Mr. Akawaâ??Akawa-sanâ??apologizes as he pulls the taxi over to the shoulder of the two-lane highway. "I must change my uniform when we enter the disaster zone. Company regulations." He gets out of the car, takes off the dark blue suit coat of his driver's uniform, and replaces it with a "disaster casual" ensembleâ??an immaculate white denim jacket, sleeves pressed into a knife crease. Then he gets back behind the wheel, gripping it with hands covered by white gloves. We drive on.
I have to hold myself back from chuckling at his quick changeâ??it's so Japanese, making sure that the form and appearance is right, even in the worst possible situation. Nothing could be worse than what we're driving through at the moment. This area, the low, flat coastal plain between the city of Sendai and the Pacific Ocean, is the closest landfall to the epicenter of the offshore 9.0 earthquake that rocked Japan on March 11. Because the shoreline around here follows a nearly straight line, with no bays or inlets, the tsunami roared through with full power, not just once, but three times.
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