The Japans And Her Earthquakes

On September 1, 1923 came the Great Kantō earthquake. A 13 year old boy experiences the quake firsthand, recounting it later:

At that point I heard a rumbling sound from beneath the ground. I was wearing my high wooden clogs, and in order to hit the cow [I was returning] I was moving my body, so I didn't feel the earth move. What I noticed was that my friend who had been squatting next to me suddenly stood bolt upright. As I looked up at him, I saw that behind him the wall of the storehouse was crumbling and falling - toward us. I stood up in a hurry too.

Because I was wearing high clogs I couldn't keep my balance on the rippling ground, so I took them off and carried one in each hand. Like someone on a boat in heavy seas, I lurched and ran to where my friend stood with arms wrapped around a telephone pole for dear life. I did likewise. The pole was waving around crazily, too. In fact, it was snapping its wires into thousands of little pieces.

Then, before our eyes, the two storehouses belonging to the pawnshop started shedding their skins. They shuddered and shook off their roof tiles and then let go of their thick walls. In an instant they were skeletons of wood frame. It wasn't just the storehouses that were doing this either. The roof tiles of all the houses, as if they were being put through a sieve, suddenly danced and shook and slipped off. In the thick dust the roof beams lay revealed.

Isn't it remarkable how well Japanese houses are built? In this situation the roof becomes light and house doesn't collapse. I remember thinking these thoughts as I stood clinging to the violently shuddering telephone pole. But this doesn't mean I was calm and collected, human beings are funny creatures - if they are too severely startled, one part of the brain is often left out entirely and remains strangle composed, thinking about something completely unrelated. But my poor brain, which in this moment contemplated Japanese domestic architecture and its capacity to withstand earthquakes, in the next moment became feverish with concern over my family. I set out at a breakneck run for my house.

The front gate had lost half of its roof, but it stood solidly without even a list to one side. But the stone walk from the gate to the front entrance of my house was blocked by a mountain of roof tiles that had fallen from the buildings on either side. I could hardly see the front door. My family must be all dead.

Strangely enough, the feeling that came over me at that moment was not one of grief, but rather a deep resignation. The next thing that occurred to me was I was all alone in the world. Looking around me and wondering what to do, I saw the friend I had left holding on the telephone pole come bursting out of his house with all the members of his family. They stood in a group in the middle of the street. Thinking there was not much else I could do under the circumstances, I decided to stay with my friend, and I started walking towards them.

As I approached, my friend’s father started to say something to me, but then stopped suddenly. He walked past me and stared at the front of my house. Following his gaze, I turned and looked back. There were all the members of my family coming out of the front gate. I ran like one possessed. Those I had thought dead were not only safe, but appeared to have been worried about me. As I ran to them, they welcomed me with relief visible on their faces.

You would think I would have burst into tears as I ran to them. But I didn't cry. In fact, I could cry. It was impossible for me to cry because my [older] brother began to scold me with a vengeance. "Akira! What's the meaning of this spectacle? Walking around barefoot - what slovenliness!" Looking at them, I saw that my father, mother, sister and brother all had their clogs on. I hastened to put my high clogs back on, and I felt terribly ashamed. Of all the members of my family, I was the only one who had conducted himself in a disorderly fashion. To my eyes it looked as if my father, mother and sister were not in the least perturbed. As for my brother, he was not only calm in the face of the Great Kanto Earthquake, but appeared to be having a wonderful time.
-Legendary filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from "Something Like an Autobiography"

This, I feel, is a very Japanese reaction to earthquakes since their history is littered with disastrous quakes followed by quick and industrious rebuilding. They do not seek to escape the cracking of the earth but rather to face it best as possible realizing it will always be their constant companion.

Over 1,300 years old

Before March 11, Japan had suffered 33 recorded earthquakes rated 6.5 or higher on the Richter scale. But long ago the Japanese became artists in surviving. Some are amazed that wooden structures have survived hundreds of years through these rumblings. That's because early on engineers designed pagodas and other tall structures with a heavy log hanging down from the center of the building. As the building flexes one direction during a tremor, the log inevitably swings in the opposite direction as a perfect counterbalance. The principle is still used in modern Japanese skyscrapers today.

