(no subject)
There's nothing I can even say. Information flows slowly. I want to know what I can do, but I suspect that the answer is "nothing." Japan doesn't want hardly-competent-in-Japanese foreigners hopping onto airplanes and getting in the way of the the relief efforts in guise of helping. But.
I know it's not my country. I've never been one of those rabid Japanophiles who wants nothing more than to fall into the worlds of her favorite anime characters. Sure, I've been to a few cons, but that's more about Americans than Japanese. I've never liked J Pop and I've never wished I were Japanese myself, really. I love their particular type of surreal literature, and many of the films, and most of the art. But it's not my life, and it's not my obsession. Clearly, however, having been there twice, and having studied it so persistently... I don't know. I feel connected. I don't hear the unsubtitled videos of people fleeing buildings and showing the carnage in their homes, or of people being plucked off of the rooftops of their houses that are now out to sea, as the meaningless ratatat that most foreigners hear when they hear Japanese. I hear people calling for their relatives. People exclaiming in fear and dismay. In one video, I hear nothing, as a solemn class of kindergarteners are rescued from a boat and deposited, utterly silent, without a tear, eyes bright with silent incomprehension, onto dry land.
So forgive me if this hit me harder than did Haiti ore the tsunami in Indonesia did. I know it's hypocritical, to favor one disaster over another. Somewhere, sociologists and psychologists have developed a term for this condition, of only being truly affected by what is in some way connected to one's own life. I'll fall back on that as my excuse. Gladly.
The question still remains, what can I do?
Probably nothing. I want to find out who I can ask, though. Really.