Thursday, March 17, 2011

Admiring the Japanese spirit

By now you've followed the heck out of Kyodo and BBC and Al-Jazeera. As fits the "charmed life" model perfectly, Fukuoka is almost entirely unaffected by the disaster at large. Unlike Kanto and Tohoku areas, we have electricity 24 hours a day, no earthquakes/aftershocks shaking us several times daily, our grocery stores have food on the shelves, and gas stations are operating normally. It is incredibly surreal, and if I believed in survivor guilt I would be feeling it. I don't, though. Instead, I intend to celebrate my own life doubly in thanks that it has been spared.

Today I gave blood. Tomorrow, payday, I will put forward a sizeable chunk of my paycheck toward the relief donation campaign my school is running. I won't waste electricity and I won't stockpile or hoard bottled water or batteries. Life marches on.

That's what I like about the Japanese. Unlike my countrymen who dwell lingeringly on tragedy in a very masturbatory and selfish way, the Japanese accept what befalls them and work together to move beyond it. Their powerful stoicism and strength has reappeared, easily forgotten in a sea of effeminate man-babies, a frustrating educational system and suicide-inducing workaholic corporate culture. Some people misinterpret the "perseverance" attitude as disrespect, but I understand it more as a refusal to break under pressure. In this perseverance I see unmeasurable bravery and pride. No one is running away.

Except the French of course. What's with that?!

2 comments:

  1. "Their powerful stoicism and strength has reappeared, easily forgotten in a sea of effeminate man-babies"

    i loled so much.....

    yay japan. trudge on, trudge on...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha yeah I enjoyed that too.

    I'm the same as you and life hasn't changed here at all. I'm just shitting it more often that I'll die in the upcoming Nankai earthquake and tsunami. I made it sound like a movie... anyway... fucking French.

    ReplyDelete

What's up?