a moment of...silence?

Emotions are subdued here, that's for sure. Everyone is reflecting on the earthquake and its implications in their own way. Today, and for the next two days, the entire country is showing its support, solidarity, and grief by stopping everything for three minutes.

I have to say, it's pretty odd. In the four years we've lived here, I've never seen the country really "rally" around anything. Even nationalism, which is frenetically high, seems only loosely channeled in various protests and riots. The show of support is actually pretty sobering because of its rarity. It underscores what a devastating tragedy has happened.

But the oddest thing about it - which actually isn't so odd once you think about it - is the way they decided to reflect on the situation. In America, when a tragedy of this sort happens, we take "moments of silence", for prayer, reflection, mediation, whatever. Here, the "moment of silence" was anything but. At 2:28, drivers were encouraged to honk their horns in a show of support and memory. Deafening weather sirens joined in, creating a very loud memorial to those who have died and are missing.

In America, it would be odd. But here, it's a fitting tribute. In a country that loves loud, where "the more the merrier" must have been coined, a quiet three minutes would seem uncomfortable.

I just happened to be walking to my kindergarten class at 2:28 when everything stopped and started at once. Traffic, in the middle of the road, came to a grinding halt. Bicyclists, buses, the water delivery carts, pedestrians, all stopped. For three minutes, life on the eight-lane road under my house stopped. Completely. I stopped too, reflected, mostly prayed. For more miracles of survival, for tender hearts ready to embrace life, for greiving parents, for families that will never be the same.

That has never happened. Ever. I guess, then again, neither has such a monumental tragedy in recent years.