I did a PhD and did NOT go mad

To USC we sing
Our song shall always ring
You, who set the mind astir
Of our learning be harbinger.

We promise faith and love
And laud the Lord above
To God we shout our song of praise
To Him our voice we raise.
Your aim’s to lead us to the Lord
Be now forever blessed!

My batchmates in high school are all agog preparing for what they call as THE REUNION OF HI-SCHOOL BATCH 75 of the UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL, (USC-GHS), set on January 21-22, 2012. ( I sent a message to my USC-GHS best friend Cheryl Orbeta of Batch 75 USC-GHS, asking her, what do these girls/ladies want to do? Why would they want to meet in 2012? Isn’t it according to Mayan calendar this year will be the end of the world?) Back then in Cebu circa 70s USC GHS is known as Girls’ High and USC BHS as Boys’ High. I look at the pictures of these girls now at their facebook accounts and I am totally lost. The girls were replaced by women… lovely women, in fact. I have not anticipated it. Always, thought then, that some of them looked like boys and moved like boys. No offense meant. Now, they have metamorphosed to lovely women, beautiful women. When I looked back to my high school days, it was so hilarious and full of imagined worries. Worries on my part, I should say, looking back.

I graduated Salutatorian in USC GHS elementary in 1971. Actually, it was even a big puzzle for me why I graduated Salutatorian. I was a transferee, coming from Manila. My father, a military officer was appointed as the Chief of Staff of the Third Military Area or Camp Lapulapu of the Philippine Army in Lahug, Cebu City. From Manila we had to move to Cebu City and that was fun. The whole family boarded a Compania Maritima MV Panay to move to Cebu from Manila.

I pursued my high school at the Girls’ High because Sister Amparo said so. Sister Amparo, Holy Spirit sister, was the principal of the USC GHS Elementary Program. I was about to move to Cebu Science High School, after grade 6, for one because I will be a scholar then. Being the youngest of a brood of 8 kids, one can understand the economic reason for this. My parents informed Sister Amparing ( as we called her, then) that I have to pursue my high school at Cebu Science High, my older sister studied at Manila Science High, another older sister at Cebu Science High, another cousin at Philippine Science High. It was my destiny to study at Cebu Science High… or so I thought.

But no, Sister Amparing (bless her! I wonder how is she now?) won’t hear of that. What she did was she gave me a scholarship for four years – the O.T. Kang Scholarship. Honestly, up to now I have no idea who was my benefactor. I haven’t met him/her. Mr/Ms O.T. Kang, whoever you are, from the bottom of my heart, I thank thee for sending me to high school. I will repay you someday for that .

So, every enrollment period, my ates just go to the Registration Office, sign up my name and get fresh copy of my books for the school year. I really, am so grateful Mr/Ms. O.T.Kang, I wish I had met you. I haven’t failed you at all…. Thank you.

First year was a breeze, I thought I was high and mighty. Our valedictorian in elementary was a boy and had to go to Boys’ Hi, so Girls’ Hi will be my kingdom to rule. But lo and behold, it was not to be true. I thought I will be the first among the firsts. First week of the school year, I did not come out as the President of the class, I was not elected. The march towards my kingdom is not going to be a piece of cake, after all. That was the first blow. So much for the high and mighty me. But thank God, I still came out as the First Honor, then.

Honestly, I cannot remember what happened in Second Year, all I can remember was I was not able to bag the First Honor or what, maybe I got the Second Honor, instead. Try as I might I really cannot remember, anything of a highlight. One thing that changed the routine that we went thru, then, was the October rosary. It was something we looked forward to because we prayed the Rosary everyday and somehow this disrupts our daily routine. And of course the annual retreat where the priest/retreat master really searched our innocent high school hearts to cleanse our souls. This annual retreat was something of a comma to our continuous school life since we go up to the Good Shepherd Retreat House in a bus, altogether, and come back singing the Carpenters’ “I’m on the Top of the World” on the way back to school.

I remember, in third year, I came out with first honor medal and in Fourth Year I graduated as the Salutatorian.

As you can see, it seems all throughout those years, I marked the days with my achievements. It’s either I have to be the number one or the number two, nothing less than that. Talk about obsession….. a column that I read in the Philippine Daily Inquirer recently, said that honor students tend more to cheat than non-honor students. According to Mr. Gerry M. Lanuza, an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of the Philippines in Diliman, where he teaches Sociology of Religion, among other subjects, “being grade conscious is the “true religion” for such followers. Students are willing to commit suicide because they would rather be dead than live a meaningless life with a grade point average lower than 95.

Fortunately, I got out of USC-GHS and Cebu just in time not to be indoctrinated to that “true” religion. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of the Philippines, School of Economics, in Diliman and was able to get out of the grip of this religion. But that is moving ahead of the story. I will be writing in the future, in my blog what misadventures I had at the Pambansang Pamantasan ng Pilipanas, Diliman, Quezon City.

