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Disaster zones continue to draw sightseers

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“But it’s hurtful when people ask casually about how many people died,” he added. “We appreciate a little bit of empathy.”

Absolutely. The problem is that the people want to be known for the disaster at the same time as they don't want the disaster to be mentioned. When you want empathy, but don't want to hear the reason for the empathy, doesn't that defeat the purpose?

-6 ( +1 / -7 )

Since the number killed are mentioned in just about every article published, it sounds sublimely blockheaded to ask about it to the face of one personally affected.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Ranger_Miffy: "Since the number killed are mentioned in just about every article published..."

And yet 'the face of the one personally affected' keeps showing up for interviews. What is 'sublimely blockheaded' is to show up for questions and say questions are not good if they don't fit exactly what the person asked wants to be asked but are actual questions. More 'blockheaded' than that is someone in the affected area showing up to tell people what they can find out on the internet instead of paying half a month's salary to go there and ask themselves. I doubt you would call them 'blockheaded' though simply because while supporting the area, in part based on locals pushing tourism, sensitive questions are asked.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

People ask," about how many people were killed or lost there lives" simple put a large information board up at a site or area where the visitor go to,with the stats on it! IE how many died, who survived, how many homes were destroyed, cost of clean up, and so on, that will save any embarrassment, or ill feeling, and it might stop digging up the hurt of loved one that were lost on that faitful day.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@ Brian

Exactly. That's what they do in Unzen in Nagasaki to comemmorate the eruption there.

I went there five years ago with the family. I do wonder why. Maybe it's a chance to appreciate how lucky you are that nothing's happened to you like that. I don't think it's necessarlly ghoulish. Catharsis, maybe.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

When I went to a tourism studies conference, someone opined that Japan is or should be dark tourism Mecca. I agree.

Actual and potential dark tourism possibilities include Hiroshima and Nagasaki The Tokyo Firebombing Museum and others like it http://www.tokyo-sensai.net/ Battle and duel sites such as Ganryu Island off Shimonoseki where famed sword-fighter Musashi killed a foe "Kamikaze" bases (both planes notably Chiran, Kagoshima, and manned torpedoes in Shūnan,Yamaguchi) ItaiItai Disease Museum, Toyama prefecture Asama Volcanoe Museum in Gunma and the Volcanoe Science Museum in Tokyo Disused Resorts (E.g. Takakanonuma Greenland in Fukushima) Battleship Island Ghost Town off Nagasaki and many other ruins http://gakuran.com/category/haikyo-ruins/ Haunted Spots ("Shinrrei Spots," often tunnels) Museums related to the victimization of certain groups, such as those that live in victimized areas (E.g. the Human Rights Museum in Osaka) Shrines with phalli Dangerous Japanese festivals (such as the log ride at Onbashira in Suwa Taisha, Nagano) Kobe Earthquake Memorial Museum Sites where Christians were Martyred for failing to step on "Fumie" (E.g. the museum in the Xavier Church, Yamaguchi City) Sites where western POWs were forced to work in coal mines (I know of no museums at all - surely an opportunity) Organized crime offices (but only if their users do not object) or some sort of Museum (c.f. The Mob Museum in Las Vegas) Dark (to some) Japanese foods (nattou, gasping or swimming fish and octopus, whale, raw horse meat) The Whaling festival in Nagato (fake blood shoots from the blowhole of a large model whale at the climax) Aokigahara "Suicide Forest" (If it were to provide funds for suicide prevention perhaps)

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Im pretty sure that the fascination with sites of disasters must always have much more than any kind of mindless, insensitive rubbernecking at its base. The real fascination is in the thought of what it must have been like to actually experience such terror - and further - the recognition that many people really were able to live through it, surviving in physical and psychologica -l terms the kinds of terror that are usually only the stuff of worst nightmares or horror movies. The thousands of stories that illustrate the battles to survive and win for ordinary people - in extraordinary times. There can be few people who do not find that aspect of 'dark tourism' interesting or who cannot learn much from thinking about it, & seeing those places for themselves - imagining how they would have faced the terror. The unforgettable images and stories from the Nagasaki museum, I visited last year - are those of bravery and compassion in the midst of the horrors. Maybe 'Light' or enlightenment - tourism would be a better name.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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