They are displaying again the same national character after "the worst crisis Japan has faced since the end of World War II".

Akio Ono, president of the Ono Foods Co Ltd in the city of Imaishiki, said he felt fortunate because he was in Tokyo for his daughter's wedding when the tsunami came.

"It would be hard to tell whether I would have survived if I was working in my company at that moment," Ono said, his eyes glistening with tears.

"But I am alive. Therefore, I think there is some god who is leading us to shoulder greater responsibility."

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French painter associated with the Impressionist movement said, "The pain passes, but the beauty remains."

The beauty remains and so does the hope.

A pine tree, which is the only one left of the 70,000 pines on the Takata-Matsubara shoreline, became a symbol of hope for people around the world.

"How strong it is!" exclaimed Saetsu Kawata, 72, from Tochigi Prefecture.

He saw the tree after traveling over 300 kilometers from his hometown.

"I think the spirit of rugby - 'one for all, all for one' - is important for life here after the great earthquake," Kanno Toshiaki, the managing director of the Kawamura Foods Company's Iwate Factory told me as he introduced the Chinese trainees at his factory.

Yan Xiaoqing and Chen Anfeng, both 23 years old from the city of Rizhao, Shandong province, said they were frightened when the tsunami was sweeping the coastline.

"The Japanese manager treated us the same as others," the two girls said. They were first sent back to their hometown by the Chinese embassy in Japan, but after seven months they chose to come back because they enjoyed the work here and were encouraged by the local people's determination.

"Don't worry about us," the obviously optimistic girls wanted to tell their families.