VOX POPULI: We must hold on to hope in face of disasters

"Jugo no haru," a Japanese expression that literally translates as "the spring of one's 15th year," implies the "ordeal" of 15-year-olds preparing for senior high school entrance tests or employment exams in early spring. But the expression also denotes the joy that follows when a major challenge has been overcome.

In 15 years, newborn babies grow into teenagers, who can either start senior high school or decide to join the work force. That same period of time has passed since the Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred on Jan. 17, 1995.

To mark the occasion, Ashinaga, a nonprofit organization that funds scholarships for children who have lost their parents, published a booklet titled "Ijitachi ga Kataru, Ima no Omoi" (Surviving children speak their minds now).

I read the survivors' accounts, and imagined that their 15 years must have been both long and short. My heart ached for these people.

A 31-year-old woman, now a mother of two--a boy and a girl--wrote, "All the crying I've done over the last 15 years has made me marvel at the amount of tears I'm capable of shedding."

A 27-year-old woman was also blessed with a daughter. Probably because of her emotional trauma, she kept rambling about her "fear of loss" while she was delivering her baby at a hospital, according to what she heard later from a nurse. She says she is still haunted by her sense of the "mortality of every living being."

Underlying every survivor's account is a sense of gratitude for other people. Many survivors found comfort in their conviction that they were not alone and forgotten, that there were people who really cared.

In fact, it is not only these Hanshin quake survivors who have become convinced that people do help and encourage one another in times of terrible tragedy. Ever since the 1995 catastrophe, this conviction has become ingrained in the collective psyche of our disaster-prone nation.

The world continues to be visited with tragedies. On Jan. 12, a powerful earthquake devastated Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean Sea. The capital city of Port-au-Prince has been wiped out, and tens of thousands of people are believed to have perished. It pains me greatly to imagine some "lights" of life, still flickering weakly under all that debris, being snuffed out even as we speak.

In observing the 15th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake that claimed the lives of 6,434, citizens of Kobe and other municipalities must have shared in the grief of the people of Haiti. The Earth is a living planet, and everyone is a potential victim of one natural disaster or another.

I truly pray that the human race is capable of sharing the wisdom and the means to guard the flame of hope against black despair.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 17

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.