Fast forward to Fourth Year where the fun started. Senior High School at USC GHS was not as what I expected. Looking back, maybe it was because of the Citizen’s Army Training or CAT. That broke the monotony of our daily lives. On Saturdays, we had to go to the school and march back and forth around the USC-GHS quadrangle for I do not know what and why. We were taught how to dismantle and assemble a garand, a garand what? Search me…. I just googled it and it says:

“the M1 Garand (officially designated as United States Rifle, Caliber .30, M1 and later simply Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, and also abbreviated as US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1), was the first semi-automatic rifle to be generally issued to the infantry of any nation. Called “the greatest battle implement ever devised” by General George S. Patton, the Garand officially replaced the bolt-action M1903 Springfield as the standard service rifle of the United States Armed Forces in 1936 and was subsequently replaced by the selective fire M14 in 1957. However, the M1 continued to be used in large numbers until 1963 and to a lesser degree until 1966.”

Actually and I should confess, we never learned how to dismantle and assemble a real garand, (sigh!), because in CAT we just learned how to hold a piece of wood shaped like a garand, to salute using that piece, and to swing it up to our shoulder. Imagining that this was the honest and true great Garand made famous by General George S. Patton!

Another fun thing we learned was how to take out our sword (a blunt one, for sure!) from its scabbard which is buckled up and swinging down in our left hip, salute with it and swing it back to our hip…. Looking back it could have been better if the ROTC Cadets have taught us how to work with a samurai! That would have been more exotic and more oriental!

I was the S3 then, the Lt. Colonel, and the ever steadfast Tata Bermejo was our Corps Commander, our Battalion Commander, our Colonel. Tata had to shout at the top of her voice, every beginning of the drill: TALUPAAAAAAAAD! TA!! My! she can fill up the whole quadrangle and the buildings encircling the quadrangle with her strong, reverberating voice. And that was without megaphone! Leah Israel ( she was known as Jingle, then), was the S1, a Major; S2 was Major Melda Belleza; S4 was Major Madeleine Ong Veloso . What do those S acronyms mean? I really do not know…. All I know, in the real military life G2 is intelligence, as in “Gini-G2 ka na naman ng ate mo,” as my mother, would say to me. Being an army wife, she is used to military talk, what she meant is “your sister must have been spying on you again.” So S2 must mean Intelligence. As to S3 I had no idea at all even up to now. All I knew then, Jingle, the S1 was the Adjutant, so she sprints and moves facing Company A at the start of the drill shouting and yelling to the max of her vocal cords, BALANGAAAAAAY ……. She was really good. By the way, Company A Commander or Alpha Captain was Sonrisa Aloba, Company B’s or Bravo was Captain Juvy Pielago, there was also a Charlie and a Delta Company but I cannot remember any longer who were the other honorable Captains. The guidon bearer or the flag bearer was my best friend Captain Cheryl Orbeta. We were the best of friends since Grade 6 when I moved to USC – GHS. What we were doing when we were in Grade 6 will be the subject of another blog.

And wait, not to be left out was CADETTE SEGUNDO TENYENTE SEDURIFA, NILDA NG CAT I. I cannot forget Nilda. She was one of the 4-REDS or Fourth Year Section Red who made me laugh in my senior year and I always recount this to my son now. We used to go to the house of one of the 4-Reds right in front of the school campus after CAT on Saturdays and play all sorts; sometimes, we play “spirit of the glass” calling on Jose Rizal and other dead heroes and the likes… thinking back, high school kids are really crazy! Once after failing to talk to the heroes, (see how patriotic we were, we have to commune with the heroes! and not with showbiz personalities!) Nilda told each one of us to hold 1 peso coin. I remember we were sitting down on the floor and it was quite dark. She told us to close our eyes, not to open them until she says so. We, ever obedient as ever, did what was told. At an instruction from her and still with closed eyes, she told us to roll the coin on our faces back and forth, letting the edge of the coin touch our skins back and forth. Rolling, rolling the coin through out our faces. Until she says stop! Stop we, did. And she laughed with all her might, looking at our faces. She handed us a mirror and we saw black lines criss-crossing our faces. The crazy girl, while our eyes were closed, rubbed the edges of the coins with lead pencil and made us moved the coins to our faces, and there we were with pencil marks on our faces like Indians. Nilda, I hope you read this! You are one of a kind! I salute you!

Of course, come the time for our bivouac. Honestly, the Sisters, (bless them!) were against this activity. I think we were the second batch who had to do CAT. Looking at history, President Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972. In school year 1973-1974, the first CAT was imposed on 4th year high school students, we were the second batch.

