The Wreck and the Steadfastness

As Japan battles the after effects of the disastrous quake and the tsunami, one cannot but wonder why nature chooses Japan to unleash her fury every now and then. As a country which worships nature, as people who revere everything from water to mountains to flowers, you would think Japan must be deriving a lot of benefits from the resources bestowed by nature. But facts point otherwise. Despite a 70% forest cover, this country decided not to exploit its forest resources for economic gains, may be due to its deep rooted Shintoism, and imports most of its food, energy and other raw materials. And from the rest 30% of its land (for context, Germany seems to have 30% forest cover, US 33%, India 21%, China is still hoping to reach 20%), Japan grew to be the second largest GDP in the world (until very recently) emitting 4.5% of the total carbon emissions of the world (2007 figure, but could not have changed much), against China at 22.3% and US at 19%. Must not be a co-incidence that the carbon emission protocol is named Kyoto protocol!

I am not aware of how industries in Japan achieve this, esp with the country among the leading automobile exporters of the world (I am actually hoping for a discrepancy in the figures, given I have taken it from various sources). But that cannot dispute how environment conscious its people are, for here is look at how most people live (from NPR):

“He and his wife, Hitomi, don't own a car. They have a solar panel on the roof. They collect rainwater in an old whiskey barrel to water the plants, and they don't use dish soap. Shibata's biggest luxury is a wooden Japanese soaking tub, which he built himself. He sits in the tub after he has thoroughly scrubbed himself. After the soak, the bathwater is recycled — and reused for washing clothes. The process is facilitated by a simple hookup. Shibata guesses that about 5 percent of Japanese use a pump to send water from their bathtubs into washing machines. After the clothes are washed, Shibata does what most Japanese do: He dries his wash on an outdoor clothesline. Most Japanese don't own clothes dryers. Their clothing hangs on television-antennae-like racks that twirl around on their railings. "You get to see lots of clothes hanging. ... Don't see that in America. Space is very valuable here. If you can do without something, you do without it.”

The philosophy of Shinto must be largely responsible for the consciousness of environment and minimalism in everything they do. Shinto in its absolute sense is not seen as a religion by many as there are no Gods as such and only spirits called Kami. They are sacred spirits which take the form of things and concepts important to life, such as wind, rain, mountains, trees, rivers and fertility. Humans become kami after they die and are revered by their families as ancestral kami. It is touching to see that among things important to life they count trees and rivers rather than iPad and Facebook. In fact there is a story behind origination of the well known word ‘Kami-kaze’. In the 13^th century, there were two failed attempts by the Mongolians to invade Japan under Kublai Khan. During the first attempt, close to 1000 vessels were sent to Japan with Mongolian warriors and when the Japanese Samurais were close to losing, there was reportedly a huge thunderstorm with torrential rains, which forced the Mongolians to go a little further into the sea to anchor for the night. In the morning, more than 300 vessels had drowned and the survivors turned back the vessels to their motherland. Not happy with the failure, Kublai Khan attempted to capture Japan once more, and sent around 3500 vessels to fight Japan for the second time. To be safer, this time the fleet was divided into two, one from Korea and another reaching from China. The Korean soldiers arrived first and were held back by Japanese for 50 days near the coast and as the Chinese reinforcement arrived to support the Korean fleet, a second typhoon lashed the coast and nearly all the reinforcement ships drowned again. Probably this was the last attempt by Mongolians to invade Japan, for they developed a fear that Nature Gods (Kami) were helping Japanese, and Japanese themselves called the typhoon Kami-Kaze, wind of the Gods.

But probably even nature suffers from certain fallacies similar to human beings – being lousy to those who love you, and realizing their value only if you are close to losing them! For no other explanation would justify why the nation suffers, time and again at the hands of mother nature. But I am sure its just me and not a majority of Japanese who must be thinking this way… I read Guardian’s blog, calling Nature cruel and insensitive, while the few Japanese reporters’ blogs I read said that they respect nature more than ever now, for it shows that how-much-ever footprint we claim to leave, her footprints are always larger and more long lasting. Revering what destroys you is unique and a not-so-human quality and puts them among the most spiritual people in the world. Probably this gives them the excellence they demonstrate in everything they do and admiring them is pretty much all one can do from here. Long live the nation!