"I lost track of where I was going and went back and forth the same way two or three times" Noburo Terajima was aware that something was going on in the station. I quoted the line above because almost every victim had been dizzy or weren't able to see well. However, i see that they are trying to avoid what is happening because they dont do anything about it. When someone notices something, why not go to emergency right away? why walk to the office where they work, or their homes? why not the hospital?. The victims seems that they want to hide something, or they are scared of saying something else. In my opinion if i see people in the station having issues, and then I hear something that happened near me, I would try to look for help with a doctor immediately, but it seems that people are scared of their terrorirts. Why not call the police? Also in the first few pages, I read that the ambulance was taking forever, that someone (Masaru) helped but he didn't know what else to do since the ambulance was taking too long. However the guy Takahashi was very ill and went he tried to help, he noticed that he couldn't breathe, Masaru was desperate and he thought that maybe if the ambulance would of arrived earlier, he would of made it. The staff helped but there wasn't a lot Masaru could do because the poisin was already inside them, he saw them suffering before dying and my question is why not have paramedicts right after evrything had happened. From my point of view, I believe that if victims didn't say much it was because they were hidden all the truth. The author at the end of every interview, Haruki makes interesting points and he questions himself things that could have been said but victims didn't want to take the risk to let them share.
Good response, Maria. I, too, was struck w/ how many victims went on to work as if nothing was the matter even though they could barely see or felt dizzy or felt like throwing up. What do you think this tells us about the "Japanese psyche"? I can't remember who, but one of the interviewees talks about working for an American company and how she could just show up on time. Apparently, if you work for a Japanese company, at least in the 1990s, there was an assumption that employees would show up 30-90 minutes early and just sit at their desk. What do you think that tells us about Japanese corporate culture?
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