Location: Tokyo, Japan
Date: April 6, 2006My husband and I spent two days in Tokyo and the end of our big trip in 2006. Hubby had been before, I had not. He told me that I would be impressed by the friendliness and helpfulness of the people in Tokyo, and I was. When you take a trip like we did, visiting several countries over even an extended period of time, you know that you'll only be scratching the surface of most places you visit. That was certainly true in Japan. I only saw Tokyo, and only a select few parts of that. But what I saw left me wanting to see more.
I have not been following the news from Japan these last few days as closely as I could, or perhaps should. It is not the sort of news I want to have on the TV or computer when my daughters are around. I am not ready to try to explain this sort of catastrophe to them yet. In fact, I don't think I ever will be ready, or able, to explain it.
But my heart is breaking for the people of Japan. I'll be sending money soon, and wishing that I could somehow do more.
I lived in Tokyo for 3 years and so Japan has a special place in my heart too. One of my dearest friends still lives there and is keeping us updated on what is going on there (basically a huge mess that is not likely to end any time soon). As a result, we have been talking quite openly about the tragedy here at home. Noah (6) is at an age where he is interested in how things work and so there are countless questions about earthquakes, and tsunamis. We have shown him some footage of the scale of the damamge ( no faces of the tragedy though) and he is enthralled.
ReplyDeleteLast year after the Italian earthquake they talked about the disaster at kinder, so I see this as a bit of an extension on that. I tend to think that if kids hear about (certain) things in a safe setting they process it a lot better.