Made in Japan

This post is dedicated to the Japanese, among the other million that are on a daily basis.

I started to hear about Japan from a very young age. Examples about the Japanese and their products were seemingly endless. While I lived in the gulf, and when we bought any product with the label "Made in Japan" it always drew the oohs, aahs and compliments from guests.

As a child, my mum's most often cited and repeated example about working hard were the Japanese. Her story usually goes like this - "in Japan when workers want to go on a strike, they produce excessive stock, whereas everywhere else in the world they stop working" - this was her effort to make me finish homework, study and do my daily chores, while I always argued on how I could do extra chores and homework. This was besides the stories of the World War, where also I got to know about the kamikaze's, the US nuking em and finally their resilience in building their nation back after a nuclear catastrophe and selling their products globally and conquering markets in the very same country that nuked ‘em. They basically got the Toyota’s, Honda’s and Sony's sitting in every American home.

I don’t think I’ve met any Jap in my adult life and don't recollect meeting one also, but have been in awe of them. They managed to miniaturize every goddamn thing, make it more efficient and create engineering marvels. Today, the nation stands on the brink of nuclear catastrophe 65 years later, am sure they’ll bounce back before anyone knew what happened with that little tag floating on everything "made in japan".