The sisters, try as they might cannot fathom why the girls, should be told to march back and forth in the schools’ quadrangle and to be yelling like soldiers. Needless to say these were Saturday exercises and what irks them most was to see these ROTC Cadet Officers coming out of the blue even on weekdays roaming around our sacred campus. So there they go, Mr. Antepuesto, Mr. Costelo, Mr. Demavibas really taking pains to train us in CAT way back SY 1974-1975. (sorry, guys, I cannot remember your designations! How are you?). To you, sirs, I thank you. You taught us discipline and perseverance and how to hold a piece of wood and to salute gallantly with a blunt sword!

Going back to that eventful bivouac, Sister Annunciata , our Sister Directress cannot understand really why we had to go thru that exercise. I remember talking to her and asking her permission at the Sister Directress’ Office to let us go. She said no, it cannot be. I said, “please, Sister.” I remember this scene very well, I was at the 2nd floor, with the good Sister, she was about to board the elevator and I was still imploring her for the sake of the fourth years.

We had an elevator at USC GHS which has a grill inside which moves like an accordion to be pushed opened and pulled closed. Usually, the elevator was used by the Sisters: Sister Anthida, Sister Christophilde, Sister Cyrilda, Sister Milvida, Sister Michelinde and the Mother Superior, Sister Therese, who I think was suffering from Parkinson disease then. One of her hands always moved uncontrollably while we had flag ceremony. I stood with her every Monday mornings at flag ceremonies to do the “Panatang Makabayan” at the second floor and later to sing “Spirit of God” with everyone.

Sister Annunciata, holding the grills, saw thru my repetitive imploring to let the fourth years go to this bivouac, she said, “You know, Estrella, you should not be like that. Your emotion seems to be taking hold of you. When we say no, you should listen, don’t be too emotional.” I will always remember that in the future, when it’s time to let go, one has to let go. No need to be emotional about it.

Nevertheless, we were able to go to our bivouac. And we had fun.

Looking back, my high school days, at the USC GHS were the foundation of what I am today, maybe this is a cliché, but it is true. I left Cebu about two days after graduation. And I never looked back. Maybe, this reunion will be the first time that I will look back. I wrote to my high school friends and classmates for sometime after graduation in 1975, two to three months, then, the exchange of letters stopped. There were no emails yet. We cannot anymore reconnect. My experiences in UP Diliman was far different from what they were going thru in Cebu. Student activism was alive and well at UP Diliman. What we had in USC GHS was like a Shangri-la. We were insulated from the realities of Martial Law. War was going on at UP, then. This was a jolt for me, coming out from the haven that was USC-GHS. Then, after graduation, I worked at the National Economic and Development Authority in Pasig and subsequently did my graduate degrees. The Shangri-la was completely forgotten.

Nonetheless, I weathered thru. The teachings at USC-GHS seeped thru me. Somehow, what USC GHS taught me, saw me through in my life. I always try to be strong and persevering, no matter what and no matter where I went. And Sister told me not to get carried away with my emotion. I learned what should be learned when I was there cloistered at that school. I also learned to live, to laugh, to love and to appreciate music just like how Sister Cyrilda taught us. And most of all I learned to pray. I am privileged to have studied in this school. And I was happy I went thru the halls of this school.

If one may I ask how should I compare going thru and studying at USC – GHS, UP Diliman, International University of Japan, Princeton University and lately Ateneo de Davao University, I would say, I am so fortunate that I was given a chance to study at USC GHS. The Carolinian formation that was taught to me for 5 years was just perfect; at a young age, it gave me the strength and the tools to use as I journey in my life. It was just the right material to reinforce my character when I went to UP Diliman, to work and to do graduate school, thereafter. And of course, I am looking forward to seeing those girls/ladies who were with me all throughout that episode of my life and shared with me the ups and downs of hi-school life. These girls/ladies who put substance, friendship and laughter to those years of my life, the batch 75 of USC GHS.

Thank you, guys and see you in 2012!!

Evacuations create bitterness in quake-hit communities
Asahi Shimbun, March 29, 2011

KAMAISHI, Iwate Prefecture–Efforts to relocate elderly and other vulnerable people away from areas hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake are being met with anger and resistance from the devastated communities.

Local authorities are trying to convince older people and those with young children to leave the disaster zone until temporary housing is put up. But few are boarding the buses sent to take them to hotels in spa towns and other distant locations.

Those who do choose to leave are being bitterly criticized by some of those left behind. There are murmurings that they will no longer be welcome in their communities even if they come back.

Experts on quake reconstruction are stressing the need for officials to rethink their relocation plans and accommodate whole communities rather slicing and dicing formerly tight-knit neighborhoods.

On Saturday, a bus marked “Disaster Relief Kamaishi No. 2″ arrived at the municipal gymnasium in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture. Yaeko Miura, 70, one of a group of elderly citizens taking the bus to a spa inn in Morioka, said tearful goodbyes. “Forgive me for leaving you all. Please come as soon as you can,” Miura said, handing out disposable hand warmers to those left behind.

