{"id":9383,"date":"2011-09-19T22:00:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T13:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9383"},"modified":"2011-09-19T22:07:48","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T13:07:48","slug":"discussion-jk-on-the-oversimplistic-panacea-of-ganbare-nippontohoku-etc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/?p=9383","title":{"rendered":"Discussion: JK on the oversimplistic panacea of slogan “Ganbare Nippon\/Tohoku” etc."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"IN<\/a>
New novel IN APPROPRIATE by ARUDOU Debito<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"Handbook<\/a>\"\\"<\/a>\"\u300c\u30b8\u30e3\u30d1\u30cb\u30fc\u30ba\u30fb\u30aa\u30f3\u30ea\u30fc\u3000\u5c0f\u6a3d\u5165\u6d74\u62d2\u5426\u554f\u984c\u3068\u4eba\u7a2e\u5dee\u5225\u300d\uff08\u660e\u77f3\u66f8\u5e97\uff09\"<\/a>\"JAPANESE<\/a>\"sourstrawberriesavatar\"<\/a>\"debitopodcastthumb\"<\/a>
\nUPDATES ON TWITTER: arudoudebito
\nDEBITO.ORG PODCASTS on iTunes, subscribe free<\/p>\n

Hi Blog. Submitter JK also wrote a brief essay on “Ganbare”, and how it seems more than just a bit facile for the times we live in. Food for thought. I’ll put this under “Discussions”, which means I’ll comment less and allow more comments through (as long as they do not go ad hominem and do stick to point, of course). What do Debito.org Readers think? Arudou Debito<\/p>\n

\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n

September 17, 2011
\nFrom JK
\n<\/strong>
\nHi Debito: I wanted to share this with you on a side thread not connected to debito.org as it’s been on my mind for a while now.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve been pondering the following question — “If I had to boil down the essence of what it is to be Japanese using a single expression, what would it be?”.<\/em><\/p>\n

My answer is \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u300d.<\/em><\/p>\n

And the situation in \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02 epitomizes this.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brief synopsis of \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02: it is 90% mountains and 10% flat land — the former is basically a glorified fishing village that was wiped out by the March tsunami.<\/em><\/p>\n

I did some research, and it turns out that this place has been flattened by tsunami, not once, not twice, but three times prior to 2011 (specifically, 1896, 1933, and 1968).<\/em><\/p>\n

The city council is floating various reconstruction plans, such as making the sea wall higher, raising the elevation of the land, better evacuation response and improved shelters, a ‘dual-layer’ approach, etc. The plans are either not feasible (project cost is too high and\/or schedule cannot be met in time to prevent another tsunami disaster) or cannot guarantee the safety of the citizens and\/or their property (people must be evacuated into shelters, not all will make it in time, those who do make it will survive, but their dwelling and belongings will be destroyed).<\/em><\/p>\n

It appears to me that \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02 as a city is untenable unless the national government or fishing industry is going to do something to ensure that this city can last for more than 50 years at a time (e.g. shoulder the cost of a 10-meter high sea wall). If neither entity values the existence \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02 enough to make this happen, then in my opinion, the city need not exist.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I have not seen or heard this point addressed. \u300c\u8ae6\u3081\u300d, it seems, is not an option on the table if certain conditions are not met to ensure the long-term survival of \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02. I have, however seen and heard a great deal of \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u6771\u5317\uff01\u300d and \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u65e5\u672c\uff01\u300d.<\/em><\/p>\n

As you can see, \u9811\u5f35\u308c is not always appropriate — it can only take you so far, and then that’s it. The key of course is to know when to \u9811\u5f35\u308c and when to \u8ae6\u3081, and I don’t see much critical thinking along these lines taking place at the moment.<\/em><\/p>\n

On a related note, \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u65e5\u672c\uff01\u300d and \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u6771\u5317\uff01\u300dcome across to me as over-simplistic panaceas for Japan’s \/ Touhoku’s woes, and because of this, I resent the use of these expressions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cordial Regards, JK<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

P.S. Compare and contrast \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u300d with “La Joie de vivre”, the essence of what it is to be French IMO.<\/em><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JK: I’ve been pondering the following question — “If I had to boil down the essence of what it is to be Japanese using a single expression, what would it be?”.<\/p>\n

My answer is \u300c\u9811\u5f35\u308c\u300d.<\/p>\n

And the situation in \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02 epitomizes this.<\/p>\n

Brief synopsis of \u91dc\u77f3\u5e02: it is 90% mountains and 10% flat land — the former is basically a glorified fishing village that was wiped out by the March tsunami.<\/p>\n

I did some research, and it turns out that this place has been flattened by tsunami, not once, not twice, but three times prior to 2011 (specifically, 1896, 1933, and 1968).<\/p>\n

The city council is floating various reconstruction plans, but…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,44,4,31,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issue","category-discussions","category-japanese-government","category-tangents","category-unsustainable-japanese-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}