Follow Friday: Japan

I don't know that I've seen such a massive natural disaster like what happened in Japan. What's more impressive is Japan's response. Despite being completely hammered by mother nature, the residents of Japan are responding to adversity - as a whole no less - better than any group of individuals I've ever seen. They've responded with calm in the face of potential chaos. A recent report from the Huffington Post talks about the order forming in the destruction. Looting is kept down to a minimum, lines are forming at supermarkets and everyone seems to be acting in such a way to help benefit the whole community instead of simply looking out for number one.

Even just a few short days after the quake, many Japanese workers returned to the office, despite the fact that many of them had missing loved ones in the mess. Their stoicism has a "life goes on" mentality to it. A great post on the subject found here gives a quote that sums up this cultural mindset:

“When it hit, it passed through my mind that this could be the big one. What can you do? There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s an act of nature. There will be more.” - The Record, March 13, 2011

In my opinion, the biggest heroes of the quake are the "Fukushima 50." This describes the elite nuclear workers working to prevent a complete Chernobyl-like nuclear meltdown - knowing that the mission will most likely kill them. 180 workers rotate in 15 minutes segments to fix the issue to help curb the amount of radiation absorbed. Yet the intense amount of exposure could likely result in intense and potentially fatal sicknesses for the volunteers. Volunteering for a mission like that deserves an enormous amount of respect.

So that's why today, my Follow Friday is for the calm people of Japan. We could learn a thing or two from them.

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UncategorizedDrew HawkinsChernobyl, Fukushima, Fukushima Prefecture, Huffington Post, Japan, Japanese name, Natural disaster, Nuclear meltdown2 Comments