Miura had initially turned down the offer to take refuge at the inn for two to three months. The inn is one of 120 facilities set aside by the Iwate prefectural government for 9,500 vulnerable evacuees. She decided to go only after she realized that most of the elderly people in her neighborhood would be with her. Nevertheless, only 19 out of the 300 people living in the Kamaishi gymnasium boarded the bus on Saturday.
“It hurts to think that I am leaving my hometown. Many people are still living in the shelter,” Miura said.

Sen Sasaki, 87, said she had spent much of the last two weeks shivering because she had been put near the entrance of the center.
“I won’t survive if I stay on here,” she said. But she added: “I feel bad that only I am getting away.”

A 38-year-old woman boarding a bus from Otsuchi High School in Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture with her two children, aged 7 and 12, was in the horns of a similar dilemma. “I want to stay on in this town. In my heart, I don’t want to leave. But we have no home, no work, no school,” she said.

The departures have left a bitter aftertaste for some of those left behind.

“I can’t just pack up and go to an ‘onsen ryokan,’ leaving my friends behind,” said the supervisor at one shelter in Kamaishi. Some of those leaving have have said they will come back and stay at the evacuation centers when the time comes to clean up their destroyed homes.

Only 460 of 17,000 evacuees in Kamaishi, Otsuchi and Yamada have joined the first wave of relocations. “Many are unable to make the move out of consideration for others and concerns about the future,” said a prefectural official responsible for implementing the program at one evacuation center.

The official admitted that some residents’ organizations in the shelters have been actively resisting the effort, making it clear that “those who leave are no longer welcome.” On Thursday, prefectural officials visited the Kamaishi municipal gymnasium to explain the program.
Not everybody who listened to the curt 15-minute explanation that was shouted through a bullhorn was convinced. The officials explained that all costs would be covered by the prefecture and that the stay would likely be for a few months until prefabricated temporary housing complexes could be built.

“If I were to go to Morioka, it would look like we were running away,” said a 69-year-old fisherman who lives with his 89-year-old mother and wife. He said he was still considering whether to send only his wife and mother.

After the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, communities were repeatedly ripped apart as residents were shunted from shelters to temporary housing and then to new homes.

“While prioritizing the elderly, children and disabled is understandable, the relocation could end up severing community ties,” said Shuichi Maki, head of the Yorozu Sodanshitsu, a nonprofit organization which conducted patrols at temporary housing facilities to check on evacuees after the Hanshin quake.

Following that disaster, elderly residents were taken to prefabricated temporary housing complexes, many of which were far away from communities they were familiar with. The isolation that created was associated with a variety of problems including sudden illnesses, accidental fires, and solitary deaths. “Once the elderly are ripped away from their communities, that breach remains after reconstruction,” Maki said.
Kazuki Nakabayashi, a professor specializing in disaster reconstruction at Tokyo Metropolitan University, said that it was probably more financially efficient for whole communities, including the young, to be relocated together.

Junko Nakamura, head of the NPO Community Support Center Kobe, said local governments should work with social welfare experts and nonprofit organizations when planning and implementing relocations. “It is important to create an atmosphere where people can at least choose whether they want to move or stay,”

(This article was written by Yosuke Akai, Yuki Omata and Takeo Yoshinaga, staff writers of vernacular Asahi Shimbun.)

(Copyright 2011 the Asahi Shimbun. All Rights Reserved.)

Elderly evacuees in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture prepare to board a bus to take them away from their devastated communities. (Photo by Yosuke Fukudome)

Community spirit lifts morale of survivors
Asahi Shimbun, March 29, 2011

KESENNUMA, Miyagi Prefecture–Despite losing their homes and loved ones in the devastating tsunami on March 11, residents in the Osawa district of Kesennuma are holding onto their close bonds to improve their precarious situation.

About 200 survivors from the district, mostly elderly people, sought refuge at the nearby Koharagi Junior High School gymnasium. To allow a semblance of normality to continue, they reshuffled their allotted spaces so that they can be next to their former neighbors.

The move apparently restored morale among evacuees, who are still in deep shock. It could be successfully copied in other evacuation centers across the Tohoku and Kanto regions, where about 250,000 are living in communal shelters.
The fishing community was one of the hardest hit in the tsunami, which washed away about 150 of its 189 residential buildings.
Born in the district, Kinko Ito, 80, and Reiko Kumagai, 82, were neighbors for 80 years. After the reshuffle, they became neighbors again. Ito’s 79-year-old husband, Kiyomi, was swept away by the tsunami and is still missing. She said it is “encouraging” to have Kumagai again sleep next to her.

“There’s no use just crying. We have to be strong together,” Ito said.
With the majority of residents aged 65 or over, they cannot count on young people to support them.

To enable older residents to effectively cooperate, the neighborhood association divided them into six teams for such tasks as general management, food and water procurement, cooking or cleaning.

Ayako Hoshi, the 80-year-old leader of the cleaning team, cleans restrooms and the gymnasium’s entrance on her duty day.

