これまで、海外の方との会話をとおして、私たちの特性は理解していました。しかし、この本を読み日本人の行動原理を考察するまでには至っていなかったと気が付かされました。

東日本大震災の日に、大川小学校で起こったことと、震災後に多くの幽霊が目撃されたことを精緻に描いた、英国人記者によるルポルタージュです。大変おすすめです。

The book, Ghosts of the Tsunami, reveals what really happened to the Okawa Elementary School in

 which most of the teachers and children were swallowed up by tsunami on March 11  2011. Japanese

 feel terribly uncomfortable to analyze the past incidents and to cast blame. Even the appalling number

 of children’s deaths, which was caused by a teacher’s misjudgment, has been swept under the rug.

 Most of the teachers who died at the scene has made the operation to shed light on the cause of this

 tragedy even more difficult. The School must have prepared to let teachers act according to proper

 protocol, but they failed.

The author provides insight into Tohoku people’s mindset, which dictated how they behaved in the

 middle of a disaster and afterwards. That gave me a better understanding on this matter. He said

 people in Tohoku area (for me his analysis applies to general Japanese to some degree though) are

 patient and obedient, afraid to change and very self-conscious. The personality is necessarily to

 survive in a disaster stricken country as a group. That, however, can be a double edged sword, because

 our trait hinders us to take initiative in a critical moment.

As the title suggests, a large number of people testified that they come across ghosts after the

 disaster. Some people were even relentlessly possessed by that. A kind of mass hysteria might have

 created the whole ghost thing. Still, As I read this book that is written logically and insightfully, I feel the

 souls of the dead hope to live in others. Things we can see with our eyes do not always tell us

 everything. I wish a peaceful mind will come to both the bereaved families and victims.