“Earthquake Sickness”

I continue to suffer from phantom “earthquake sickness.” When we are sitting on the sofa in our living room watching television, my wife only has to move a little, and immediately I sense a tremor underneath me and brace myself. This symptom is the result of the repeated aftershocks that have occurred since the massive quake struck on March 11. Apparently it is called “earthquake sickness.” What happens is that the three semicircular canals in the ear, which control bodily equilibrium, remain in a state of sensing shaking. It is the same kind of phenomenon as car sickness and sea sickness. In especially bad cases, it may require medical treatment.

In our house we have a small ornament that reacts to even tiny tremors, so whenever we feel earthquake sickness, we can quickly look at it. In the case of a phantom earthquake, the swaying feeling is relieved instantaneously. In the case of a real earthquake, the ornament’s shaking grows in intensity. When the longish cord attached to the lighting starts to sway, we know that it is a quake with a magnitude of 3 to 4.

I asked the younger staff members in our company whether they had experienced that feeling of swaying underneath them even though there was no real tremor, and all of them said they suffered light earthquake sickness. “Well,” I continued, “make sure you don’t forget that sensation!” They all looked at me with puzzled expressions on their faces. “What I mean is that as a result of the big earthquake, people are going to change,” I went on. “People’s attitudes before and after the earthquake are naturally going to change, and that transformation will manifest itself in all sorts of ways. People will change physically. For example, a sense of alertness will permeate into the depths of their bodies, and that will influence their attitudes and behavior in the future.” That conversation took place in the weekly staff meeting that I hold.

The foreign media have reported how disciplined, serious, and courteous the Japanese people are in such terrible circumstances, and the Japanese themselves think so as well. It is their bushido spirit. The background to the formation of the Japanese people, I believe, is their history of assiduously facing up to nature while experiencing natural disasters on many occasions. This spirit has been the essence of the Japanese since the days of our ancestors.

My hometown is on the typhoon course. My father used to say in his letters, “We can’t do any rice planting yet because the typhoons haven’t come.” When I was a child, the rice fields were often flooded and buried in earth, and the village people would all lend a hand to remove the stones and the trees one by one from the affected field, transforming it into a fertile paddy once again. Even though I was only a child, I was deeply moved. It was not just the dimension of not permitting any selfishness; it was the sight of the whole community acting together naturally to achieve an end. This communal spirit is a characteristic of agricultural people that has been diligently ingrained in the Japanese and has revealed itself again in the present disaster.

At the same time, even if our politicians are incompetent, the people have an amazing power for spontaneous recovery. If politicians could show leadership, the recovery would be even quicker, and precious time would not be wasted.

On this fateful occasion, I believe that this natural disaster will create an even stronger Japanese nation. We must certainly remember the “earthquake sickness,” and indeed it is the trait of human beings to do so. But while we can think deeply about the relationship between nature and the Japanese, I wonder why it is that such feelings do not arise in connection with the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station and the rolling power blackouts.

The heavens cast a stern eye on the arrogance of humankind.