灾难揭示日本国民性：最好的和最坏的Woes bring out the best and worst of a nation

The earthquake and tsunami that battered north-eastern Japan last week have put on display some of the nation’s worst features – and some of its finest.

上周重创了日本东北部地区的地震和海啸，让日本民族一些最恶劣和最优良的国民性同时展露无疑。

On the negative side, the natural disaster has brutally exposed the failings of a nuclear power industry that many Japanese have for decades viewed with distrust.

就负面性而言，这场自然灾害毫不留情地暴露了数十年来许多日本人一直不信任的核电行业的种种缺陷。

In doing so, it points at the high cost of the technological hubris and faith in construction as a solution to any social or economic problem that was a powerful strand in policymaking even before late prime minister Kakuei Tanaka in the 1970s set government the goal of “remodelling the Japanese archipelago”.

日本人在技术上过于自大，对建筑过分自信，并把它们当做解决一切社会或经济问题的办法。这种强大的观念一直主宰着日本的政策制定，甚至在上世纪70年代已故首相田中角荣(Kakuei Tanaka)为日本政府设定“日本列岛改造”目标之前就已开始盛行。此次灾难则暴露了这种观念的高昂代价。

The escalating crisis at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has made a mockery of Tokyo Electric Power’s claims – backed with expensive propaganda including museums aimed at children – that it can safely operate reactors on these seismically active islands.

受损的福岛第一核电站(Fukushima Daiichi)的危机逐渐升级，是对东京电力公司(Tepco)的一种嘲讽——该公司自称能够在日本地震活跃的岛屿上安全运营核反应堆。该公司一直用高价的宣传手段来支持这些言论，甚至修建了面向儿童的博物馆。

Last Friday’s powerful earthquake and the huge tsunami it unleashed were undoubtedly a formidable double-whammy. But even a magnitude 9 quake hardly lies beyond the boundary of the “Largest Conceivable Earthquake” that Tepco claims its plants are designed to withstand.

上周五的强震和由此引发的巨大海啸，无疑是可怕的双重打击。但即使震级高达里氏9.0级，也没有超出东京电力公司声称其核电站设计的抗震级别上限——该公司宣称，这些核电站抵抗得住“可想到的最强地震”。

And while it will take time to establish all the links that make up the chain of disaster engulfing the Fukushima plant, it is hard not to think that Tepco’s chronic problems with safety and disclosure could be factors in the current crisis.

尽管仍需花上一段时间，才能搞清楚席卷了福岛核电站的灾难链条上的各个环节，但人们很容易想到，东京电力公司在安全和披露方面的长期隐患，可能是导致当前危机的原因之一。

Naoto Kan, the prime minister, was reduced to demanding that Tepco executives tell him “what the hell is going on” after the company waited an hour before informing him of an explosion at the plant.

日本首相菅直人(Naoto Kan)被迫质问东京电力高管：“到底发生了什么”。该公司等了一个小时才通知他核电站发生了爆炸。

The delay suggests that Tepco’s engineers may have continued to suffer from a tendency to “avoid reporting problems to the national government” – a failing the company itself was forced to acknowledge in 2002 after being found to have falsified safety reports over the previous 20 years.

这种拖延行为表明，东京电力的工程师们可能仍怀有一种“避免向中央政府报告问题”的心态。2002年，在被曝光过去20年间一直在篡改安全报告后，该公司被迫承认，的确有过这样的行为。

The crisis may end up taking a further toll on the tattered reputation of Japanese politicians. It is they, after all, who have failed to protect the public’s interest in a safe nuclear industry. And while the Democratic party-led government’s short time in office means it can hardly be blamed for creating the crisis, Mr Kan has hardly emerged as the kind of leader able to comfort and calm the nation at such a time.

此次危机可能会进一步损害日本政客本已不佳的声誉。毕竟，他们未能保护公众享有安全核工业的利益。尽管由于民主党政府执政时间不长，很难将引发危机的责任归咎于他们，但菅直人的表现，很难让人信服，他是那种能够在这种紧要关头令国民放心和镇定的领导人。

Yet anyone who has spent time among survivors would surely agree this disaster has also shown this nation at its best. Though the government response has inevitably been inadequate in some areas, relief efforts have been orderly and generally effective. And those much-maligned politicians have at least managed to pause the feuding behind ruling parties and opposition groups that had threatened to derail next year’s government budget.

但只要与幸存者呆上一段时间，任何人都必然会同意，这场灾难也展示出了这个民族最好的一面。尽管在某些领域，日本政府迄今的应对措施无疑不够充分，但救援工作一直井然有序，大体上效果显著。而那些饱受诟病的政客们至少暂停了执政党与反对党间的长期争执——此前，党派之争曾经有可能让明年的政府财政预算脱离正轨。

Meanwhile, all along the north-eastern coast, people who have lost loved ones and homes have responded with uncomplaining restraint and self-discipline. It is a measure of the high standards of social order Japanese set themselves that residents of the battered port of Ofunato recoil with dismay at rumours that four people have been arrested for stealing from ruined homes. “I thought this was a good town,” says one resident.

与此同时，在整个东北海岸，失去至亲和家园的人们都毫无怨言，始终表现得克制、自律。日本人对自身社会秩序设定的标准之高，从一件事中便可见一斑：在遭灾的港口城市大船渡，据说有四人因在被摧毁的人家行窃而被捕，这一传闻令当地居民颇为惊愕。“我本以为这是个淳朴的小镇，”一位居民表示。

Even among the rubble it is possible to hear neighbours greet each other and visitors with polite humour. Asked how victims can still laugh at a time like this, Masato Miura, a fisheries co-operative chief from a village in coastal Kamaishi, draws chuckles from his friends by answering: “We’re Japanese samurai!”

即使在废墟中，人们仍可能听到邻居们以良好的情绪，礼貌地问候彼此和来访者。在被问到灾民在这种时候怎么还能笑得出来时，沿海城市釜石一个村庄的渔场合作社主管三浦正人(Masato Miura)回答道：“我们是日本武士！”这一回答引来他的朋友们的一阵笑声。

“We laugh with our faces and we cry with our hearts,” Mr Miura says. “I can’t think of the future. All I can do is deal with this moment.”

“我们把笑容挂在脸上，眼泪却流在心里，”三浦正人表示。“我无法去考虑未来。我所能做的就是应付好当下的事情。”

Such ability to set aside grief and loss to tackle the challenges at hand will stand disaster victims in good stead for the long and difficult recovery to come. But when the crippled reactors are cooled and the tsunami debris cleared, the nation should set itself the task of creating nuclear utilities that can be trusted and a government capable of regulating them properly. Only then will the stoic survivors have the leaders and institutions they deserve.

这种不去想悲伤和损失、专注于应对眼前挑战的能力，将让灾民在未来长期而艰难的复苏期间受益无穷。但是一旦受损的反应堆冷却下来，海啸废墟被清理干净，日本应为自己设定两项任务：建立能够被信任的核设施，以及一个能够有效地监管这些核设施的政府。只有到那时，日本的领导人和机构才能配得上那些坚忍的幸存者。