Posted on 03/14/2011 2:01:54 AM PDT by sushiman
I've been here ( Japan ) a long time , so what I have seen does not surprise me : the people's resilience ; the community spirit ; the never give up attitude ; the discipline ; etc...I would love to hear what your impressions have been , watching from halfway around the world .
“If CA had 1 hr to prepare for a Tsunami, it wouldn’t matter because the freeways would be packed there would be no place to go, and no plan for what to do if they stayed in place.”
I think most of the reponsibility to plan for what to do in those situations should be at the local level. It’s the local governments that help keep society from falling apart in affected areas when disaster hits, and failure there has a huge impact on the outcome.
Not yet.
Japan will prove to be a model for the entire world to take inspiration from. Meanwhile, NOLA will still continue people to feel compelled to scrape the bottom of the shoes whenever they are mentioned.
OK, immediately after completing installation of the first “Voicemail Japan ®” system the facility manager refused to to listen while I explained how to restart the system after an unplanned/emergency shut down.
He stated “This is Tokyo Japan, we will never have a problem, our power is perfect”.
Their company had rented a LARGE exhibition hall to announce the new state of the art technology the next morning.
EVERYONE of any importance was invited, including the emperor (Always invited - never shows up) ambassadors, heads of industry, ALL the VIP’s and press.
I woke early, dialed the system, AND IT WAS DEAD!
Not what you want when you are about to show it off to the world.
Seems some drunk had hit a power pole during the night, the transformer blew, NO POWER, system shut down.
The big show was only a couple of hours away.
I called Kenji, he got us to the facility PDQ, and when I asked the facility manager if he would like to listen while I explained how to re-boot the system he was now very quiet and attentive.
Not sure why he was so conceited that he did not just take the five minutes the day before, senior management in Japan (and here) sometimes seems to feel that ANY manual labor is beneath them.
In this case it was senseless that he initially refused critical information, which buttons to push, and in which order.
I can only imagine the embarrassment that would have been spread around if the system could not have been on-line in time.
The introduction was a success, the celebration dinner that evening was great, I still don’t know what most of the menu items were, except the whale bacon.
Japan has multi-generation hired help that are NOT allowed citizenship.
Merely being born and raised there does not get citizenship, if the parents are not citizens the kids are not either.
That helps a lot to maintain a homogenous culture working toward a common goal.
Hmm, my experience was that the Chinese are the MOST bigoted, referring to all other asians as “The descendants of ancient Chinese criminals who escaped justice”.
Their offered solution would make Hitler smile.
The Japanese have a national conceit of their own, they look down on the Koreans.
The Koreans despise the Japanese with a passion, the older generation loathes Japan beyond measure, they will never forgive the invasion and forced prostitution of their mothers as “Comfort Women”.
Yet they are all in business together.
or, they know the reports of radiation are left wing presstitute wet dreams intended to stop nuclear power in America
We know such and event in LA or Oakland would have looters coming in to the affected areas to carry away all they could find
During & after the recent massive floods in QLD/Australia I saw great community spirit here as well - people who didn’t know each other were volunteering to help one another any way they could. QLD govt’s response particularly the leadership demonstrated by the QLD Premier in managing the crisis was pretty good too (I’d say 8 out of 10).
I think the Japanese are much more disciplined & stoic. Sense of honour & nationalism are much stronger in Japan especially among older generations. I have a Japanese friend (an Architect) whom I’ve known for the past 15 yrs. She lives in Australia, tho her family is in Osaka. On a number of occasions, her family invited me to visit Osaka - thoroughly enjoyed that. I’ve the impression that the Japanese don’t make friends as easily or quickly (especially with foreigners) as, say, an Australian or an American would. But, once they do, friendship is not only important to the person but also to his/her family. Also, my Japanese friend tells me that the Japanese don’t consider themselves “Asians”. Nonetheless, every culture/nation has its strengths & weaknesses. Same applies to the Japanese.
I’ve long held the Japanese people in high regard. Their behavior post Sendai illustrates why.
Your post made my eyes well up and somewhat ashamed of what our cities would look like after such a tragedy.
Been thinking of you and glad to see you are ok.
You know, every society has bad and good, Japan, USA, wherever.
Believe me, there are some things I would change about Japan if I could, in some moral areas (abortion, workaholism, etc). But we have some of these problems in the USA, too, particularly the former.
But there are other areas where they, the Japanese, just blow you away with their coolheadedness, preciseness, orderliness, positive-thinking, and the word that is used the most, "resilience". (to me, that means taking personal responsibility and avoiding any and all forms of complaining, sharing what one has with others, politeness, sucking up the bad luck and pressing onwards to the future, putting the past behind/or at least trying to). That is Japan. That is the Japanese.
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