“It feels bad when the entrance of your house is not clean, and I feel the same way in this place,” Hoshi said.

The threshold of a home or public area holds a special significance in Japan, and is usually marked by taking off one’s outdoor shoes and putting on slippers or walking in one’s socks.

Hisayuki Ito, the 70-year-old head of the residents’ association, said he has found a positive impact of the reforms. He noticed residents starting to say “I’m home” and “welcome home” to each other.

(This article was written by Nasuka Yamamoto, staff writer of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun.)

(Copyright 2011 the Asahi Shimbun. All Rights Reserved.)

Why do I say this? Their history says so.

First off, Japan is the first among Asians to be a great economic power. It did this amidst being the first nation that had experienced a nuclear holocaust. A country which became the experimental ground for the A-bomb test. It did this without natural resources. Japan – a nation without oil, minerals, agricultural resources became the first Asian country which stood side by side with other Western countries.

Second: Japan is like an organism that mutates whenever external shocks were applied to it. It mutates and becomes an improved version of its old self. Let me cite history.

Japan under the Tokugawas, went thru self-isolation in 1638 and the Shogunate forbade contacts with the gaijins for 220 years. Until Commodore Perry forced open Japan in 1854. The black ships came to Edo Bay and Japan was forced to accept the unequal treaties with the western powers. The result was Japan’s humiliation and acceptance of the external pressures from the western powers prompting Japan to swear that never will this happen again. The only recourse to do this is to modernize thru western mode. It then mutated into a modern state in 1868 with the Meiji restoration so that it will be a RICH COUNTRY with STRONG ARMY, or Fukoku Kyōhei, thus said the Meiji slogans. Japan became a powerful nation and later in 1907 became a military power winning the Russo-Japanese war. We know what happened, this power propelled Japan to be an aggressive imperial state, and World War II in the Pacific became a reality. The extent of Japanese empire was such that it encompasses Manchuria, China, the Southeast Asian countries, the Pacific nations. So great was the Japanese power then that another external pressure came from the Allied power. No Asian country can be an imperial power in Asia so says the misguided Monroe Doctrine of 1823. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened. Again, Japan was chastened once more.

This time, with the defeat of Japan, it mutated as an economic power in the 60s. Humiliated once more, it focused its attention to becoming an economic powerhouse. Armed with the foresight of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, Japan focused on rising once again. A very rapid economic growth happened in Japan in the 60s and 70s. Japan in the 80s can buy all the properties in the US. Again, another mutation. Japan became the second largest economic power after the United States.

The endaka period of mid 80s was again produced by external pressure, in the Plaza Accord of 1985, again the Western powers consisting of West Germany, France, the United States and the United Kingdom forced Japan to appreciate its currency to push down trade surplus with the US and other western countries. Now the stage is set for Japan’s bubble economy in early 90s and the lost decade, when Japan experienced a persistent stagnant economy from the 90s to the current period. With this as backdrop, the challenge of the earthquake will be the impetus for Japan to mutate once more. Japan will rise from its economic slumber. Japan will think again of ways to mitigate its vulnerability to natural calamities, solve its external dependence to oil imports which it tried to alleviate by constructing numerous nuclear power plants. This recent gaiatsu or external pressure will be the catalyst for it to evolve once again. This time, it will reclaim its rightful position among the economic giants which was recently seized by another Asian giant – China, Japan’s arch-rival.

This country has something to teach us, the developing countries which are trying hard to be economically stable. Japan is a model. Japan has as resources her people and their attributes: love of country, the sense of belonging to one nation and one family, perseverance and self-sacrifice. The Tohoku-Kanto earthquake will prove to be another external pressure and somehow Japan will overcome this gaiatsu or external pressure once more and emerge as a stronger nation. Ganbare Nihon! Good Luck and Do your best!

(NOTES: がんばれ　日本, Don’t Give Up Japan! Ganbare is conjugated in what’s known as the imperative form. It’s a command form, and a strong one at that. If using a verb like suru, it basically means DO IT! As with all language, however, connotation truly relies on context. In the case of ganbare, it’s a strong encouragement to “do your best!” Ganbare is a Japanese idiom that means “do your best” or “go for it.” Often spouted to boost one’s self-esteem and encourage them to succeed. Shouted primarily at sporting events and the like. Ganbatte is more polite, as the -te form tends to be, and is more like an encouragement or suggestion. Ganbatte is softer. )

GANBARE, NIHON!

MANILA, Philippines—Like the super slow-moving classic Japanese Noh drama, the stoic behavior of the Japanese people as they grappled with the triple crises posed by a killer earthquake, a tsunami and a radioactive threat puzzled those not familiar with their culture.

Western media marveled that, amid the ruins in Fukushima, there was no looting or rioting. Survivors sheltered in evacuation centers politely lined up for water and food rations.

In Metropolitan Tokyo, people waited patiently for their turn to make telephone calls or board trains—no pushing, no shoving.

