We often heard this word, “Being proud of Japanese” especially right after 3/11, this word imply that people in Japan unite and keep social order even though they experience and face such a terrible accident. It is so true but I felt something strange from this word and situation. We should not miss the fact that there are definitely people who are not “Japanese”.
We talked about what is the meaning of being Japanese through some subjects in classes.
This subject reminded me of my feeling toward the situation after 3/11 as I mentioned above.
I don’t think much about my nationality, being Japanese in my daily life. I cannot say that this situation is common among the people in Japan, but it is one of the general senses.
However, sometimes consciousness of being Japanese suddenly becomes remarkable among people. This phenomenon means elevation of people’s consciousness of group they belong to.
Then, I’d like to mention the situation after the earthquake happened in March 11 as a concrete example to explain that phenomenon and to present one of the aspects of what we can grasp from the situation after 3/11.
What phenomenon was there after 3/11? This is quite personal feeling but I do remember that I strongly felt something strange from this phenomenon.
After 3/11, there were tendencies such as that people frequently said they were proud of being Japanese. It was quite easy for us to find this word (which sounds even common slogan for Japan) on newspaper, Internet and TV.
It is natural that the incident which caused extensive damage to a certain society makes people more be conscious of their community and others who belong to same community and unite each other than usual. Naturally enough, people want to share same feeling or consciousness through experience same incident in order to overcome it. This situation also brought and spread the word “GANBAROU NIPPON” over Japan. In consequence, this phenomenon unites people to try to overcome this terrible incident.
However, I felt that we should look this situation carefully spread over japan after 3/11. I mean this has also negative side that we tend to miss the fact that there are actually Non-Japanese people who have been also suffered from that terrible incident in Japan at that time.
In terms of the word, I don’t belong to NOT “Japanese” group, but I just imagined how non-Japanese people who experience this huge accident in 3/11 felt this tendency I mentioned above. This seems to be the problem just only about what words we should use, but it is not the essence of the phenomenon. I think the situation after huge incident happen in society has exclusive side, positive one as well.
Nationalistic elevation is not always negative thing, but we should look and think carefully what kind of aspects that phenomenon after 3/11 has, not just look the limelight.
So, I’d like to ask class mates to tell me how do you think that phenomenon.
by Misa Kono
JAPANsociology 
This is a quite interesting post. At the very moment of the earthquake, I was not in Japan, as I was an exchange student who studied abroad. I remember I was feeling those quite complex feeling that is difficult to explain. Also, whilst I was feeling quite depressed, what encouraged me is the news telling me the “unity” amongst Japanese people. Yes, it is true that I was actually encouraged by that.
However, I would suggest that of “unity” has two meanings both in positive and negative ways. First, in a negative way, while I was outside of my country, I saw many of people who were taking some kinds of “action” for Japan. And I also thought that I had to do something for my country. However, that became more like to be “forced” to do so. Some of you might have found the people with bokinbako (donation box) with strong obligatory power in the town during the time right after the earthquake. In this nature, I would say the wave of “Ganbaro NIPPON” was actually scary.
Another way is the positive possibility. At the moment right after the earthquake, many of people could “empathise” with (mostly) people of Tohoku area. For most of people, those people in Tohoku are “somebody they don’t know”. But they actually cared about Tohoku-people, and made huge efforts with a strong empathy. This is what we, people, can do for somebody. For example, when somebody are thinking about ‘International Cooperation’, some criticise them like “Why do you always consider about somewhere far away?” So, what does define that “far” distance? Some shapes of “Unity” might be a pioneer of far better world in some ways.
Your perception about the phenomenon after 3/11 is quite interesting.
I do agree that by experiencing the horrible incident in 3/11, we Japanese people tend to show our sense of unity strongly. However, I consider that it does not necessary exclude the foreigners who experienced it in Japan at that time. “GANBAROU NIPPON” does not mean “ganbarou Japanese people” but “ganbarou japan” as a country and ganbarou who have experienced that terrible incident. Therefore, I do not think it includes the exclusiveness of non-Japanese people.
Also, through experiencing this incident, we could deeply feel the kindness of other countries by receiving tons of donations and several movements which are held by non-Japanese people. Therefore, if some terrible incident happen in other country in future, I think we would be more likely to take an interest and try to support them than before by having experienced this earthquake and Tsunami in Japan.