Tagged: Japan

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

The 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident did not just turn the Japanese against nuclear energy, virtually overnight it has legitimized the act of public protest in a country where few people have been willing to take political issues to the streets. Lucy Craft reports from Tokyo.

LUCY CRAFT, BYLINE: Nagatacho is Tokyo's Capitol Hill, home to parliament and the prime minister. It's a part of town few Japanese ever set foot in. But in the post-Fukushima era, this is the new normal.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTING)

Japanese officials are experimenting with ways to help people displaced by last year's earthquake and tsunami. One idea is to create parallel towns where everyone from the dog-catcher to the schoolteacher can shift to one town while their old village is being rebuilt. It's a way of keeping communities intact. But after more than a year, many of the affected communities have already scattered.