Coffee break #1: The Spirit of Japan

This is a series of emails written by me, inviting fellow colleagues in the Department of Civil Engineering, UTP for the weekly coffee break. The first coffee break was held successfully last Wednesday with the attendance of lecturers, technicians and postgraduate students.

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Dear collegues,

Japanese are well known for their high discipline and spirit in anything that they do. In this, I mean by worldly affairs and humanity. A few examples as follow: When Emperor Meiji introduced modernization, the Samurai ethics and honour were still maintained in their work culture; after two nuclear bombs were dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it took them only a few years to rise back resulting in the fastest train in the world, tracking their railroads in the 1960s. A few years after that, they become the 2^nd largest economic power in the world until recently when they were replaced by China.

You can also see this at a different view but any nation who think they can dominate half the world by war should be credited for the discipline and spirit also. That was in the 1940s (for those who didn’t watch the History Channel on Astro).

On the humanity side, they were known for their courage and compassion. The recent devastating earthquake is one of the example. It was reported in the news that corporation that sells essential day-today products dropped their priced in the spirit of compassion. People who lost their families did not cry out loud as what others do when such tragedy occurs. Queue can reach up to 1km for food but there was no pushing or rushing. Young people find their own way on how to help and becomes volunteers. The engineers were prepared to die by radiation fixing the nuclear power plants for the sake of others. There were absolutely no chaos and no anarchy.

With this spirit, I invite you for our departmental coffee break. There is cake but limited to about 25 slices. Essentials in the pantry may be limited and hot water is scarce. I vow not to have my slice of cake in compassion for others (well, actually I can ask my wife to bake another at home heheh).

See you there!