In various evacuation centers, survivors went to work to help themselves, with the assistance of government and nongovernment organization workers. Doctors, dentists and barbers, whose clinics and shops had been ravaged, gave free services to fellow survivors, according to news reports.

Repairmen fixed bicycles for free; local veterinarians donated cages for stressed-out pets; and high school students either put up signs saying “Gambarre, Nihon!” (Push on, Japan!) or did the laundry of evacuees, also for free.

Short on fuel, shuttle buses ferried people from evacuation center to evacuation center, various accounts said.

To give a semblance of normalcy, survivors walked their dogs while garbage in evacuation centers was segregated into biodegradable and nondegradable categories.

In the temporary shelters, available physical spaces were “divided” according to geographical neighborhood associations, complete with a representative from each neighborhood who takes up grievances with the proper authorities.

Stoic endurance

This orderliness or harmony (wa in Japanese) amid an unprecedented national emergency minimizes or prevents open conflicts.

Such conflicts are frowned upon by the Japanese who value their gaman (patience) and konjo, a Japanese word that combines “passive, stoic endurance” with “all-out drive to accomplish a goal.”

The explanation to this kind of discipline is to be found in the Japanese culture, which ostracizes people who disturb the fabric of social conformity and who are seen as wagamama (greedy).

Japanese values are inculcated in the people at an early age.

Power of perseverance

As a graduate student in Japan in the early 1990s, my non-Japanese classmates and I became familiar with the concept of konjo, which is basically a diligent, quiet and conscious effort (doryoku) to temper the spirit (seishin) in order to reach a goal, no matter how big or small.

In the present crisis, the Japanese people have collectively shown the power of patience and perseverance (gaman), orderliness and harmony (wa), passive, stoic endurance (konjo) and discipline.

This is the same stoicism and sense of self-sacrifice the Japanese people showed in surviving atomic bombings and numerous other calamities.

Country first

Three days after the March 11 disasters, I wrote that Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan did not mention the workers bravely battling the developing nuclear crisis in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in his first nationally televised addressed following the calamities.

Fueled by gaman and konjo, the workers did not abandon their posts even if it seemed suicidal to go on. They showed another Japanese trait: putting first their country, community and group over their individual concerns.

Their family members did not go to the media to complain that their husbands and fathers were already at risk. They quietly accepted the fact that the workers simply had to accomplish their task of preventing a full nuclear meltdown regardless of the risks they faced.

To those who can read and write Japanese, it is interesting to note that the words society (shakai) and company (kaisha) are represented by two completely similar Japanese characters.

The web of ‘giri’

All of the above does not blur the fact the Japanese society and the Japanese people have numerous problems such as discrimination, bullying and corruption, both in the political and business arenas. But there is another forum to ventilate these problems.
Lastly, the polite refusal of the Japanese government to accept assistance during the equally devastating 1995 Kobe earthquake that killed 6,000 people also baffled the world, eliciting comments that it stemmed from Japanese arrogance.

The truth is: Japan’s cultural traits emphasize self-reliance, the obligation and duty to take care of one’s own, and the anxiety of causing trouble to strangers that may strain social relations.

There is also the fear that a Japanese who receives favors from strangers may be unable to return the favor someday. Once a Japanese starts receiving favors or gifts, he or she is caught in the complex web of giri (obligations).

It may surprise the non-Japanese but the ritual of giving and receiving favors, especially gifts, in Japan is governed by a complicated set of norms.

Hence, the decision of the Japanese government to allow the international community to ship donations, such as food, water and blankets following the March 11 tragedies, is a sign that Japan is indeed opening up.

But it can do more so that it will not be accused of being too proud.

(Editor’s Note: Ibarra C. Mateo is a Filipino journalist who worked for the Japanese Kyodo News agency from 1986 to 1992 and covered the presidency of Corazon C. Aquino from 1986 to 1992. He is the first Southeast Asian admitted to the Ph.D. in the Sociology program of the Jesuit-administered Sophia University in Tokyo. Now a freelance journalist living in Manila, Mateo lived in Tokyo from 1992 to 2002.)

Roiled by earthquake, typhoon, tsunami, fire, and volcano — not to mention nuclear attack and terrorism — Japan for centuries has been a land of disaster, as reflected in popular culture from art to literature to our favorite monster flicks.

A string of islands in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, gripped uneasily between the Pacific tectonic plate and the Philippine Sea Plate, Japan has seen more than its fair share of catastrophic disasters, from the 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai, shown above, which killed almost 500 people and laid waste to entire villages, to last week’s horrific earthquake and tsunami, the devastation from which is still uncounted. In the 20th century alone, Japan was besieged by earthquake, typhoon, tsunami, fire, and volcano, not to mention nuclear attack and terrorism. Like Britain, another resolute island nation half a world away, Japan has always responded with stoic rebuilding. But unlike the British, or really anyone else in the world, the Japanese have refracted their historic misfortune through a unique cultural lens, producing monster movies, Zen poetry, modernist post-apocalyptic literature, and even pornographic manga involving tentacle rape. Why is Japan’s cultural response to its history of disaster so fantastical — and where does it come from?

