I love Japan.

[lostnfound]

I've walked in the snow in Hokkaido with my sister.
I've eaten crunchy shrimp heads fresh from the chef in Tokyo.
I've walked through shrines in Kyoto.
I've visited the poignant shrine at Nikko, more than once.
I've had the honor of sharing a New Year's meal fit for a king, and staying with a family in their home.
I've taken a thousand pictures of my son in front of shinkansens, because he loves riding "the fastest train".
I've noticed how sparkling clean they keep everything, even the garbage trucks.

I would be flying there right NOW, TODAY, for a ten day trip that I would have wished were a whole season, were it not for this devastating "act of God".
I had it all planned, in a way that I never plan.
Was it wrong to cancel the trip when the loss of tourism is one of the many great losses following most disasters?
No, I think it would be wrong to take up space, to get in the way, when the Japanese people need to get to their homes.

I love Japan.

It is a country with simple beauty in so many places, whose people were kind to this visitor at every turn.
Their culture is so EARNEST. "Gamen, shinasai!" Persevere! Do not give up!

My Japanese friend says that in Japan he grew up with a saying that there are four things to fear: "jishin, kaminari, kaji, oyajin". "Earthquake, lightning, fire, and your father".

I watch them now on JapanTV / NHK, and interspersed between video of massive walls of water destroying small towns -- walls of water that look like Class V rapids, but a mile wide -- are scenes of an unarmed army spreading out to help the people, and water being delivered in thin plastic baggies (how smart they are to use those, which can be filled on site and are designed to prevent contamination), and the banks are announcing how they can give you cash even if you've lost all your identification (if you can prove who you are by the information you know, your personal information, they will give you 100,000 yen even though you don't have any identification).
THe NHK scenes shows piles of cars and small airplanes that look like a children's toy box spilling over with 'hot wheels' and toy planes. It shows a long stretch of railway track dangling like a mile long rope from the edge of a cliff. It shows a grandmother saying that she was able to save her two grandchildren and escape the oncoming tsunami, but she did not know where the rest of her family was. "Shinpai shimasu", she said. "I am worried".

I am so sad of heart to see it.

I also think about the ridiculous, naiive, self-serving ideology in the U.S. which claims to see each individual exclusively as standing on their own feet, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, no community effort worthwhile, only unrestrained greed, only individual choices, no collective effort, no need for government to do anything to help anyone, let's privatize the whole dang country and let the market sort it out. Such blindness isn't possible for a people who live on a mountainous volcanic string of islands that sits at the edge of major fault lines that can experience tidal waves of this enormity. In the midst of this devastation, it is obvious that there are times when we must rely on each other and that government services most certainly are valuable and necessary.

Their language, especially written, is fascinating. (In someways, Yoda speaks like a Japanese -- he ends his sentences with verbs.) Japan, beautiful country it is. Japan, persevere you must. Your American friends, heartbroken we are. Gamen shinasai.

[tavalon]

1. I've wanted to visit since I moved to the West Coast

My husband spent some childhood years there and he wanted to show me. The place where his grandmother lived is gone, the town she was in is basically gone. So, sad.

[seabeyond]

2. you know what is sad

i dont have the same picture in my head about japan as you do.

i like your picture so much better, and i thank you for sharing it with me. it is the first wholesome, healthy view i have had of japan in a very long time.

most all we hear about japan now a days is the perverted... it is in all the stories out of there, it is in the studies, it is all i have seen for a while.

reading your post was a wake up for me, how messed up the picture of japan has become for me.

thanks.

totally out of blue and not really to do with your post, but perception

[AsahinaKimi]

3. NIHON GA DAISUKI DESUNE

I love the culture, the food, the movies, the animation, the music, the people, and loved reading about Samurai, and the early history of Japan. My father is from Osaka, Japan. My mother has relatives in Miyazaki Prefecture. I would never want to live there, but I want to visit again. The last time I was in Osaka I was 6 months old. Too young to remember, other then my grandmothers face.

I am content living under the shadow of Nihonmachi in San Francisco. But today, my heart goes out to Japan.

頑張れ日本 !!

[Dash87]

4. One of the greatest countries and cultures in the world. Far superior in both ways to the US.

They will get through this no matter what happens. :)

[Fleshdancer]

5. I love Japan too

We lived in Fujisawa for three years and my daughter was born there. I love the people, the food, and every oddity that makes Japan so unique. I like walking down a bustling modern city street and suddenly discovering a small Temple wedged between two skyscrapers. I like the feeling of freedom you get when you finally squeeze your way out of the train during rush hour. I still smile thinking about the news story on the sheer amount of umbrellas in the subway lost and found because everyone seems to leave them on the train but no one steals them.

I remember a few occasions where people ran after me to hand me the money that I accidentally left somewhere...when it fell out of my pocket on the train or I didn't grab all the change in the ticket machine. Then there's the hilarious story of the elderly Japanese woman in the restroom who wanted to help me breastfeed my daughter so she grabbed my breast and wiggled it at my daughter to get her to latch on. True story! We didn't know each other, but she was more more experienced and she wanted to help so she did.

In a country where everyone was a stranger to me, I have so many memories of being looked after and cared for because that's just how the Japanese are. I guess in that regard, no one was a stranger after all. How could you not fall in love with that concept?

[lostnfound]

11. I remember a perfect stranger in a business suit grabbing the edge of my baby stroller

and carrying it down the stairs with me, without ever saying a word or looking for any acknowledgement of any kind, just going about his business when he got to the bottom of the stairs. Memories of "being looked after and cared for".. I agree.

[KittyWampus]

6. How do you say "I am worried with you Grandmother"? in Japanese?

[sakabatou]

10. Watashi to anata no obaasan o kunishimasu.

I think that's correct.

[KittyWampus]

13. thank you.

[slackmaster]

7. I spent a week there in 1996 with my brother. We walked to the top of Mount Fuji.

It was an amazing experience.

[roguevalley]

8. everyone loves their country and when its harmed so are they

down deep inside. I am so terribly sad about this. Japan is a great country and her people are good. Take care, Japan.

[Kurovski]

9. K&R. (nt)

[Shagbark Hickory]

12. Do you know if the areas where they massacre dolphins and process whale meat

was effected by the tsuquakey?

As you can probably tell, I watch a lot of reality tv.

[somone]

14. The Faroe Islands?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaling_in_the_Faroe_Islands

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. Nah. I'm talking about Taiji I guess. Wakayama prefecture.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDkQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D-wK31g_ufHg&rct=j&q=dolphin%20slaughtering%20japan&ei=Sd58TfeKCsq80QHSoo3SAw&usg=AFQjCNGmKl3tCUu_eMPEdr6KSJCmJjLdhA&sig2=VbgE4rRQaPCVXfdk0k5DfA&cad=rja

Appears to be way south of tokyo even. PRobably unscathed.