,600 people are still missing.
He said he isn’t out there specifically to fundraise for any kind of relief efforts (despite the wristbands he is selling for the Red Cross). To him, it’s far more significant to bring attention back to the Japanese people who deal with such situations with grace and endurance, showing no outward suffering.
“There’s a lot of people tuning in in Japan that this will mean something to them to raise their spirits, to show them Canadian compassion. Canadians have a special capacity for genuine sympathy. Obviously, my role is clear. If this is what I can do, I want to do it.”
Muriel Martin teacher Bill Mallon was at the walk’s launch on Sunday and praises Johnson’s efforts because the affected area near Tohoku will still be recovering for a long time.
“If you’re anywhere near that disaster zone, then it’s still something you’ll be living with for years and years to come. One of the things I hear mostly from people in the Japanese community is that you don’t hear about what’s happening there any more. I think it’s great that Steve is trying to bring attention back to it.”
Johnson and his wife, Yoshimi Tanaka, are maintaining a blog website at walkforjapan.blogspot.com so that people can keep abreast of his travels and help to spread his message. He is already on his way south to the Calgary and Banff area of Alberta before he moves west into British Columbia.
