Un bel dì
A dream that a ship would arrive Nagasaki with her beloved marine Pinkerton but he arrived with a wife and an intention to take their son from her. So the opera Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini ends with a suicide and with Pinkerton running with her name on his lips but arrives too late. He feels remorse but too late.
What does this have to do with the recent events in Japan? Very little. Except that the word Nagasaki reminds me of the nuclear bombs that fell over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And now another nuclear disaster looms over Japan. This double-triple nature disaster is the biggest that Japan has experienced since the Second World War.
The opera by Puccini is about the small and personal disaster of one Japanese woman. But the earthquake/tsunami is the personal disaster of many, many persons. A 9.0 earthquake is a force much greater than one can imagine. To hear that the difference between 8.9 earthquake and a 9.0 is many, many times the force is unimaginable to most if not all people. Yet, that was what was happening. Then it was and still is, I think, the after-shocks. It sounds innocently but it is earthquakes too and some of the quite big. Small only when one compare to the giga-shock. And then tsunami, a wall of water. What makes it more damaging it all the other elements that the water brings. Homes, workplaces, whole cities destroyed.
But still, Un bel dì vedremo. Japan will be rebuilt with home, workplaces. But lives has been lost. Those who live on has experienced life-threatening times, some have had severals of those experiences. And many have lost relatives, neighbors and colleges. I worry about the lives that also need rebuilding. The people of Japan. To see on TV the Japanese people helping each other and to see a factory owner happiness in finding another of his workers. I see the love and care of the Japanese and I hope that world will not fail in giving our heart and help for as long that Japan will need us.
I hope that the disaster in Japan would make us smarter about building nuclear power plants, etc on dangerous places. Must we never underestimate Mother Nature!
Can't we learn before disasters strikes, and not always after. I am so sick of people having to die and get sick before we get serious about preventing harm.
We must hope for the Beautiful Day to appear for the people of Japan and that the mental health of a people who is suffering will be tended to. I have faith that families, neighbors and colleges will work together to lift each other up. But first it is survival time, then we can hope of a good life...
For more reviews from my travels, see www.operaduetstravel.com
