or not they deemed it wise spending of their tax-dollars? The President of the United States (obviously, by his title) has the authority to make decisions that affect the United States. Our culture allows him to have the power that he does, whether he is backed by congress or not. We allow him to declare a state of emergency because our culture defines a "state of emergency" as a problem that needs to be fixed. We do not define it as an international embarrassment, nor do we define it as an internal breakdown of part of our society.qCulturally defining the problem?The Japanese government happened to define their problem a little differently. They looked at the disaster as a weak link to their strong nation. They were embarrassed and unwilling to accept help from foreign nations who readily offered. As a matter of fact, due to cultural boundaries, response time to this whole disaster was so bad that it took over 5 years to finally fix all the damage."There was no immediate response when the quake subsided. Four hours passed before the governor of the Hyogo Prefecture asked for help from the Japanese Defense forces. It took the JDF another 5 hours to respond and a full two days before they arrived in Kobe in force. Japanese Prime minister Tomiichi Murayama all but confessed that a lack of preparedness and bureaucratic bungling significantly delayed recovery efforts. Teams of doctors arrived only to be held up at the airport for three days because they did sot have the necessary license to practice in Japan. It took 2 days to get necessary permission to have 50,000 blankets shipped in from the United States. Of the 60 nations that offered assistance to the Japanese government, only 20 offers were accepted."(Nevola, par. 5)qAll in favorPerhaps a closer look at the leadership style implemented would help explain why the reaction time was so bad. Most social, moral, and governmental standards are based around conformity. It was understood by ...
