Text: “Don’t criticize government or TEPCO, guides in Fukushima told.” Shoko Rikimaru and Shinichi Sekine / The Asahi Shimbun.
“Tour guides are bristling at instructions not to criticize the central government or Tokyo Electric Power Co. when speaking to visitors at a recently opened memorial museum to the 2011 triple meltdown at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The instructions have left some Fukushima residents who signed up to be guides feeling perplexed and sparked anger in others.
The museum in Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, opened on Sept. 20 with the objective of passing on to visitors the lessons learned from the nuclear disaster triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13752941
The focus of May 2021 TOK essay Prescribed Title #6 is bias. The museum and the earthquake / tsunami have a number of links to positive and negative aspects of bias:
- Biases held by Fukushima-area citizens towards the government and TEPCO
- Biases held by the government and TEPCO officials about Fukushima-area citizens
- The role biases play in the design of disaster-resistant structures
- How bias affected the building of the museum and how bias affects its management
- The role bias plays in how different kinds of people react to certain museum exhibits
- Bias in media reports on the museum controversy