A Culture to Comprehend

I'd been following the Japanese news since the tsunami.  At first I was so amazed with the calmness of people, with the quick analytical approach to problems, and the numerous reports on the survivors and animals found.  However, after following everything for three weeks, I started to get agitated.

The News

• They reported a lot on the status of the victims.  During the first week of reporting, there was never an additional comment or reminder on donation.  Then the reminder was added afterwards each time after a news report on the victims.  After following this for another couple of weeks, I realized that they selected different families to report each time, like "highlight of the day".   After the reporting of how fortunate or unfortunate they were, then came the "reminder".   I started to feel agitated because the message seemed to have changed in nature, from "here's the info for your donation" to "please give us your money...here's the account";
• The report on animals:  Yes, the resident there loved animals. I'm extremely pleased of the efforts of some voluntary groups, as well as the officials, reaching out to save animals. Their efforts were honorable.  However, slowly the reporting of the stories reminded me of all the well-formulated Japanese films on human and animals that always went very sentimental.  Not a lot of people could go without a tear.  Adding to the last point, the news had become more of a "drama/story-telling" window;
• I was amazed at the detailed analysis of why resources could not be delivered to the shelters. Yet this came way too late that it was done in a manner susceptible of explaining for the government on the lack of support;
• Besides analyzing logistics, they started reporting on a selection of victims and then inviting clinical psychologists to analyze every one of them.   With three weeks into the triple disaster, picking up victims to analyze gave me the feeling of picking their subjects from a "farm/market" for their scientific research shown live on TV.  This makes me sick.

The community is strong in this nation, but on following closely on the development of the situation, I started to feel very uncomfortable on how the government saw their people, and their very "rational" thinking taking over human sensitivity publicly in dealing with pain, sorrow, and misfortune.

Japan is a beautiful country. It's a society of service where Presentation is the key.  This, however, is also embedded in how an individual "should" behave in front of "outsiders", and in face of drastic changes. That gives all the frustration and suppression of self in the culture.

Maybe I'm being too sceptical, but again this is how I've started to feel as an audience/outsider after watching the disturbing news everyday for three weeks.