Personal Crisis in Japan

The tsunami is only the most recent issue facing Japan’s future. Now, with a serious impact to Japanese industry there may be fewer jobs and more stress placed on the already over-taxed urban infrastructures (1).

Japan has a pre-existing crisis with negative population growth that will see the country’s size shrink by over 20% in the next forty years (2). Japan also has one of the world’s highest suicide rates among the young (3).

I had a nightmare last night where I was raising my children in a world where the worst aspects of these possible futures came true. What will Japan be to them if the worst happens? What kind of Tokyo will my children come to know? Will it be the same one their mother used to play in? The one that she walked alone to school in? Will it be the one their grandmother and great-grandmother lived in? How different will it be?

I’m afro-carribean, Italian, and anglo-german. I don’t have any single heritage I can lay claim to. I suppose, by that, my children will not have any direct claim to Japan as a cultural homeland. That doesn’t discount that their cousins, mostly ethnically Japanese with many still living in Japan, and their mother / grandmother being of Japanese descent, will be a strong influence for them to identify with Japan as a spiritual center.

Tonight was the We Heart Japan event in Los Angeles. I want to thank everyone who helped and contributed. I’m happy I was able to contribute. Japan means a lot to me. I never considered myself to have a bias toward Japan in any way. Truth be told I admired their architecture and art styles, but I didn’t know much about the culture. My family is now tied to it in ways I’m still coming to grips with. I’ve been involved in their animation industry, both personally and professionally, for years. Many of my close friends have lived and worked in Japan. On my film, The Arcadian, several actors are Japanese. Since meeting my wife my fondness for the country has become a point of familial pride.

I don’t know how to articulate it, or where to start other than here on the blog… but I wish there was a way to make the people of Japan know that their country is tied to so many people around the world in ways much deeper than they might realize. The issues of Japan are the issues of many outside of Japan. They’re not alone.

I need to focus my thoughts more clearly, but I needed to say something right now.