经济学人下载:日本之自身观&海洋观解读

Since the March 11th tsunami, once again Japan is examining itself through the prism of a great wave. What it sees can at first strike an outsider as oddly romantic. Talk to mayors of port cities up and down the stricken north-eastern coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, and they almost invariably describe the mighty ocean as a friend and source of hope—even though some lost loved ones, homes and businesses in the onslaught.

3月11日海啸来袭，日本又一次透过巨浪这把棱镜审视自己。然而，透过棱镜看到情景，起初还真是令外人匪夷所思，日本人对大海怀有一种情结。本州岛是日本内陆最大的岛屿，本州岛的东北沿海地区受到地震海啸侵袭，那里分布着一些港口城市，若同那些城市的市长聊聊，你就会发现，他们总是将大海看作自己的朋友，看作希望的源泉（虽然一些人在灾难中失去了亲人，住房以及生计）。

In Japan at large some people (though woefully few national politicians) feel that the destruction wrought by nature has revived a sense of purpose; some have even taken it as a cue to get married and procreate. During two decades of constipated economics and politics, the deadening sense grew that Japan had lost its appetite for risk, whether entrepreneurial derring-do or even, in the context of a population that had begun to shrink, the risk of picking the wrong mate. But with a disaster on a biblical scale in March, the Japanese bowed to no one. Some fishermen, faced with 40-foot (12-metre) waves, took to their boats and headed straight over them: echoes of Hokusai’s deliverymen. Granted, that was the best way to save their boats. But how refreshing if it were to reflect a reawakened sense of courage in the country as a whole.

总的来说，一些日本人认为，由于自然灾难，“活着是为了什么”这个问题重新又浮上了人们的心头（虽然可惜的是，少有政客有如此想法）。有些人甚至将自然灾难看作是结婚生子的一个暗示。二十年来，日本的经济政治陷于萧条状态，本已逐渐消逝的“生存目的观念”重又抬头，以至于日本人已经不那么热衷冒险了，企业家放弃了蛮勇，人们择偶也不再轻率（即使是在如今人口开始下滑的大背景下，人们也不愿意冒嫁or娶错人的风险）。但是面对史无前例惨烈的自然灾难，日本人却丝毫没有屈服。面对40英尺（12米）高的巨浪，还是有渔民跳上自己的渔船，迎着巨浪而上，与葛饰北斋画笔下的运货人毫无二致。这倒算是保护自己渔船最好的办法了吧。但是若是能唤起日本全民心中的勇气，那该是有多振奋人心啊！

If it does, where better to look than by the sea, chief pillar of national identity? Japan, though small in surface area, stretches far. To go from the northernmost tip of the Japanese archipelago to its farthest-flung southern rock is to travel from Norway’s North Cape to Rome. The surrounding seas have long been regarded as Japan’s protective armour, or sometimes its womb. (Until 1945 Japan had never been occupied by an enemy.) Moreover, the oceans are a bountiful source of the nation’s food.

如若真要唤起大和民族的勇气，作为支撑民族认同感最重要的支柱，大海无可厚非最有能力达成此愿。日本的表面面积虽然不大，但是却延伸到很远。从日本列岛最北端到日本领土最南端的距离，相当于从挪威北角到罗马的距离那么远。日本人一直将环绕国土的大海看作是自己的铠甲，有时甚至将她看作是自己的发源地。直到1945年，日本从未受到过外敌入侵。并且，海洋也为大和民族供给了丰富的食材。