For centuries, Japanese authors, poets, and artists have mulled over the existential instability of their island life. The essayist Kamo no Chomei (1155-1216), in the Walden-esque Account of My Hut, wrote a long consideration of disaster and the importance of responding to the world’s ills through retreat and nonattachment. In one passage, he discusses the earthquake of 1185, which he saw as an opportunity for man to meditate on “the vanity and meaninglessness of the world” — an opportunity, he wrote, that few took advantage of.

Paul Anderer, the de Bary/Class of ’41 Professor of Asian Humanities at Columbia University, says that this tendency to meet catastrophe with calm meditation is typical, dating back to the “Burning House” parable in the Lotus Sutra: “The world rightly seen is a burning house, and it is that because it’s a fragile world, it’s made the more fragile because of human greed and avarice and desire, and a way to deal with it is to curb desire if not to suppress it entirely.” Above, an image from an 1876 earthquake in a Japanese village.

“Then there was the great earthquake of 1185, of an intensity not known before. Mountains crumbled and rivers were buried, the sea tilted over and immersed the land. The earth split and water gushed up; boulders were sundered and rolled into the valleys. Boats that rowed along the shores were swept out to sea. Horses walking along the roads lost their footing. It is needless to speak of the damage throughout the capital — not a single mansion, pagoda, or shrine was left whole. As some collapsed and others tumbled over, dust and ashes rose like voluminous smoke. The rumble of the earth shaking and the houses crashing was exactly like that of thunder. Those who were in their houses, fearing that they would presently be crushed to death, ran outside, only to meet with a new cracking of the earth. They could not soar into the sky, not having wings. They could not climb into the clouds, not being dragons. Of all the frightening things of the world, none is so frightful as an earthquake.” — Chomei, Account of My Hut

As Susan Napier, professor of Japanese literature at Tufts University, says, a common thread throughout much of the cultural response to disaster is a sense of “mono no aware” — the Japanese notion that transience brings its own beauty: “It’s precisely because things don’t last that they’re beautiful, [and] it’s because of that that we have this intense feeling about the world.” Above, destruction in a suburb of Nagoya after the quake of 1891. Kokan Shiren (1278-1346), a poet and Zen master, wrote this poem about the aftermath of an earthquake:

Still things moving,

firm becomes unfirm,

land like ocean waves,

house like a boat –

a time to be fearful,

but to delight as well;

no wind, yet the wind-bells

keep on ringing.

Imperial Household Ministry via Wikipedia

Inventing monsters to explain or come to grips with natural disasters has deep roots in Japanese culture. The “namazu,” or catfish, is a legendary figure and a popular subject of ukiyo-e woodblock prints: a giant underground catfish who swishes up his tail to cause earthquakes — often shown with a monkey or a minor deity called Kashima on his back attempting to restrain the damage. Earthquakes were also explained by an imbalance of yin forces (water) and yang forces (fire) inside the earth.

Nihombashi Quake: October 1923: The ruins of Nihombashi, Tokyo, Japan, after the earthquake. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

The 1923 Tokyo earthquake was one of the worst in the 20th century worldwide, with deaths totaling roughly 100,000 in a population of about 4 million. The quake was followed by days of fires that tore through the city’s remaining houses. In the aftermath, some of Tokyo’s citizens and police took up arms in a virulent racialized backlash against the city’s long-hated Korean population, accused of taking advantage of the earthquake’s turmoil to plot sedition: 6,000 Koreans and suspected Koreans were killed, many with swords and bamboo poles.

The director Akira Kurosawa, who was 13 at the time of the quake and may have drawn upon this vision of stark, lawless chaos for later films like Rashomon and Seven Samurai, describes the ruins of the city in his 1983 memoirs, Something Like an Autobiography: “The whole Edogawa river district was veiled in a dancing, swirling dust whose grayness gave the sun a pallor like during an eclipse. The people who stood to the left and right of me in this scene looked for all the world like fugitives from hell and the whole landscape took on a bizarre and eerie aspect.”

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The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 ushered in a whole new era of horror to Japan. The aftermath of the disaster was unimaginably grotesque — and made worse by the fact that it was manmade. The response from many Japanese writers and filmmakers was to displace the trauma by addressing it in oblique, fantastical ways, through monsters and allegorical realms; the nuclear attacks and their long-lasting aftermath of radiation poisoning, as described below by Masuji Ibuse in his 1966 novel Black Rain, may have been, for many, simply too painful to address head-on. Above, children in Hiroshima in 1948 protect themselves from radiation.

