Japan after the Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear SpillLessons for the world

by Johnny Lucas

No visitor to Japan has ever left the country without feeling something like “This country has a lot to teach the world.” Since March 11 at 2:46 PM when the tsunami hit the island kingdom, Japan has been writing in pain and agony. The pain of its citizens is still played daily on billions of televisions around the world. If you didn’t think much about Japan before March 11, 2011, you can’t help but have the country in your mind and heart now.

Japan is a very small country, mountainous with little arable land. It’s densely populated and the climate is not much better than Britain’s. What it has in abundance is the intangibles: culture, ethos, national pride, a collective spirit that has not been duplicated anywhere else. In its long history these human qualities have proven to be more important than natural resources.

Japan is not now a place to go as a tourist. But it will be again, probably soon.

When you go to Japan here are a few things you can expect to learn.

Why good manners are important. Japanese people are extremely polite. They bow, they address each other according to the rules. This does not mean they are wimps, it does mean that they value getting along with others. Japan was never the wild west were it was every man for himself. It’s a very cooperative society in which everyone continued existence depends on the support of others.

Everyone loves the natural environment. Central Park in New York city is supposedly the most used part in the world on a person per square metre basis. It’s a big park, but small in proportion to the number of people it serves. Tokyo has many swaths of green, lakes and small parks lovingly tended to make it look like the ancient city is the newcomer to the area, not the natural environment. When the leaves are turning colour in the fall and the cherry blossoms are blooming in the spring, the paths throughout thousands of parks are filled with orderly Japanese people breathing deeply, admiring their country and of course taking pictures.

You can still have a sex life if your walls are made of paper. There is a whole range of sub-textual

messages that let people who share your house know that you and your partner need some time alone. Japanese couple think of this as clearing their parents and/or children out of the house as just a normal part of foreplay. And, if and when that does not work, the country is strews with love motels – all with an improbably theme such as Santa Claus, Disney Characters, Merry Olde England, Godzilla, etc. It may not happen at a moment’s notice, but that does not take the innovation out of sex in Japan.

The history of Japan is the history of setbacks, disasters and recoveries. Each one is different, none of them break the Japanese spirit. How they manage that is also something to learn.