It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since Japan’s horrific disaster.
The Tohoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami creamed coastal towns, wreaking devastating death tolls, inducing nuclear power catastrophes, and leaving locals itinerant and inconsolable. Haunted and hurt by the trauma they’d just endured, they hunted for the loved ones they prayed were still alive. On this 2nd anniversary of the event, one would hope to see a “before and after” photo depicting development and renewed spirits.
Nope.
Instead, although most of the junk has been jettisoned by now, bureaucratic bullshit still has held back higher ground renovations in places like Miyagi prefecture:
Recovery is always taken “a day at a time” – whether you’re getting over crack itself or cracks in the earth; but for these survivors, those days of deliverance are drawn out into endlessness with no definitive day on which they can count. Families have had to spend prolonged periods living in what was only ever meant to be “temporary” housing – suffering PTSD and other psychoses exacerbated by close quarters and ultimately manifesting in domestic abuse and divorce. Even the polite Asian way has an expiration date when you’re existing in domicile with the breathing room of a clown car.
The government’s only reaction seems to be a minimal mea culpa – confessing to “some misspending” of money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CFL422IBIk
Luckily, this guy and his wife have a way to conquer each day. They have eachother, their dog, and the volunteer work that they do; but even they share an internal indignation at how they’re being asked to just “take it”. And who wouldn’t? In fact, why aren’t they angrier?!
The answer is cultural; Japanese people rarely malinger, complain, seek sympathy, or ask “Why me?” In large part, they look down on that in day to day situations. In fact, one of the most common phrases they use in response to a vexing happenstance is the equivalent to our “shit happens.” In fact it almost starts out the same way.
They say, “shikata ga nai” – which literally translates to, “It can’t be helped”.
But, with statements like that given by Taiji Yasuda – where no actual dates or details are being provided – how can one not complain? How can they hold out hope? For what? And for when?
I don’t speak Japanese, so I’m not sure if the English interpreter was biased in his version of what was being said; but at the very least, that translation of his message sure sounds condescending. How can’t you feel a rising rage or urge to complain about the uncertainty of your future in that situation? The government did have the money and simply misspent it.
“Shikata ga nai” is admirable in the face of every day adversities; but how can you shrug off a hell you’ve already suffered and are being forced to relive out every day, when you know it could be helped… but it just isn’t by the powers entrusted to do so?
xoxo
<3~A