Even so, the human psyche can handle only so much. Kurosawa writes of the aftermath:

What is frightening is the ability of fear to drive people off the course of human behavior. By the time the fires downtown had subsided, everyone had used up all the household candles and the world was plunged into the real darkness of night. People who felt threatened by this darkness became the prey of the most horrifying demagogues and engaged in the most incredibly reckless, lawless acts. It's impossible to even imagine the magnitude of terror brought by total darkness to people who have never experienced it before - it is a terror that destroys all reason. When a person can't see anything to the left or the right, he becomes thoroughly demoralized and confused. And, as the old saying goes, "Fear peoples the darkness with monsters."

The massacre of the Korean residents of Tokyo took place on the heels of the Great Kanto Earthquake was brought on by demagogues who deftly exploited people's fear of the darkness. With my own eyes I saw a mob of adults with contorted faces rushing like an avalanche in confusion, yelling, "This way!" "No, that way!" They were chasing a bearded man, thinking someone with so much facial hair could not be Japanese.

A lesson still relevant today. About 6,600 Koreans were murdered with the army having to step in to counter the vigilantes.

The Japanese archipelago is located in an area where several continental and oceanic plates meet. This is the cause of frequent earthquakes and the presence of many volcanoes and hot springs across Japan. If earthquakes occur below or close to the ocean, they may trigger tidal waves (tsunami).

A visitor to ancient Japan asked why they did not build their houses of stone instead of mere wood. He was told it's much easier to rebuild with wood. Japan is in a permanent rebuilding frame of mind. She is resilient and tough and these scars helped form part of her character.

Later, Kurosawa's brother Hiego forced him to walk through the ruins and face the death and devastation rotting around them. Kurosawa thought to himself, "This must be the end of the world."

I failed to understand my brother's intentions and could only resent his forcing me to look at these awful sights. The worst was when we stood on the bank of the red-dyed Sumidagawa River and gaze at the throngs of corpses pressed against it shores. I felt my knees give way as I started to faint, but my brother grabbed me by the collar and propped me up again. He repeated, "Look carefully, Akira."

I resigned myself to gritting my teeth and looking. Even if I tried to close my eyes, that scene had imprinted itself permanently on the back of my eyelids. In this way, convincing myself it was inescapable, I felt a little calmer. But there is no way for me to describe adequately the horror I saw. I remember thinking that the lake of blood they say exists in Buddhist hell couldn't possibly be as bad as this.

I wrote that the Sumidagawa River was dyed red, but it wasn't a blood red. It was the same kind of light brownish red as the rest of the landscape, a red muddied with white like the eye of a rotten fish. The corpses floating in the river were all swollen to the bursting point, and all had their anuses open like big fish mouths. Even babies still tied on their mothers' backs looked like this. And all of them moved softly in unison on the waves of the river.

...The night we returned from the horrifying excursion I was fully prepared to be unable to sleep, or to have terrible nightmares if I did. But no sooner had I laid my head on the pillow than it was morning. I had slept like a log, and I couldn't remember anything frightening from my dreams. That seemed so strange to me I asked my brother how it could have come about. "If you shut your eyes to a frightening thing, you end up being frightened. If you look at everything straight on, there is nothing to be afraid of." Looking back on that excursion now, I realize it must have been horrifying for my brother too. It had been an exposition to conquer fear.

This same quality was transferred to Kurosawa's films in later life.

The death toll was estimated from 105,000 to 142,000. Over 570,000 homes were destroyed leaving 1.9 million homeless. 57 aftershocks were counted. Like today, it was hell on earth, only without 24/7 news coverage.

Nothing, of course, can make the pain of loss any easier. There is no "preparing" for that moment no matter how hard one tries. But Japan will lick her wounds and go on just as she has done for hundreds of years. In Japan it is said, "Life is only a dream" but the dreams of Japan are not over yet.

The wind has stopped
The current of the mountain stream
With only a windrow
Of red maple leafs.

-Harumichi No Tsuraki