One of the many wrenching scenes in post-tsunami Japan is unfolding in a most unlikely place: a bowling alley. Along the 25 lanes at Airport Bowl near Sendai, more than 100 white coffins replace standard white pins, and each day grieving Japanese citizens somberly peer inside the boxes, looking for lost loved ones.
For many, the search is futile. By early April, the Japanese government reported more than 10,000 people dead and nearly 16,000 missing after a March 11 earthquake and tsunami shattered—or swallowed—scores of northeastern coastal towns. (A 7.1-magnitude aftershock on April 7 rattled the quake zone and knocked out power in three northeastern prefectures, but officials didn't immediately report further damages or injuries.)
In many cases, recovering more bodies may be impossible: The tsunami that swept away towns buried others under miles of rubble. During the last weekend of March, the U.S. military joined Japanese forces in a two-day blitz to recover as many bodies as possible. The 18,000-man mission recovered 339 dead.
But even during some of the most painful moments of recovery, many Japanese have remained remarkably calm and resolute: Rescue workers bow in respect for the dead after recovering a body, and homeless Japanese quake victims bow in gratitude for sometimes meager supplies of food and water.
Some call the dynamic gaman—a word that conveys the Japanese virtue of honorably enduring hardship no matter how bad it gets. Others might call it gambatte—the Japanese virtue of doing one's best no matter how difficult the circumstances might grow.
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