One way to see the fabric and true face of a society is to learn how it responds to a crisis. On Jan. 1, 2024, the day the world was celebrating the New Year, the Noto Peninsula in Japan was hit by an earthquake with a magnitude 7.6. Driving for hours along the coastline through endless areas with collapsed houses, I saw some ruins marked with circles and red crosses, signaling where people had lost not just their homes but also their loved ones.