A year has passed since the most devastating earthquake in Japan's recorded history. Even if you don't know anything about Japan or care, you likely found out about this not long after it happened. I remember I was sitting at my computer in the early hours of the evening when my mom came up and told me a huge earthquake had just hit Japan. I turned on the news and they repeatedly showed clips of the tsunami invading the land, taking with it cars, homes, boats and trees.
A lot has happened and there have been big clean up efforts and lots of money donated. But there is still a lot, A LOT of clean up left to do. They just paved one of the roads destroyed by the tsunami in my city yesterday. There are still a lot of buildings that haven't been touched as far as clean up. There are still places that have rubble piles a story high. It will take many years for Japan to recover. Remember the Haiti earthquake? Their people are still without homes in some places. Japan isn't a 3rd world country, but disasters like the one that happened to Japan don't get fixed over night.
One of the events I went to gave people the opportunity to write a wish on a piece of paper, strap it to a glass bottle and light a candle inside of it. The event I found out was actually orchestrated by my teacher's niece. There were quite a few candles and people were still making out wishes by the time I had written mine, which was a little later in the evening.
This one says something like "I pray your heart is at peace." Yes the object to the left of it reminds me of a tooth. There were quite a few other ones wishing for a stronger Japan and ones wishing for their relatives to rest in peace and all that jazz. It was pretty touching. Obviously I couldn't grasp the whole meaning of the events because I wasn't here for the whole ordeal, but still it was very moving.
On a separate note, my teacher's daughter's name is Rei. Just so I don't forget, which I probably will.
大震災【だいしんさい】 (dai/shin/sai) (n) great earthquake (disaster);
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