“It felt as though night were drawing in, but after I’d been home for a while I realized that it was dark because of the clouds of black smoke filling the sky…. I wasn’t aware until Uncle Shigematsu told me that my skin looked as though it had been splashed with mud. My white short-sleeved blouse was soiled in the same way, and the fabric was damaged at the soiled spots. When I looked in the mirror, I found that I was spotted all over with the same color except where I had been covered by my air-raid hood…. I suddenly remembered a shower of black rain that had fallen after Mr. Nojima had got us in the black market boat. It must have been about 10 a.m. Thundery black clouds had borne down on us from the direction of the city, and the rain from them had fallen in streaks the thickness of a fountain pen. It had stopped almost immediately. It was cold, cold enough to make one shiver although it was midsummer.” — Black Rain, Masuji Ibuse

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The Godzilla films are well-known for their vivid allegory of apocalyptic nuclear chaos engulfing Tokyo. But, as Napier points out, they also illustrate what comes after the initial shock: the slow and sad process of rebuilding, as doctors begin helping radiation-poisoning victims at the hospital and scientists look toward preventing the next disaster. “One of the things the Japanese are very good at is talking about the aftermath of the disaster — the poignancy, the mourning,” she says. “Already in [the first Godzilla], the elegiac quality is being established” — as in the haunting score by Akira Ifukube.

1995.01.17 Kobe Great Earthquake, In this aerial image, fire-spreaded city of Kobe is seen on January 17, 1995 in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan. Nearly 6,500 people were killed by the earthquake occered a day before, measured magnitude 7.3.

The January 1995 earthquake in Kobe hit 6.8 on the Richter scale, claimed almost 7,000 lives, and caused $102.5 billion in damage. Coming halfway through Japan’s lost decade of economic stagnation and just two months before the Aum Shinrikyo poison gas attacks on the Tokyo subway, the Kobe quake helped to plunge the country into a long-term malaise. The novelist Haruki Marukami wrote a book of short stories, after the quake, which dealt in various allegorical and direct ways with the disaster.

“Five straight days she spent in front of the television, staring at crumbled banks and hospitals, whole blocks of stores in flames, severed rail lines and expressways. She never said a word. Sunk deep in the cushions of the sofa, her mouth clamped shut, she wouldn’t answer when Komura spoke to her. She wouldn’t shake her head or nod. Komura could not be sure the sound of his voice was even getting through to her.

“Komura’s wife came from way up north in Yamagata and, as far as he knew, she had no friends or relatives who could have been hurt in Kobe. Yet she stayed rooted in front of the television from morning to night. In his presence, at least, she ate nothing and drank nothing and never went to the toilet. Aside from an occasional flick of the remote control to change the channel, she hardly moved a muscle.” — “UFO in Kushiro,” from after the quake, Haruki Marukami

Post-apocalyptic worlds run throughout modern Japanese literature, both in high-brow and low-brow fiction. The frequent Nobel also-ran Kobo Abe and Nobelist Kenzaburo Oe both wrote apocalyptic novels: Abe’s The Ark Sakura deals with the inhabitants of an underground bunker, while Oe’s The Pinch Runner Memorandum describes a man and his handicapped son fighting to save the world from the forces of chaos, including, at one point, an earthquake that threatens to overturn the social order. On the more low-end side of things is Japan Sinks, by Sakyo Komatsu, first published in 1973 and then reissued after the Kobe earthquake. A film by the same name, with the same storyline (Japan sinks, following earthquakes and tsunamis), came out the same year (and was remade in 2006). Released in English under the name Tidal Wave, its trailer contains the now chilling tagline: “It begins with shattering earthquakes! Then come raging firestorms! But the worst is yet to come … Tidal Wave!”

Then there’s anime and manga: the wild collective subconscious of Japanese cartoon fiction, where the apocalypse is ruled by erotic demon-beasts, as in the Overfiend series, or dominated by the magical powers of young girls, as in Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and his most recent film, Ponyo, in which a young fish-girl causes a destructive tsunami when she attempts to become human. Many of the great anime and manga classics take place in millennial universes, including the Evangelion and Akira series. Evangelion is the story of a war between a para-military unit and a group of avenging Angels in a Tokyo that has been devastated by earthquake and tsunami following a mega-explosion. Says Napier, it’s “really … about psychological apocalypse — about generations and … an internal sense of unease and concern about the future.”

She adds, “That’s why it’s so tragic what’s going on right now with the earthquake — it’s fulfilling a lot of inchoate worries that have been floating around in Japan the last 10 years or so.” Above, an image from Evangelion.

TORUYA MANAKA/AFP/Getty Images

It’s unclear from all of this how Japan will respond to its latest disaster. Certainly, the horror that comes with catastrophe on an epic scale is something Japan has a long familiarity with; at the same time, every new shock has provoked its own cultural aftershock, from the Meiji myths to new and innovative manga thrills. But Japan has always rebuilt by weaving trauma into its culture. The only question may be which new monsters this latest trauma will dredge up to the surface.