Their Struggle

It’s no coincidence that the word describing a seismic event causing a tidal wave hurdling through the ocean was coined by the Japanese. Indeed it was this tsunami that changed the course of Japanese history and sent Japan into catastrophe. Few days after the event, the casualty tally came in: close to 8500 dead and over 13,000 missing. “That’s a lot,” I thought to myself but got back to studying without giving it much thought. It didn’t sink in until I saw before and after images of Matsushima. The coastal resort, which is the US equivalent of Cape Cod, is known for its scenic beaches, ports, buildings, and beautiful pine trees. Now all that’s left are pine trees, stripped of its pines and anything but beautiful standing alone in the rubble. But destroyed buildings take a back seat in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake. The main problem right now is cooling the damaged reactors at Fukushima Daiichi. Its reactors 1-4 were all damaged and leaked its cooling water, causing them to overheat and create a radioactive “tsunami” throughout Japan. Now what touched me the most was not the desolation, but the response of the brave Japanese people affected.

Have you ever seen such order amongst chaos? In the cities affected, there is no looting (remember New Orleans?). People aren’t taking advantage of the situation and even when desperate they aren’t breaking the law. In Sendai, there are only images of people standing in lines for food shelters, grocery stores, and gas stations. Interviews of people who were evacuated from their homes near the power plant showed such optimism. These people will lose everything they own because of radiation, but there’s hardly a complaint. The most heroic act yet comes from the 70 or so workers who volunteered to stay behind at Fukushima to control the failing reactors. Without them, there probably would have been a meltdown by now.

Now compare this to Chinese people’s reaction to Japan’s earthquake. Once Chinese people found out that radiation was emitting from the failing reactors, some fools started advocating that iodinated salt can prevent radiation effects. Really? '-_- Why would you need lead suits to block radiation then, just pop some iodine? But Chinese people believed it and rushed to the stores to stock up on salt. Soon salt prices soared from 1rmb to 10rmb. Then all the sudden, these same people somehow decided that iodine probably wouldn’t work, so they tried to return the salt. That’s like trying to return the banana you just bought.

Japan as a whole has shown the world how to respond to catastrophe. But China not so much (come on man, iodine?).