Three days after a 9.0 earthquake devastated Japan, Tokyo resident Ashley Hayes returned to work.
"I got up as usual Monday morning and went to the train station," said the Atlanta native. But rolling blackouts wreaked havoc with the schedule. "By Wednesday the line of commuters snaking up to my station contained about 150 people."
Hayes, noting a patronizing thread in media coverage of the quake's aftermath, said the Japanese are not immune to restiveness.
"A train already filled to capacity would pull up to the platform, two or three people from each car would get off, and then about 15 to 20 would try to shove their way on," the 27-year-old translator recounted. "Yes, pushing! By Japanese people."
And with essential goods scarce, hoarding has been an issue. Hayes and her boyfriend weren't able to buy tissues or bottled water, and rice, noodles and other carbohydrates have been largely absent from supermarket shelves.
"My boyfriend saw a single woman check out with over 10 rolls of Saran Wrap," said Hayes, who returned to Atlanta over the weekend -- a decision reached after relatives begged her to leave her adopted home for a visit.
"[The] incessant wave of bad news about the reactor really bothered my family," she said. "The straw that broke the camel's back was when they broke the story about how even the workers had been evacuated due to high radiation levels."
Hayes acknowledged her optimism that a nuclear crisis will be averted was tested when the U.S. government advised its citizens to evacuate Japan. Her superiors in Japan were not as conflicted.
A request for a week off from work, for example, revealed some tensions over how the situation at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has been depicted.
"Our CEO said that the media frenzy surrounding the incident has evolved into a cult," Hayes said. Her boss told her the "western media has been overreacting ... making sure to say ‘overreacting' in English."
It's understandable why many Japanese would concur. Hayes, for instance, had electricity and cell phone service restored the day after the quake. "I never really felt like I was in a ‘ghost town,' " she said.
But she has struggled to adopt a "business as usual" posture. Daily afterschocks left her with a bad case of "jinshin-yoi," which she compared to being seasick. "I was extremely paranoid, charging my cell phone to full power constantly and making sure to take all of my belongings with me when I left for lunch," she said.
Still, she has no plans of leaving Japan permanently. Tokyo "is home," Hayes said, though the comforts of family will be welcomed.
"I’m looking forward to homemade red velvet cake and therapeutic cuddling with my cat," she said.
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