ABSTRACT
There are towns along the Pacifi c coast in Tōhoku, the region northeast of Tokyo, with names like Ōfunato and Rikuzen Takata in Iwate prefecture, and Minami Sanriku, Kesennuma, and Watari in Miyagi prefecture that until March 11 of this year meant little more to most Japanese than the names of towns along the Maine coast mean to most Americans. Many people knew little more about these towns than that they were places where Japanese got a lot of their fi sh, and that they have a harsh winter climate and hardworking people of few words.
