"Among flowers, the cherry blossom. Among men, the samurai." Or “Hana wa sakura, hito wa Bushi” is a quote from Bushido’s way, or the way of samurai. I still remember the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan few weeks ago. And even now, they were still struggling to cooling down the nuclear reactor in Fukushima.
Maybe we still remember the earthquake and tsunami that hit Aceh, Indonesia few years ago. After the tsunami in Aceh, All TV stations showed how great the tsunami. How great the disaster, and how great the damage. We could see many people crying in TV, we could see many dead bodies in TV. Compare to Japanese TV Station, All we can see is an emergency number, and any progress that government and people made to overcome the disaster. We know they hurt inside, but they show no tears.
One of samurai spirit is “Ganbaru”. Ganbaru means work hard, or to give the best. Few days ago, before the earthquake, I have chat with my friend about Japanese people. We come to conclusion that Japanese youngster have no samurai‘s spirit. Many of them become “hakamori”, and many of them reject to face the reality. But I think we were wrong. After the disaster they hand in hand help each other. In one of Japanese TV Station, they showed a man in panic to search his wife. And an old women come and talked to that man and say “Don’t give up, she must be somewhere. Keep searching, and give the best to search her.” And even people in Tokyo or any other big city reduce their work hour. Clubs and bars are close early, and some of them event not operate. And the owner of the bars said “No one force us to close early. We do this from our own initiative, to reduce the usage of electricity. So, all people in Japan can face the summer session. ”. We could say that all Japanese people do their best to help each other with their own way.
Discipline is also part of samurai spirit. They, samurai practice their sword every day. Every day they repeat the movement again and again before go to the next movement. In term of disaster prevention, they have practice how to react in case of fire or earthquake. They regularly practice it in school or office building. And also they have habit that after earthquake, all of them will watch the tv or listen to the radio. So if there was warning from the government they know what they should do. As the result they could suppress the number of head toll in that earthquake and tsunami. Another simple way of discipline is queuing. We could see in Japanese TV Station, how they queued to get the food. They respect each other, and no one fell like “I’m the most important people in here. ” . But in Indonesia, when the earthquake happened. People don’t know what they shall do, or where they shall run at. And about queuing, hm…… I think you know how good Indonesian people in queuing.
Finally, let’s learn the spirit of samurai. Learn the good side of samurai’s spirit and practice it in your life.
I leave you with the following from an unknown author:
I have no divine power; I make honesty my Divine Power.
I have no means; I make Docility my means.
I have no magic power; I make personality my Magic Power.
I have no enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.
I have no sword; I make No Mind my Sword.
