@SeaTurtle
hi, welcome to fluther. unfortunately what you said is not true at all.
for your interest:
地下鉄サリン事件 (aka the subway sarin incident, aka the tokyo sarin gas attack)
二・二六事件 (aka the 2–2-6 incident, referring to the date on which it occurred, february 26)
三島事件 (aka the mishima incident, during which famous japanese author mishima yukio attempted a coup d’etat and then killed himself, ritualistically)
満州事変 (aka the manchurian incident)
トンキン湾事件 (aka the gulf of tonkin incident)
北支事変 (aka the marco polo bridge incident)
北清事変 (aka the north china incident, aka the boxer uprising)
ノモンハン事件 (aka the nomonhan incident, aka the battle of khalkhin gol)
第一次上海事変 (aka the shanghai incident)
血の日曜日 (aka bloody sunday, or ‘sunday of blood’)
浅間山荘事件 (aka the asama-sanso incident)
蛤御門の変 (aka the hamaguri gomon incident)
西安事件 (aka the xi’an incident, or seian incident)
大阪事件 (aka the osaka incident)
アジア太平洋戦争 (aka the asia-pacific war, which has other labels, including 十五年戦争, or the fifteen years’ war)
応天門の変 (aka the otenmon conspiracy)
南京大虐殺 (aka the nanking massacre, the rape of nanking, the nanking incident)
附属池田小事件 (aka the ikeda elementary school massacre, 2001)
天安門事件 (aka tiananmen square incident, tienanmen square massacre, aka the 6/4 tiananmen incident, referring to the date)
the earthquakes, more germane:
南海地震 (aka the nankaido earthquake, 1946)
東南海地震 (aka the tonankai earthquake, 1944)
関東大震災 (aka the great kanto earthquake, 1923)
阪神大震災 (aka the great hanshin earthquake, 1995, comparable to 淡路大震災, the great kobe earthquake of 1995, although the label refers to its epicenter beneath awaji island)
スマトラ沖地震 (aka the sumatra-andaman earthquake, 2004, aka the quake that caused the tsunami in the indian ocean)
there is even a word used for the anniversary of the great kobe earthquake (震災記念日) and the phrase ‘great earthquake’ (or ‘earthquake disaster’) alone (震災) often refers to the great kobe earthquake of 1923.
to answer @Jeruba‘s question: if we can assume a pattern then it’s likely the earthquake will take it’s name from a location, such as sendai, which is specific, although tohoku, which is general, may be possible. in the media it already takes its name from the tohoku (northeast) region which it struck, but also includes the pacific ocean. it’s possible the pacific ocean part of the name will be dropped in the future, and something like ‘the great tohoku / sendai earthquake’ (of 2011) may be used. time will tell.
point being that a country which experiences so many earthquakes is necessarily going to have labels for them, @SeaTurtle, so i’m not really sure what you’re talking about.
re labeling and money: labeling is a function of language, not a means toward money. that connection is tenuous at best, but even if it weren’t, the japanese are no less interested in money than american or western people are, and the media in japan are no less irresponsible with their occasional sensationalism than western media are. you may say they don’t dramatize issues, but the impetus behind murakami haruki’s underground (which features stories of sarin subway incident survivors) was that the japanese media were focusing too closely on the dramatic plot behind the attack and on the lives of its perpetrators. i.e. sensationalism characteristic of most media, japanese or otherwise.
he writes, for example, the following: ‘i couldn’t stand the coverage of aum [the neoreligious organization that carried out the attack]. i don’t even want to look at it. yes, you could say it reinforced my mistrust of the media. the long and short of it is, everyone loves a scandal….i’ve even stopped reading magazines’ (58).
one among many criticisms.
re the ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude: perhaps your perspective is skewed or simply hinges on this isolated event – the earthquake – which, while devastating, is a bit more normal in japan than a domestic terrorist attack. the news (a word which murkami puts clearly in scare quotes) reported on the sarin subway incident dragged on for months, ubiquitous in standard newspapers as well as tabloids, and this is as much the fault of the media as it is the people who consume the media. there wasn’t a ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude; people devoured it because it was dramatic.
it is ironic that you refer to propaganda and say the japanese do not employ it. the notion that the japanese don’t employ propaganda is a notion propagated by propaganda. the japanese, for whom you and i share a mutual and deep respect, apparently, are not so innocent as you seem to think; they are like everybody else, insofar as this discussion is concerned, and they are very good – much better than america – at exporting a very specific and very innocuous image of what japanese-ness is. perhaps you watch anime or have heard about zen buddhism, satori, tea ceremonies and the ‘chrysanthemum’ aspect of japanese culture. these are cultural exports the intention of which is in part to improve the image of postwar japan. they are not lies, of course, but they are hardly half of what it means to be japanese.
if this seems incongruously well researched and lengthy as a response to your brief (and frankly frivolous) quip, know that it is only because i also love japanese culture, but that it seems to me your unprompted defense of its characteristics is not informed, does japan no good, and is an all-too-common oversimplification.
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