Of all the calamities that have befallen Kouhei Nagatsuka, age 18, in the past month — the March 11 earthquake that devastated his home in Futaba town, the radiation seeping from the quake-and-tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant next door, the fleeing from shelter to shelter with nothing more than the clothes on his back — it is the smallest of privations that elicits emotion. In March, Nagatsuka graduated from high school in Futaba. But there was no commencement ceremony. Describing his family’s plight, Nagatsuka answers questions in a brave monotone, assuming the mantle of the eldest of five siblings, the man in the house now that his father is in the hospital. It is only the lack of a proper graduation in this ritual-based nation that finally makes him crack. “Graduation ceremonies are for sending us out into the world as adults,” he says, blinking hard as he waits in line for free clothing at an evacuation center in Saitama prefecture, north of Tokyo. “But for me, I cannot start my future yet. I don’t know what I will do.”
As Japan has floundered for two decades since its economic bubble burst — a postindustrial, high-tech society that had resigned itself to a slow, inexorable decline after the boom years of the 1980s — its young people have languished. The over-indulged and underemployed cohort has given rise to a dictionary’s worth of sociological neologisms: freeters, young Japanese who choose part-time, dead-end, low-paid work instead of striving for more fulfilling careers; hikikomori, anxious youth who have completely withdrawn from society, even locking themselves in their bedrooms for years at a time; herbivores, grazing, passive young men who care more about their looks than their careers; and parasite singles, young adults who, even if they have good jobs, live at home to avoid paying rent and rely on their parents for food and laundry so they can use their disposable income for frivolous purchases.
But as their nation tries to cope with the costliest natural disaster the world has ever seen, one that has left tens of thousands dead or missing and some 360,000 homeless, the country’s coddled youth are rising to meet a new era’s challenges. In unprecedented numbers, young Japanese have volunteered to help earthquake victims, bringing time, money and in some cases social-networking expertise that can reunite missing family members and coordinate aid efforts.
At the Saitama Super Arena, where recent graduate Nagatsuka is sheltering, crowds of local teens who usually come for rock concerts are here today for another reason. By 9:30 a.m., the emergency center has reached its maximum of 500 volunteers, most of whom are young. An additional 1,500 waiting for a chance to help will have to come back tomorrow. Masayuki Ishii, 18, is one of the lucky ones who scored a volunteer spot. He wears a big grin and is holding a sign that says 60s. His friend is holding another that says WOMEN. Together they form a duo that is organizing evacuee women in the 60-to-69 age bracket to go for their daily baths. “Some people say that young Japanese don’t have a good spirit,” says Ishii, stamping his feet in the frigid weather. “But when it comes down to it, we want to help, not just with money but with real work.”
