Earthquake

Orange--days said in her Kyoto blog, 'Every city in Japan has its own tower.' To buttress her theory, here is Fukuoka Tower, in the background, at the Momochi Seaside area. Where the rich reside.

Anyway I was praying last night when I felt the bed move. Well, I didn't think that it was a miraculous sign, but more like probably I had merely imagined it. It was only when I saw the news an hour later that i realised that an earthquake had hit Kyushu, and that my area was affected, even though it was just magnitude 1. Chicken little you say?

Read this, and be impressed:

''In old neighbourhoods especially, people know each other well. Looting goes against the Japanese spirit of helping each other in times of need,' he said.

Petrochemical executive Satoshi Hara, 49, whose flat in Nishinomiya city was also violently shaken by the Great Hanshin Earthquake, recalled how he could not believe his eyes when he straggled to a nearby convenience store after the first tremors.

'Things were knocked off the shelves. But no one - despite the desperation for drinking water and other items - attempted to take the stuff and run,' he said. 'Instead, people waited patiently in a queue 100-deep to pay for their purchases.'

To be sure, there were some bad nuts. In the immediate aftermath of the quake, unscrupulous vendors hoping to make a quick buck rushed into the devastated areas to hawk food to hungry victims at several times the usual prices.

But their customers soon disappeared because the local Yamaguchi-gumi - Japan's largest yakuza (gangster) group - were inspired to do their bit for the community and were serving up free rice balls and miso soup.

Incidentally, this was written by the Japan Correspondent (Kwan Weng Kin) for today's edition of The Straits Times. The fact that he holds my dream job is besides the point, point being is that I personally feel that everyone knows why The Straits Times is ranked so low in terms of press freedom but that doesn't discount it as being an excellent news source for foreign news, especially that of the Asia-Pacific region, where we are in. Try reading the New Straits Times or the Bangkok post and see if you get such in depth coverage.

And no, living in Japan has not inflammed my nationalistic pride. Its a comparative analysis.