Grace under pressure

The triple whammy — earthquake, tsunami, nuclear crisis — that struck Japan and whose effects continue to ravage that country is as instructive as it is tragic. Never in all the news reports we have seen since the tragedy have we seen the Japanese losing their vaunted discipline.

Among the first to go in the aftermath of the tragedy were food and water supplies, not only because they were wiped out by the destructive natural forces, but also because of the exigencies of the crisis in areas where supplies miraculously survived.

As we have all too often seen in other areas, food riots normally erupt when food and water supplies run out or grow scarce. Then, following the food riots, looting of other valuables come not very long after.

But in Japan, what we see instead are people queueing up at stores that still remained open, waiting for their turn to buy whatever food, water or other necessities are available. One can almost cry as much in admiration as in commiseration.

And if there are no food riots, if people are willing to wait for their turn to buy what food provisions there are to buy, how can there be riots over anything else? There is remarkable absence of looting everywhere, and I can only say wow!

I have not seen or heard of food riots in the Philippines, either. But then this country has not seen the kind of catastrophes that have visited others. Whatever the reason for that, we have not been tested enough for strength of character.

To be sure, we have had a great many challenges. But these challenges have not reached the kind of level that has ravaged other countries. Even great tragedies like superhowler Ruping in 1990 and superwet Ondoy in 2009 were too localized to test us as a people.

Two other things that I have noticed as very remarkable traits among the Japanese, in addition to discipline, are quiet dignity and respectfulness. Again, these traits are becoming very evident in the tv news footages streaming into our homes from the disaster site.

Despite losing all that they have — family members, friends and properties — many of the Japanese interviewed on tv do not break into a howling emotional mess, the kind that is quite common among Filipinos, even over far more manageable crisis.

The Japanese victims I have seen talk very quietly and seldom crack despite the trauma that they obviously must be suffering. And when the foreign reporters are done talking to them, the Japanese almost never fail to put their palms together in the familiar thank you gesture.

They are very respectful, almost ceaselessly bowing for whatever attention they are getting. How admirable. And to think these people have lost everything. Maybe that is why they cannot afford to lose their being.

I know that we Filipinos have suffered much from the Japanese during World War II. But seeing them now in a different light, I have come to realize that the atrocities they perpetrated were shaped by the exigencies of the times.

There was so much belligerence in those times. Nations war against one another at the drop of a hat. Looking back, I believe personal characters were shaped by the larger global environment in which they existed.

Today, despite the tremendous capabilities of nations to annihilate each other, there is so much more predisposition to peaceful coexistence than ever before, thus giving greater space to individual persons to flourish as distinct characters.

Having learned its lesson from a ruinous war, Japan has come to realize there is so much to gain from peace and has thus worked accordingly toward making itself one of the most peace-oriented nations in the world. This, I think, helped greatly in shaping Japanese character.