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.