05 July, 2006

The Japanese Sense of Crisis

This morning all that was in my mind was, “damn it I couldn’t get up for Germany – Italy, which won?” and then I turned on the TV to see the results of the match. But what I saw on every channel were the usually cheery gossip show personalities and newscasters having this really grave expressions on their faces. I thought for a moment, “what happened?” but as I watched the show I found out that North Korea had launched out 6 consecutive missiles including ballistic ones in five hours from around 3:30-8:30am. All of them went down in to Japan Sea few hundred kilometers away from the west coast of Japan but I heard that one of the six could be Tepodon, a ballistic missile with range of 3,500-6,000 kilometers...

The Japanese government showed strong condemnation against the acts of North Korea, and decided to ban the entrance of cargo-passenger boat into Japan for 6 months starting today as well as to remonstrating.

Is that all? was my honest opinion... I mean, we could have had 6 missile attacks and all we do is to stop the boat? Isn’t that a bit too easy on them?
Okay, it’s true that our daily lives haven’t changed a bit by the attacks – we do talk about it but everything is smooth and is functioning on time and all that – and we don’t really sense any realistic danger despite being potentially targeted. But what do you guys think if 6 missiles dropped near your country?

...and as I write like this right now, here comes the seventh one. It’s just too bad that this is like the only thing they’re spending their scarce money on and knowing how they are going to be reacted.

True none of them actually hit Japan, but this is getting a bit too much and I don’t think it’s the smartest decision they can make.

Sorry I haven’t got much time, I gotta go now so this’ll continue to tomorrow (which makes Okinawa stories go on even further). Alrighty, France and Portugal tomorrow dawn! Hehe, I guess I’m also one of those that lack sense of life-threatening danger.

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