Disney Parks after tragedy

Spotted this on one of the geek sites I visit, emphasis added by me: 

URAYASU, CHIBA— Tokyo Disney Resort® announced today that it will reopen Tokyo Disneyland Park on April 15, 2011. Both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea® Parks have been temporarily closed from March 12 following the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Tokyo Disneyland Park will reopen while making every effort to conserve the use of electricity in its operations.  Furthermore, a portion of the ticket price will be donated toward the relief and recovery of the disaster-affected areas.

Tokyo DisneySea Park remains temporarily closed for the time being, but we are aiming toward the earliest reopening of this Park as well.

Finally, Oriental Land Co., Ltd. would like to send our heartfelt condolences to all who have been affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our apologies and gratitude to all who have been concerned by the temporary closure of the Parks. We will continue to strive toward providing an experience filled with dreams and happiness to as many guests as possible, and will make our best corporate effort to answer the needs and expectations of as many people as possible.

How very in keeping with the culture. Not that I'd expect any different. 


Apparently, something the park management (Oriental Land Company, which owns and operates Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea under license by the Walt Disney Company) has to contend with is slow turnstiles due to the Japanese concept of "shibari" or self-restraint – it is felt that to go and enjoy a day or a vacation at Tokyo Disneyland, or any activity that is frivolous in nature, is in bad taste when so many are homeless and suffering. So they have to serve two goals: Get people into the parks in order to stay solvent, and keep the promotion subdued so as not to appear crass and insensitive. 

Contrast that with Dubya saying on national television, by way of reassuring the nation that its airlines were safe days after 9/11/01, "Get down to Disney World! Take your families!" Now, the magnitude of the disaster was perhaps not equal, but the shock it caused certainly was at least equal if not greater. Megan and I had made plans to visit Disney World that October months beforehand, and it was only at the President's amusingly specific words that we decided not to cancel the trip. We experienced the American form of shibari on that trip. Everyone everywhere was wearing American flag pins, many in the "3 circles" shape representing Mickey Mouse's outline. Anytime we engaged other guests in conversation, it almost immediately included "where were you when it happened" and a strong, strong sense of gratitude for circumstances that allowed us to be at WDW at all. Cast Members seemed uniformly touched and grateful that we had "made the trip anyway" and were even more friendly and gracious than usual, even if their smiles looked just a bit forced and broken.  

Things all over the parks suddenly had new significance and poignancy. The daily flag raising and retreat ceremonies were extremely well attended: usually the flag raising is witnessed by a smattering of mostly elderly visitors, a lot of them WWII vets, I gather. Now you saw 5- and 6-year-olds hoisted up onto Dad's shoulders, actually holding still and watching. Anything that celebrated America was now more relevant and attractive than it had been in years.

George W Bush's words, spoken by his animatronic doppelganger at the Hall Of Presidents, were eerily appropriate for exactly what had just happened, enough that I wondered if the Disney people and the White House hadn't collaborated on a quick update to the robot POTUS's speech. 

The song played in the American Adventure attraction at EPCOT, "Golden Dreams," was suddenly much more affecting than it had been before, with its lyric about a Great Bird - the American Eagle, of course - "keeping dreams aloft in the rain."

The big EPCOT fireworks/lasers/multimedia show that ends each day, "IllumiNations," so named because the lagoon borders all the Nations represented in the World Showcase, has always ended with a blustery orchestral finale followed by a more reflective song played as the denouement. Post 9/11, the lyrics took on new significance and as I looked around I could tell who else was paying attention to the lyrics because our eyes were all welling up.  No doubt we were all wondering the same thing - will our American culture have to make fundamental changes now? Is our way of life going to survive knowing that the bad guys can get us at home now? Will we really just pick up and go on? 

With the stillness of the night

there comes a time to understand

to reach out and touch tomorrow 

take the future in our hand 

We can see a new horizon 

built on all that we have done 

and our dreams begin another

thousand circles 'round the sun 

We go on 

to the joy and through the tears 

We go on 

to discover new frontiers 

Moving on 

with the current of the years 

We go on 

moving forward, now as one 

Moving on 

with a spirit born to run 

Ever on 

with each rising sun 

To a new day

We go on

We go on 
We all hoped these words would continue to describe America, I'm sure.