The Graceful Japanese

Like so many I sit in front of my TV these days riv­eted.  I can’t keep my eyes off CNN, who very rarely makes an appear­ance in my home.  I called Japan my home for nearly three and a  half years, so I feel like I have a per­sonal bond to this coun­try.  It is not a for­eign des­ti­na­tion for me but rather a piece of my own history.

I learned so much from my time in Japan but among the most pro­found was their sense of com­mu­nity and the impor­tance of the group ver­sus the indi­vid­ual.  I would sit in awe as I’d watch a group of Jr. High stu­dents all col­or­ing the same col­lage at the same time.  Thirty hands on a piece of butcher paper five feet wide and 2 feet tall– all the mark­ers crash­ing into each other– and no one balk­ing!  Not one argu­ment.  Not one per­son telling the other to stay on their side.  Not one per­son try­ing to con­trol what the oth­ers were draw­ing.   And the whole thing com­ing out beau­ti­fully in the end.  I was often left in awe of sit­u­a­tions like this that were such a far cry from the Amer­i­can expe­ri­ence of indi­vid­u­als duel­ing for con­trol and power from the very youngest age.  Chil­dren did not fight over toys in preschools there and the first word a tod­dler learns is not “Mine.”  I was a Child Devel­op­ment major in col­lege and was taught in school that this phase of ego-centrism in tod­dler­hood was a human stage of devel­op­ment.  It is not.  It is a cul­tural stage of development.

I was watch­ing a woman who was res­cued last night being piggy backed over the rub­ble by a res­cue worker and when he finally set her down to safety on a chair inside a build­ing she quickly stood up to deeply bow at her res­cuer and tell him, “Thank you very much.”  She had been float­ing in the water cling­ing to a tatami mat for two days in freez­ing tem­per­a­tures.  She told the story of her daugh­ter drift­ing away from her as she choked back her tears.  This woman had just endured what most humans will never have to.  And in the midst of the most tragic of human sto­ries she remem­bered to show grat­i­tude and appre­ci­a­tion to her res­cuer.  These are the moments when I am incred­i­bly hum­bled by this soci­ety.  What makes a soci­ety develop in such a way that they have such an incred­i­ble capac­ity for grace?  And more impor­tantly, how can the rest of us develop this capac­ity in ourselves?

My heart breaks for Japan right now and my prayers are with them.   It is my hope for the rest of human­ity that we can all learn a lit­tle some­thing while we watch and open our­selves to greater lev­els of com­pas­sion, grat­i­tude and grace in the process.

Category: Parenting, Relationships