オーストラリアの友人がフェイスブックに、ある新聞の記事を投稿していた。今回の日本の震災で、略奪や騒動になっていないことを報道している。そんなことを不思議だと感じる国々がたくさんあるとは、驚いてしまう・・・
I've been asked questions along this theme multiple times, from my friends and family in the United States to colleagues who work around the globe: How, amid Japan's worst natural disaster in 100 years, can the Japanese seem so calm?
Food and water are both scarce. Electricity in the tsunami zone is nearly nonexistent. Survivors have lacked information about their missing loved ones.
But unlike other disasters where the world has observed looting, rioting and public outbursts of sorrow and rage, it has seen a country quietly mourning, its people standing patiently for hours in orderly lines for a few bottles of water.
This is surprising only if you've never lived here or experienced how Japan's society operates. As a resident of Japan for three years, I would have been surprised if this country's people behaved in any other manner.
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