Usually after a catastrophe like what occurred in Japan there are a lot of human interest stories of people mourning lost loved ones, frantically search for the missing, selfless heroism and generosity, with the occasional good news of someone surviving in the wreckage and being rescued after being given up for lost.
In this case, although we had a double catastrophe of an earthquake followed by a tsunami, the focus on the fate of the nuclear reactors has eclipsed almost everything else. While this is understandable, there are some stories that I feel should have received wider coverage. One is the absence of widespread looting, or any looting at all, in the wake of the disaster. The other is the absence of price gouging by merchants. In fact, many merchants are reducing prices in order to help out the survivors. The third is the orderly and neighborly way that people are behaving to ensure that resources are shared amongst everyone.
All these things reflect well on the capacity of human beings to think of others and the greater good even in times of dire stress and on the Japanese people and culture in particular, and are deserving of greater recognition.
Shalom Mano,
Curse those Japanese for acting like they’re better than the rest of us and their la dee dah humanity.
They’re just trying to make the residents of New Orleans — not to mention our federal government — look bad.
B’shalom,
Jeff
If this happened in the US or many other places, there would be looting, etc. Says a lot about the Japanese culture and their industrialness.
It’s hard to loot when nothing is left.
That said, there is looting going on but nit getting coverage as the Japanese don’t want to embarass themselves. MSNBC touched on this last night on The Ed Show.
There have been reports in the Japanese media about looting, although not many.
But it’s not surprising that there wouldn’t be. We have basically three situations:
1. The ‘earthquake’ zone. I haven’t heard any reports of damage due to the shaking itself. Certainly in Tokyo it wasn’t significant.
2. The ‘tsunami’ zone. The areas affected from the tsunami are destroyed. There’s nothing to loot.
3. The ‘radiation evacuation zone’. It’s evacuated, and those within the ‘stay indoors zone’ are staying indoors.
There just isn’t really a lot of opportunity for looting.
In Sri Lanka, there was looting and raping in the aftermath of the terrible 2004 tsunami. Such despicable behavior occurred in Thailand too.
In a tsunami, while some areas are totally devastated and there is nothing to loot, at the edges of the affected areas it is more like flooded areas that are evacuated and have things worth looting.
I think by their nature the japenese are a polite nation they were forming oderly queues outside supermarkets and hospitals, these were not the scenes in other areas after disasters, where you say looting, fighting and generally selfish behaviour was seen.
Perhaps we should look to the japanese for instruction how to behave in a crisis!
It is sad that in the US there is rioting and looting in L.A after the Lakers win a championship. Not to say that we don’t have great and upstanding people here in the US, because we do. But as a whole we are losing the culture of integrity and honesty.
Yes, there was not much in the media about looting in the wake of this disaster. The nuclear threat has crowded out more of the news about the human element of the disaster. I think that we have a tendency to move on with our lives and forget this just like we do the rest of yesterday’s news.
Culturally speaking, Japan, as a whole, has a very strong sense of patriotism. However, when I said “patriotism”, it is different than our idea of patriotism in US. Japanese has this strong idea of collectivism. This idea of “No individualism in the present of a group”. “Think of the good of the group before oneself’s.” Each Japanese see themselves as a collective body to the whole country. And they respect one another of the part of the whole. I suppose I chose the word “patriotism” to describe such behavior for that reason. This spirit wasn’t taught or enforced in any way by the schools or any authority, but it was simply a cultural practice or a social standard that is common to each person in Japan. For the longest time, such a spirit was considered as a nuisance for it led to many social problems, such as death by overwork and such. But at the time of crisis, the true beauty of this “patriotic” spirit is fully displayed.
I know this because I was studying abroad in Sendai, the ground zero, until the end of last summer…
@ Jeff
That is a bold comment, I must say. However, for whatever intention they did it, we, as the spectators, can’t dismiss the fact in how well the civilians handle the situation. An impressive job is an impressive job. Besides, we are really in no position to criticize their actions.