Japan Will Rise from the Ashes

The slogan, 「今こそ力が問われるとき」(Now is when we need to be strong) flashes across the top of the TV screen as the national news continues its daily focus on the disaster zone in Northeastern Japan. Certainly there are many huge problems, with both the nuclear disaster and the economy, but the main focus is clearly on the tsunami victims. People are coming out of the woodwork to volunteer as never seen before in Japan as story after story covers the tremendous challenges faced by victims. Children displaced from their school friends, overcrowded schools where victims have enrolled in large numbers, older people growing immobile by the day as their usual exercise routine has been destroyed, people unable to retrieve their possessions, human corpses in the ocean contaminated with radiation--the list of simply awful circumstances continues, and the nation is rallying around their countrymen and countrywomen.

One university president used his position to order green leafy vegetables from the agriculturally rich region near the nuclear reactors that was not affected, but which suffers from a natural sort of boycott. A student interviewed in that university cafeteria explained, “Oh, I don’t think much about whether there is radiation in the vegetables or not. I’m sure it’s safe.”

Other news stories cover volunteer efforts in Tohoku (Northeastern Japan) and why this is a time when the country needs to come together. As on any other given day of news,「ガンバレ日本」signs are shown in new and interesting places, stores, wall surfaces and clothing. Other phrases like 「つながろう」(Let’s connect) and 「日本を信じている」（I believe in Japan) are tucked away subliminally on a corner of the screen or show up in a public service announcement. Red Cross donation account information occupied the back of a bus service magazine on the way to the airport, and signs (i.e., billboards, etc.) of encouragement could be seen here and there. 

Perhaps any society placed in this sort of situation would strive to muster as much solidarity as possible, but Japan has a particularly innocent and unaffected way of doing this. As a people, the Japanese are not ones to shirk common-sense expectations or waste too much time focusing on their complaints. They are extremely adept at accepting the situation and doing what must be done. If dramatic scenes of huge waves carrying whole villages out to sea dominated YouTube worldwide last month, scenes of country roads surrounded by glacially diminishing rubble have remained the warp and woof of daytime screen viewing in Japan since the disaster. There is no limit to viewers’ tolerance and continued demand for rubble-filled scenes of rural Tohoku. It stays on the screen throughout the day, every day, without exception.

Let’s hope there is no other sort of other distracting disaster that will distract Japan from its currently solid focus on recovery, as the sarin gas incident seemed to divert its focus from the Kobe earthquake recovery in 1995. It seems like these sorts of disasters happen in cycles, and history goes on. But the depth of disaster this time also promises to keep the whole country focused for quite some time.

One politician this past weekend suggested that this might be the right time to develop the West Coast of Tohoku (exactly where I lived in childhood), because it faces the Japan Sea and China and Korea, so it should be valued more as and economically strategic area for Japan. Moreover, the West Coast (Akita and Yamagata) were completely untouched by the tsunami and nuclear disasters and would therefore be easier to quickly develop, but the benefit would by likely to rapidly cross the mountains eastward, resulting in an economic win-win situation for the tsunami victims, Japan’s economically strategic position in East Asia, and for the underdeveloped 「裏日本」（backside of Japan, as the Tohoku West Coast is often called) area. The Sugiyamas, very close friends of my childhood family, have been talking about this for years.

But because Japan has a national debt to the tune of 200% of the GDP, all projects are currently difficult to fund and start up. However, since the earthquake consumer spending has gone down over 5%, and Japanese society is in gear to tighten its belt for the common good. Considering all this, my outlook for Japan is that:

1. It will take 10 years to recover from this disaster
2. Those 10 years will see a reinvigoration of Japan’s disillusioned and unemployed younger generation, many of whom will find themselves through volunteering to help their compatriots.
3. Japan will continue to increase its trade with mainland Asia, and the role of the Western seaboard will heighten considerably.
4. Tohoku will become one of the most thriving parts of the Japanese economy 10 years from now.