Underground Murkami: Finding the Humanity in Sensationalism
Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami
Last March 20, 1995, the Aum Buddhist Cult released the fatal sarin gas in several trains of the Tokyo Subway. The gas silently seeped in the cars and was able to injure a thousand of its passengers by rendering them blinding and causing damage to their lungs. Immediately after, a media frenzy occurs and the drama of its victims and Aum unfolds. Murakami stems in the scene six months after to give some perspective after the dust has settled by interviewing the experiences of its victims. In general, the interviews offer some surprising aspect of the Japanese pysche and the intracacies of us humans. Some of the revelations I found out were that:
1. Japanese are really patient people. A lot of the victims were injured or even died because they did not immediately leave the subway car. They were getting dizzy and losing their eyesight but they did complain out of saving public face to not rock the boat.
2. Japanese are workaholics. Despite obvious blindness and heavy fatigue, many of them still went to work and never figured to go back home to get a nap.
3. Tragedy and Anger is Subjective. Interestingly enough, each of the unfortunate passenger’s testimonies differ towards their perspective of the event. Some are consumed by what happened and are ultimately crippled by it. They cannot sleep right or eat right. Others have forgotten about it and see the gas attack as simple case of bad luck.
4. The Root and Branching out of Religion is Suffering. In reference to the Aum cult, they performed their attack as way of ending suffering through its Buddhist outlook of escaping reality. On the other hand, my Catholic view is that suffering is something that can be transformed for good in this world for the glory of God. While, you,the reader, may have your own convinctions on suffering that seem to dictate your view of the world. Well, the point is that I believe that how we choose to live our lives depends on what we make of this imperfect world which is caused by suffering.
5. No one is ultimately evil. The unheard victims of this tragedy were also the Aum cult followers who were oblivious of to gas attack. Marukami interviews them too and we learn that they are highly normal and intelligent fellows who fallen with the wrong crowd. The result is that they are austricized from the Tokyo society and left with the wrong end of the stick. You really feel for them when they talk about difficult job security and the like because they were simply people with good and noble intentions.
Underground is a great read for someone looking for light read with good storytelling. I have not read Murakami’s fictional stories but he does make reality more interesting than it really is.