Start of 2024
2024 started tough for Japan, with the Noto Earthquake on New Year’s Day and the plane crash in Haneda airport the following day. I was at my parents house when the Earthquake hit, worrying about my brother’s family living in Ishikawa prefecture. Thinking of them while the aftermath still continued, the news showed the plane crash in Haneda airport right after was very shocking. To my surprise, famous news media like New York Times, BBC, etc wrote it as a “Miraculous evaluation”.
Japanese growing up in the USA
I always thought that the US was the best country for technology, education, and living. I should say that I was living in a countryside, I mean REAL countryside with cows and horses living across the street, population of 6,000 people in 3.3 sq mi, no Asian people just pure white Americans. Now you can probably imagine that some of the people couldn’t bear us but as a young child, I thought no different and so did my classmates. I went to the local elementary school from Monday to Friday and Japanese school on Saturday and I always had fun going to school, girlscout, YMCA camp, any activity that any American children would have gone to.
I enjoyed my life there but was forced back to Japan during my middle school years even after crying hard and begging my parents to leave me in the States (My parents thought that family should be together no matter what). I joined a private school in Japan but realized that everyone wanted to be “the same”. Dress the same, think the same, act the same…
Anyone who was not “the same”, was out of the game. So eventually my goal was to “Go back to the States”.
Japan vs American education
We were educated to take into account what everyone around you thinks and to be modest. Respect the elderly, help one another… During World War II, there was a famous slang saying, “Never wish for anything until we win”. That phrase shows Japanese as a patient nationality. But the funny thing was that I never felt that way before since I was raised in the US.
Living in the States was really a smothering environment. I was raised and lived in a farmland where cows and horses were running around, we were safe to say what we wanted to, people would just think that’s your option, a little different than mine. I was educated to believe in yourself, believe in what you wanted to be, and people understood you just the way you were. “Independent” is what I learned, now I had to shift myself to “Group cooperation”.
Although in Japan we are taught to cooperate with one another, care for one another and be pacifistic, being less than 5 feet (151cm) tall, if I’m on the plane and need help unloading my bag from the bin, nobody would help me in Japan unless I asked them to but in the States, never need to ask for somebody’s help, anyone will help you (Maybe because I’m so tiny they think I’m a kid).
But when it comes to these disasters, Japanese people tend to be calm and help one another. This comes from our education of working as a group, if there’s somebody that needs help, we are very cooperative and thoughtful. When I was talking to my friend in the States, he told me that if this happened in America, everyone would be shouting at each other, asking for explanations, people won’t listen, and “miraculous” evacuation would have been a “ridiculous” unrealized evacuation.
Planes only fly forward
Being a Japanese raised in the States, I’m now positive that I have both good sides, being “Independent”; think of myself first and to “Care for one another”; work as a team and cooperate with the people around me.
Structurally planes can’t fly backward. Just like our life. We can go forward.
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