I just realized, today, how reliant I have become on Google's speediness and when Google is not performing at its usual speed, I become impatient and concerned that my aging laptop has contracted a virus. I find an internal indignance when I have to wait for a split-second more than normal and, I find this somewhat disconcerting. What have I become that I require an instant internet response? Furthermore, my impatience seems trivial, minor, and sophomoric considering what is transpiring a continent away in Japan. How dare I feel impatience just because Google is slow, when the Japanese are waiting.....for much more than a speedy Google. I am riveted by what I see media reporting from Japan. But, more than that, I am humbled by the Japanese culture.
Two decades ago, my family received a musical immersion in the Japanese culture when we were introduced to Suzuki Music Education. As a requirement to participate in the Suzuki program, we all had to read (or be read to, in the case of the kids) a book by Shinichi Suzuki, titled Nurtured By Love. The book details the approach to education from the world-famous Talent Education School in Japan. My introduction and education in the Suzuki technique, as is required for the parents of Suzuki-technique-educated children, would be career-changing for me, forever affecting the way I performed in the classroom and forever impacting my approach toward all my students.
As I watch and listen to the media stories, following a tragedy of epic proportions in Japan, I am struck most by the descriptions of how seemingly calm and polite the Japanese are. The reports of Japanese residents lining themselves up in orderly fashions to receive food and water......Do I think we could manage this in the U.S. following something catastrophic? No. The report that the Japanese government did not have to enact government-enforced rolling blackouts to conserve energy because the citizens had done it themselves......amazing and humbling. The report that looting was not an issue.....incredible. Could we Americans police ourselves in such a civil manner following what the Japanese have endured and are enduring? Never.
If you read the book, Nurtured By Love, you would discover that incivility, rudeness, impatience and thoughtlessness are simply not a part of the Japanese culture. In Suzuki Music education, the bow is of significant importance and I believe that the small-yet-enormous gesture of the bow paints a wordless picture of the Japanese people and their culture. The bow reminds me of how far away I have traveled from the gist of the book. And to think that I was impatient only because Google was slow to load.
I am embarrassed by my own impatience.
Ancora imparo
