June 29, 2020.
What follows is from Mayumi Tanimoto’s essay titled “Mr. Abe, Nice Guy! No Right or Left. Everyone in Japan, This Is the Real Voice from Overseas!” published in the June 26 issue of the monthly magazine WiLL.
The monthly magazine WiLL is a must-read not only for Japanese citizens but for readers around the world.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, head to your nearest bookstore immediately.
That’s because it’s packed with genuine essays like this one.
And yet the price is only ¥920 (tax included).
Overseas Praise for Japan.
Europeans Totally Breaking All the Three Cs.
Why is Japan being hailed like this, and why is Japanese food attracting all this attention?.
If you are in the UK, Europe, or North America right now, you really understand.
For example, in the UK, even in mid-June nearly 200 people were dying each day.
But because the lockdown was eased, ordinary people treat COVID-19 as if it has all but disappeared.
It’s not just the UK—Italy, France, Germany alike.
Despite death and infection numbers incomparable to Japan’s, fear of economic collapse forced them to ease restrictions.
They still have the two-meter social-distancing rule and bans on gatherings on paper.
But with so many bored of lockdown, rules are empty façades and violations are rampant.
It’s a three-C free-for-all: closed, crowded, close-contact.
In the UK, schools reopened on June 1, yet many ban or discourage masks on campus.
Masks on public transport are “mandatory,” but enforcement is so lax a Japanese “mask police” would faint.
Few actually wear masks on trains, buses, streets, or in shops.
Social distancing inside shops? Ignored.
Hand sanitizer? Ignored.
Washing hands before eating? Almost unheard of.
Meanwhile, Japanese food sales are exploding.
In Britain’s top-end supermarkets serving the middle class and above, searches for “Japanese food” on their sites jumped 53 percent.
Britons are notoriously conservative about food, often eating only British fare even when abroad.
Many will bluntly say “I hate that” or “I won’t eat that” when invited to someone’s home, showing no spirit of culinary adventure.
Until twenty years ago, “foreign food” meant British-style Chinese or curry, and few even touched Italian or German cuisine.
Over the last two decades, EU immigration and cheaper airfares have made Thai and Spanish food common, yet many still refuse to try them.
Japanese cuisine remains exotic and baffling to many.
Shoppers at high-end supermarkets typically earn over ¥10 million a year, travel abroad frequently, skew older, and are very health conscious.
Yet these conservative consumers—some who have never tried sushi—are now eagerly reaching for Japanese food.
This surge reflects their desire to emulate Japan’s healthy diet that coincides with low COVID-19 deaths.
In Japan, sales of kimchi and natto have spiked, and in the U.S. sales of kimchi and sauerkraut are rising because Korea and Germany have also handled COVID-19 well.
People flock to foods from countries that have succeeded in fighting the virus.
Media coverage of Japanese cuisine has also increased.
Britain’s conservative Daily Telegraph now runs Japanese recipes, and National Geographic—which usually features ruins and temples—published “5 Miso-Based Dishes.”
Paul Hollywood, the superstar baker on British TV, visited Japan and showcased ramen and kaiseki on his program, prompting viewers to exclaim “Japan has the best food” and “I want to go to Japan.”
This praise for Japan is not a fiction concocted by Japanese conservatives or so-called netouyo, but the real voice of the people.
To be continued….
