If you find a man lying on rails and a train is coming up
soon, what are you going to do? The woman put him safe place and then was hit
to death by the train on her father’s watch. The tragedy in Yokohama City,
Kanagawa, brought strong sympathy to the people’s heart in Japan. Everyone who
praises her brave behavior, however, knows that sacrifice was what he/she would
never do. People just want to be close to that heroic story to ease guilty
feeling not being brave enough in their daily life. The phenomenon reflected
apathetical aspect of Japanese society.
It is still unclear why the man was lying there, though one
of the possibilities includes suicide. The woman, Natsue Murata, 40, was in a
car with her father’s drive, waiting for a passage of train in front of the
railroad crossing. Soon after finding the man, she got off the car, leaving her
father words of “I must help him,” ran to him and laid him between the two rails.
Sadly enough, she delayed in escaping from the train, which tried to stop
before her but was unsuccessful. Suffering from some itches, the man survived.
After the news report disseminated, a lot of people visited
the railroad crossing and prayed for her leaving bunches of flowers. One woman
who visited the place told it was a brave activity with self-sacrifice to a TV
camera, and another man questioned why nobody could help her. Perhaps because
nobody was wrong in this story, what most people can do is praying for her,
which is the most easy way to comfort grief inside themselves.
One cannot expect that those people who expressed their
condolences to Natsue would change the way they live, and, as its result,
Japanese society as a whole would not be kinder to people than ever. They may mostly
keep on ignoring stranger’s behavior in a train car, street or park, afraid of
being accused as intervention to other’s private affairs. If there had been
something to help Natsue, it could be a society that reduces the reason of a
man to lie on a railroad.
For example, asking the man trying to enter train crossing
“Are you all right, sir?” would reduce the risk of unusual tragedy happening.
However, the Japanese is a nation that is extremely shy in talking to a
stranger. As long as they would not establish more warm and inclusive society,
this kind of tragedy will happen again.
Anyway, the embarrassing was responses of politicians to the
event. The Cabinet decided to give her the medal with a Red for her brave
activity. Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, as well as the Governor of
Kanagawa and the Mayor of Yokohama, attended to Natsue’s funeral on Sunday. It
was obvious for everyone that those political appearances were simply attempts
to take advantage of her death to appeal their acknowledgement of doing the
right thing.
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