Some Times You Can’t Go Home
by Stuart Murch
            In the modern world there is a thing called a third culture child. This is when someone who grows up exposed to two different cultures, the culture of the parents and the culture of the land in which they live. This creates an identity that has no homeland. Pastor Tim Carrick of Palmer, Alaska is one of these third culture children.
         Tim was born in Tokyo and lived in Japan till he graduated high school. “It seemed kind of normal at the time just because I was born there,” said Tim. Although it seemed normal living in Japan he knew that he didn’t quite fit in. Japan does not have the same amount of diversity that can be found in other places so Tim was always the foreigner there.
         Fifteen years ago Kolbe was hit with a devastating earthquake. Tim was in the city two months before the quake. “The next time I went back it was like it was a whole different city,” he said. Every thing he knew was gone. “Nobody that I knew anymore was there, land marks, my school was gone,” he said.
         The culture in Japan is very different from that of America. In Japan every body conforms, the proverb “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down” has special meaning there. “Every body works together for the common good,” Tim said. As a result of this conformity and cooperation crime rates in Japan are among the lowest in the world.
          After the quake their was no crime, which is one of the first things that happens after disasters just about every where else in the world. One of the things that got national attention after the quake was a sales man who took advantage of peoples suffering and sold batteries at high prices. Because there was nowhere else to buy batteries the people had no choice but to buy the overly priced ones. The sales man eventually went on national television and apologized for it.
         In Japan every body takes care of each other. “There’s that sense that we’re in this together and were going to support each other. And it’s really a wonderful thing in that culture,” spoke Tim. That is one of the key differences between our cultures, in Japan people really look out for each other and act toward a common goal like one being, and in American culture people do their own thing and don’t give as much to help others. One example of how they help one another is that after the quake restaurants were making food and just giving it away for free.
         Natural disasters can bring out the best in people. One thing that remains the same is that people always help each other up and start over. These kinds of disasters can change a city forever, they can destroy landmarks and make familiar things seem strange and foreign, and some times you can’t go home afterwards.