Back from the Brink: St. Michael-Albertville Student Taber Tang Home From Japan

Taber Tang could only smile as Chad Vitzhum, the man from St. Michael-Albertville Rotary who had made Tang’s yearlong student exchange possible, told those gathered that “Taber’s home, safe and sound … though somewhat reluctantly.”

After all, Tang’s dream to study abroad had been cut more than five months short.

“I think I’m over it. Well, sort of. The thing is, I’m here safe. And I guess that’s what really matters,” he would said later. “It was really disappointing at first.”

Tang was in class when the catastrophic 9.o magnitude quake hit Japan, just seven months into his stay in Kiryu, a city he compared to Burnsville.

“There had been earthquakes before, but you could tell this one was different. It was like someone took you by the shoulders and just kept shaking you. It just kept going,” Tang said. “When it was over, we didn’t really know how bad things were until we went home and saw the news. And then, it just stayed on the news for the next three days. The earthquake and tsunami were all you saw.”

The quake, of course, and ensuing 30-foot tsunami, has killed thousands in Japan. Many more may be sick due to a nuclear catastrophe that only now looks to be controlled, but is still perilous. All of those factors added in to the decision to use Rotary International’s power to bring Tang home.

“It was a very tough situation,” Vitzhum said.

Prior to the quake, Tang had been enjoying his time in Japan. He had traveled with a group of schoolmates and chaperones to Kyoto, an historic city (and once the capital) of Japan.

“It just showed you how young the United States truly is. The history there was really amazing. You have these 1,000-year-old buildings that are mixed with these modern-day high-rises. It was one of the favorite parts of my trip,” Tang said.

He was also able to experience one of the hot springs in a nearby prefecture (think: county).

At school, he fit in well, and since Tang is of Asian descent, students spoke to him “as if I already knew Japanese.” That helped him pick up the language much quicker.

At home, it wasn’t always easy. Tang said he had some tough times with his first host mother, who expected him to do some things, culturally, that Tang simply didn’t know.

“Communication was hard, at first. By the end, we were much closer. She called me right away after the earthquake,” he said.

School was much different. Rather than roaming the halls of a school, going from class to class, teachers are the ones who must move from room to room.

“You basically get to your room and that’s where you sit for the day. So you get to know the people in your class very well. But it can get pretty tough. My second host family’s daughter was in my class, so we saw each other 24/7. We got kind of sick of each other after a while”

Japanese education is very student-based, Tang said. Everything is geared to processing the information and achievement.

After adapting to school, Tang was able to enjoy life as a Japanese teen. He went on a skiing and snowboarding trip with a group. And he had two more host families, meeting some “really good people” along the way.

In the days after the earthquake, Tang wondered if he could go to the Miyagi Prefecture, just 30 minutes away, and lend a hand. But his status as an exchange student and the nuclear emergency put the clamps on any ideas of traveling into the destruction zone.

“It was tough to see. I had friends at school who had families in that area and they had no idea what was going on. It was a little bit helpless,” Tang said.

He went to school March 14, because the school in Kiryu told students that “if you can make it, come.” So he took his normal 10-minute bike ride to the building.

For others, it was different. Some in his class rode the train three hours to get to school. But the train service had been completely derailed by the tsunami.

“High school is really privatized, so you go where you can,” Tang explained. “There were a lot of people Monday who just couldn’t make it.”

By Wednesday, another aftershock of more than 6.0 had hit Japan, and the nuclear crisis was worsening with explosions on the plant grounds in Miyagi. Word came down that Tang was being evacuated.

“I had to get to Tokyo to leave, and we were really wondering how that was going to happen with no trains,” he said. “But they got one of the bullet trains back online by Wednesday, so they got me to Tokyo, and I had to spend a day in a hotel before they flew me out.”

Now back in St. Michael, Tang officially gets the rest of this year off. He’s hoping he can start with the United States Air Force next fall, which he’ll use to pay for college.

“I’d definitely go back,” he said. “Someday.”