Juandiego Fonseca comments

How long until China claims this one their own?

I'm sitting in the exact same place I was sitting at that time, here in my lab in Sendai. I feel very uncomfortable and uneasy, and trying to keep quiet but I cry sometimes when I see or read some things. This is unexpected, last year it was fine, why does it affect me like this this time? It was all so confusing. I still hold the greatest gratitude towards the people who offered warm food for people passing by. The memory of a warm bowl of miso soup offered by the old man in the fish shop the day after still makes my chest feel warm and at ease.

In Ecuador, you can be murdered by getting on an illegal taxi late at night. In the US, you can get murdered for attending school or a movie theater. The kind of danger is different. I cannot believe people can dare to make comparisons between countries based on a single number taken out of context. Even if you do take the murder rate into account, Ecuador still is relatively safe in the region.