Bento in my backpack

As the world commemorates the first anniversary of the great earthquake and tsunami that killed tens of thousands in Japan, I expressed my own tribute by hanging a plastic bento keychain on my backpack. But the souvenir item, which you can buy without ever going to Japan, is actually made in China.

This is no surprise, of course, as even the weather—with a cold front coming from somewhere near Tibet—is now also made in China. In Manila, I shopped in a Japanese thrift store where most of the products come in Japanese packaging but are actually made in China. Some are cleverly labeled “Japan design”.

So I don’t mind if it’s a Chinese copy of the sleek, austere geometry of Japanese product design that ironically even the Japanese now import from China. As long as the black lunch box looks uniquely thin to contain a pair of chopsticks or that it folds down flat for compact storing in my backpack, I couldn’t care less where it came from.

It doesn’t stop my fascination for  everything Japanese, except, of course, anime. Having been weaned on American comics, the big-eyed Japanese cartoons and their cosplay avatars look too alien for me.

Some of my students, too, those who are into cosplay and anime, are turning Japanese. They’re  crazy about  “J-Pop” that they’re actually learning how to speak and write in Japanese. I’m amazed at how fast they can memorize the original lyrics of songs popularized in anime movies.

I haven’t reached that point yet. But I wouldn’t mind learning a few words to add to arigato, sayonara, and oishi. In fact, I want to learn more words connected with food, so I can order faster in Japanese restaurants.

My friend Osamu, a chemist from Kyoto who quit his job in Hawaii to take up painting  in the University of San Carlos, now helps me learn a little Japanese. I asked him to translate some texts in the art books and on the album cover of CDs I bought from a Japanese surplus store.

We recently watched the features on cable TV about how Japan quickly recovered from the tsunami disaster. Seeing volunteers risk their own lives to repair the damaged nuclear reactor in Fukushima, I asked Osamu why suicide doesn’t seem to scare the Japanese.

“For the Japanese, life is not for oneself,” he said. “You live not for yourself but for others.”

This is something not easy to understand, especially among Filipinos who are known to be too personalistic. One of the haunting images of the aftermath of last year’s tsunami in Japan is the footage of survivors calmly awaiting their turn in line for water and food. If it happened in the Philippines, aid workers would have to face a stampede.

But the Japanese quietly mourned and helped each other rise up and move on.  The tidal wave left behind mountains of debris but in just a year, the Japanese have cleaned up the mess and started building from scratch.

They are now trying to improve their early warning system which already saved millions of lives last year by stopping bullet trains  and sending  tsunami alerts to all cellphones at the first sign of tremors.

In contrast, the lack of such system in Cebu’s civil defense during the strong Feb. 6   earthquake prompted an epic tsunami scare as rumors about approaching tidal waves spread like wildfire.

We criticize the Japanese for being control freaks of too OC.  But for a nation given to noise and clutter, a little quiet and order is probably just what we need for a balanced life.

I have my pocket bento to remind me of that and, of course, to brag about my taste for anything Japanese.