I'm staying, too!

I must confess I've been having a really hard time with foreign news coverage of all the recent (tragic) events in Japan.

But tonight I finally found this article by David McNeill. Their country may be shattered, but their spirit is unbroken (The link will probably stop working in a few days - so read it soon.)

I love the final paragraph! It goes like this:

Above all, what will stay with me after these communities are rebuilt, the Fukushima plant is encased in its concrete coffin and the iodine, caesium and plutonium has stopped seeping from its bowels, is the way Japanese people carried themselves during this crisis. I'm thinking now of the smiles I saw around Iwate, of the many old people and children in the prefecture who shoved food into my hands and told ME to keep going. I think these qualities are social, not genetic, built up over generations, and possibly stronger in the northeast where life has traditionally been harsher. But whatever the reason, it works. And I'm staying.