Looking back over the past few days’ coverage of the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, aside from the jaw-dropping scope of the disaster, one can be struck by an observation: There has been no breakdown of society, no looting, no massed protests, no bashing down the doors of the police stations. Despite being in the most singularly difficult situation that can befall an island nation, Japan seems to keep moving along, working itself out of the hole.
We’re reasonably certain there have been episodes of badness occurring: People under exceptional stress will behave poorly, no matter what, but in this instance, tens of thousands of homes erased, thousands of bodies washing up on shore, whole towns scraped away, the coverage on several media outlets has not shown badness happening. Why?
The simple reason could be that there is no reporting of looting because there is no looting, rioting and civilian chaos nine days after the disaster changed the entire country of Japan. By comparison (we can’t do apples to apples here) Haiti fell over in a couple of days and New Orleans imploded in less than 72 hours.
One could argue that the elemental character of Japan precludes such uncivilized nonsense, but that is such a broad stereotype that it borders on racism. To say that any nation is all one way or the other is objectionable, but it doesn’t bring us closer to an answer.
We do know that as a country, Japan has regular drills to cope with the spectrum of natural disasters that can hit their islands. Tsunami evacuation routes are posted on the sidewalks and school children are taken on the drills as a matter of course. Earthquake-resistant structures are common, as well as training the population how to react in an earthquake. Those simple, but important, steps go a long way in getting a population to recognize that bad things can happen, easily, in their own neighborhoods.
Perhaps it is Trust. The majority of people trust the authorities will do the right things, with the needed resources to put things as right as can be put right.
The other descriptor that comes to mind is: Dignity. Are the majority of people self-aware enough to recognize that their personal dignity precludes walking out of a store with an armload of small appliances because there has been a flood? Looting a store of milk and diapers we can overlook, as it speaks to the imperative of protecting your child, hardwired into any parent, but putting the grab on a big screen TV, no.
There was a scene in the coverage we caught earlier this week. An older woman was found by the Japanese rescue forces. They had recovered what seemed to be the body of a family member. The woman bowed to the rescuers, to acknowledge and thank them for their efforts, then stooped to examine the remains. It was her family member. She bowed again to the rescuers then bowed in prayer, as the rescuers joined her in a moments’ prayer over the body.
Aside from making tears shoot out of my eyes, it says much about the gratitude. compassion, respect and dignity shown and received by a group of three people, in the most difficult possible situation, on the street of a devastated town somewhere in Japan.
Wiser minds than ours will derive lessons from that short, poignant tableau.
RoadDave 
One of the reasons for limited looting IS that fact that this is Japan, but this is less racial than socio-economic. When you pack so many people into a (relatively) tiny set of islands, there’s bound to be social friction. Japan evolved a mechanism to avoid this, long before the US split off from England. While the west was refining war to kill, Japan refined war to solve social friction. Look at armour – the Europeans tried to build a human tank. Everything was thick metal. In Japan, armour of the same period is mostly lacquered wood and woven cloth! ALL is was meant to do was allow individuals to approach closely enough to duel.
Japan has been, for many years, all about courtesy. If YOU do wrong, YOU apologise. You don’t force the other person to admit wrong – that is shameful. And taking things that are not yours, and (worse yet) taking someone else’s food, used to perhaps keep an elder alive, is a disgrace unimaginable in the West. We have lost the central concept of shame – Japan refined it to an art form, and I mean no insult by that. THIS is why there’s no looting, and THIS is how millions live cheek-by-jowl with their own AND outsiders, while we cannot manage to cohabit cities with a fraction of the people per square foot. It’s because the people are from Japan, the locale, and far less because they are Japanese. And God Bless them for it.
Very true. My off hand guess is that the Japananese maybe don’t even put the baby in need as justification for looting. Looting is something that once it starts and however small, it tends to escalate quickly.
Also I am a bit concerned by some of the second guessing by US experts and media that could undermine trust in Japanese government authorities. Not that they can’t do anything wrong, but like in the fog of war it is hard to get at the truth quickly and get it out. It ain’t easy.
Part of the government problem IS the society of politeness. It’s not right to upset your subjects, so bad news is carefully presented. If a reactor is going nuts in the north, you don’t want to upset the majority of people OR prematurely blame the people involved. It’s also why a company executive will commit suicide when their product has screwed up people’s lives. (Can you imagine the head of Ford committing suicide when their cars catch on fire?) It’s weird to us Westerners, unless you’ve studied the culture.
I’ll give you a personal story. Back in the late 80s, I interviewed with a consulting company in Indianapolis. One of their clients were Subaru, for their plant in West Lafayette (Indiana). The interviewer mentioned the job as a possibility for me (pity it didn’t work out – a car guy/programmer working at a car plant!), but also stated they were having problems. The management seemed aloof, and the consultants never got direct feedback. I asked him if the project lead was female, and he almost swallowed his teeth! The consulting team’s lead was a woman – Japanese businessmen don’t talk, or even DEAL, with women (not back then, anyway). The management wouldn’t tell the consultants they weren’t doing things right, they’d tell the consultants’ bosses, who were “expected to deal with their subordinates”. I gave him a brief “how to deal with the Japanese” – it was all news to him!
As another example, a TEPCO spokesman has said that the plant would need to have its’ future use determined – that’s Japanese for “bury the mother”! The Japanese have a unique language all their own, regardless of what actual tongue they speak – you just have to know what to listen for.