Posted on 03/16/2011 10:34:17 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
“Gaman-subeki.”
Translated from the Japanese, the words mean “we must endure.”
It’s these words the Japanese are using to describe the way they are dealing with the nightmare engulfing their country, according to an edited report by Winnetka native Dan Simon, 30, who has lived in Tokyo for the past three years.
“The Japanese people have responded to the situation with resilience and determination,” said Simon, a journalist who is now working for a public relations company. “They are hanging tough and proud of the way they have responded to the crisis. This is the Japanese way: continue on, do not give up and help each other.
“I live in Tokyo in the middle of the city and I think it’s important to note if this had happened in Chicago or in New York, I think we would have seen rioting and looting.
“But the Japanese people have a different way of doing things, and even though there is panic, they go about their lives in an orderly and polite way. There’s no overturned cars or riot police. It’s something that the Japanese people are very proud of. They’re saying they are very proud to be Japanese right now.”
Simon, a graduate of New Trier High School, has no plans to leave.
“In spite of several moments of panic, and the ever-present desire to flee overseas, I will follow the example of the Japanese and stay put.”
Although Tokyo has been relatively safe, hours after Simon dispatched his message to Sneed, the city was hit by three more aftershocks at 8:30 a.m. Chicago time Tuesday.
“One was a 6.0 on the Richter scale,” said Simon, who’d recently been on his home computer “watching a streaming Internet video of someone with a Geiger counter in nearby Chiba. But I’m not worried about radiation at all. From the information I’ve been receiving, it’s not something to really worry about in Tokyo. There is some panic with people buying food and water — but people are still delivering pizza.
“It has been four days since the giant earthquake. When the quake struck, I was in my office on the top floor of a seven-story building. At first, it felt like the dozens of minor earthquakes I have experienced since moving here.
“I quickly realized, as did my co-workers, that it was no minor thing. I braced myself in a nearby door jam while the rest of my colleagues ducked under their desks. Our building swayed, heavy metal bookshelves and cabinets were knocked over and the walls cracked. We feared it was the “big one” that has been predicted to hit Tokyo for decades.
“On Sunday, I started carrying my passport and cash around with me. As the new week began, many foreigners fled the city. A vegetable vendor near my office said, “Food supplies are still strong from the southern and western parts of Japan. But in the northern areas, things are very difficult. But Tokyo is OK.”
Then he added: “But it does seem surreal, as if the real danger is looming just out of sight.”
Especially Chicago, that is Obama and Jesse Jackson land. Judge Mathis too. Probably not NYC.
Followed immediately by a complete, total, and utterly predictable sell-off of all available food stocks.
And yet the Left complained constantly about Bush's vacations and working hours (he was early to bed, early to rise).
We ought to dust off some of Michael Moore's barf and headline it in the Washington Star and Weekly Standard.
Obama deserves the hit -- his idea of a "boogie White House" just does not, and will not, make scratch with the American People. So it's fair to make an issue of it.
I don’t find this to be anti-American.
In WWII, our “greatest generation,” tough and united, fought the Japanese, also tough and united, and our guys won.
I think we are a different people now, not united but hyphenated, ready to join mobs like those in Madison.
Historically, Japan, as a nation, has been more than willing to loot its neighbors. Just ask China and Korea.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/Foreign/Japan-Gun-Control-and-People-Control.htm has some very interesting information as to crime in Japan. Once arrested, you are far more likely to be convicted there than you are here. People control is key in Japan. They also factor their crime statistics differently than we do (i.e., they under-report murders and we over-report). What are the chances that under-reporting goes on in other crime categories?
Haven’t read all of the replies so I’m not sure if someone has pointed this out yet but Chicago had riots/looting in 1968 and 1919 (both “race” riots) so it’s not hard to imagine them happening there again.
Oh and New York has had countless riots going back to the 1800s.
You missed the larger picture. There was no looting in New York City when the Twin Towers were attacked. There was no looting in Nashville when it was hit by floods. Chicago was hit by tornados recently and there was no looting.
LOL, love your caption. Someone needs to add it to the photo.
No, I didn’t miss the larger picture. I took the statement for it’s face value, Chicago just being a generic example. Substitute Los Angeles, Detroit, or New Orleans it would be the same thing.
Chicago is just another thug run city that has no real redeeming qualities at all. You need look no further than to see it is the city that put a thug like Rahm Emanuel in the Mayor’s office, gave us Barack Hussein Obama (mmmmm, mmmm,mmmm) or the second rate Bears (still Suck!).
Looting and vandalism were widespread, especially in the African American and Puerto Rican communities, hitting 31 neighborhoods, including every poor neighborhood in the city.
Possibly the hardest hit were Crown Heights, where 75 stores on a five-block stretch were looted, and Bushwick where arson was rampant with some 25 fires still burning the next morning.
At one point two blocks of Broadway, which separates Bushwick from Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, were on fire.
Thirty-five blocks of Broadway were destroyed: 134 stores looted, 45 of them set ablaze. Thieves stole 50 new Pontiacs from a Bronx car dealership.
In Brooklyn, youths were seen backing up cars to targeted stores, tying ropes around the stores' grates, and using their cars to pull the grates away before looting the store.
While 550 police officers were injured in the mayhem, 4,500 looters were arrested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977
The article speaks the truth, if it were here in the U.S. you’d have seen looting by now, or have you missed seeing the looting that goes on after a hurricane? Perhaps to satisfy your sensibilities, the article should have mentioned New Orleans and Florida, two states where I have seen looting after a hurricane.
Wait ‘til the snotty remarks about GE’s design of these reactors becomes a measure of whose fault this all is. US of A anyone?
When those things happen you see looting and other crimes. As per the snow in Chicago and no looting, it's sort hard to engage in mass looting when you have 40 some odd inches of snow on the ground, so that can't compare to what is going on in Japan.
Speaking of riots, wait until OweBama loses the 2012 election.
Didn't the japanese used to cut people's hands off for stealing?
Well - way too many to answer. I’m sorry to see this give-it-up can’t-do sentiment here on FR especially when the USA will probably do a lion’s share of rebuilding Japan just as we have done before. As far as Dan Simon goes, let him stay in Tokyo for the rest of his days.
How much you want to bet that this Simon character voted for Barry??
Homogeneous demographics tend to produce more docile populations. Sense of commonality of purpose and all that.
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