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Do you have any basis for thinking this?misternada said:Although it is never mentioned in the news in Japan, I think we might see a surge of xenophobic reaction towards foreigners.
Do you have any basis for thinking this?
COVID's been going around for a couple of months now; have you personally been treated any different in that time?
For the last couple of months, I've noticed on a few occasions people changing sidewalk or got the occasional "evil eyes", it also happens in normal times so I cannot say it is related to the pandemic.
Could not go out much for the last month, but yesterday I was able to go for a walk in the park with a friend, there were a lot of people some wearing mask other did not, as we were walking on paths in wooded area (you don't see people coming until they are close by), at one point a guy was walking our way, when he notice us he looked panicked, covered his mouth with his hands and started running to bypass us, it was too strange to go unnoticed, there was also a woman wearing a mask, covering her mouth when she passed us.
I think those behaviors are related to the pandemic and related to seeing foreigner as potential carriers.
I would be surprised if no foreigner experience any weird behaviors when riding the train or going to a shop those days, but as always those kind of things are better kept silent in Japan.
Wow!
For the last couple of months, I've noticed on a few occasions people changing sidewalk or got the occasional "evil eyes", it also happens in normal times so I cannot say it is related to the pandemic.
Could not go out much for the last month, but yesterday I was able to go for a walk in the park with a friend, there were a lot of people some wearing mask other did not, as we were walking on paths in wooded area (you don't see people coming until they are close by), at one point a guy was walking our way, when he notice us he looked panicked, covered his mouth with his hands and started running to bypass us, it was too strange to go unnoticed, there was also a woman wearing a mask, covering her mouth when she passed us.
I think those behaviors are related to the pandemic and related to seeing foreigner as potential carriers.
I would be surprised if no foreigner experience any weird behaviors when riding the train or going to a shop those days, but as always those kind of things are better kept silent in Japan.
Highly unlikely. Especially if they are making more than 2x on unemployment as you asserted.LA will most likely burn down this summer. Remember the Rodney King riots, that is going to be child's play to what will take place in LA this summer.
If you're referring to the so-called $24/hour pay rate, that's a temporary measure and since people can't work right now anyway, it won't prevent them from entering the workforce. See this article for details.You now have people making 2 times more on unemployment then they were working .
That won't happen. They'll pump additional dollars and add to the national debt before they let the banks fail as they did in 2008.banks will not make new loans, therefore the banks will collapse along with the American way of life.
If you could do us all a favor, obtain a body cam and use it in your daily life. And show us the video when these things happen. If it's all as dramatic as you make it sound, you could have a profitable youtube channel.at one point a guy was walking our way, when he notice us he looked panicked, covered his mouth with his hands and started running to bypass us, it was too strange to go unnoticed,
Every time he posts this stuff, the only reason for these reactions that makes any sense in my mind is that perhaps his appearance is atypical. I imagine he looks something like this:But again, I don't know. Maybe our experiences are just different.
I was discussing this article with a few people on Facebook. I pointed out that in the early stages of the pandemic in the UK there were fewer deaths nationwide than normal. A doctor with a column in a national magazine (MD in Private Eye if any Brits are reading this) put it down to better personal hygiene and less risky behaviour - certainly we are not renowned for our fastidious hygiene! Since then the increase in deaths due to corona has swamped this decrease. There was also much less influenza than normal in Japan this winter, possibly because nearly everyone was masked up and washing their hands more. A Finnish guy said a similar thing happened in his country.Speaking of the Covid situation in Japan. So far there seem to be no "hidden deaths" which is great news. If this holds, this means despite all the bungling and half-assed measures Japan is somehow doing very well relatively speaking.
Tokyo has not seen an increase in overall deaths during the coronavirus outbreak, boosting Japanese officials' assertions that they have largely kept infections under control despite criticism over the limited scope of its testing. The capital saw 33,106 deaths in the three months through March, 0.4% fewer than the average of the previous four years for the same period, according to data from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Data for April, when new daily virus cases peaked in the city, is not yet available.
That's my main point -- due to the serious lack of testing I had a lot of questions about the number of hidden deaths.I was discussing this article with a few people on Facebook. I pointed out that in the early stages of the pandemic in the UK there were fewer deaths nationwide than normal. A doctor with a column in a national magazine (MD in Private Eye if any Brits are reading this) put it down to better personal hygiene and less risky behaviour - certainly we are not renowned for our fastidious hygiene! Since then the increase in deaths due to corona has swamped this decrease. There was also much less influenza than normal in Japan this winter, possibly because nearly everyone was masked up and washing their hands more. A Finnish guy said a similar thing happened in his country.
So while the figure suggests there has not been a large hidden tragedy, I'd be cautious about reading too much into it. I think the figures for April and May will be much more important for assessing what has been happening.
Not sure if this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but honestly, in my opinion the most incoherent and incompetent part of the government response is the way they've handled financial support (waffling between a number of plans, all offering too little too late), the ridiculous Abe-no-mask situation, and so on and so forth. While Japan may have been somewhat late to declare a state of emergency, they were never going to institute an American/European style legally-mandated lockdown (I'm not an expert on Japanese constitutional law, but I don't believe they technically have the power to do so), and I would argue (perhaps controversially, though the results seem to bear it out) that the statistics never really warranted that step.mdchachi said:Considering that Japan was among the first to get COVID19, it's clear that Japan is somehow following a different path than other countries despite the incoherent government response.
Is that different from the tourist industry anywhere? How many people are visiting New York or Los Angeles or Rome these days? I agree that the financial support has been totally botched (I don't know anyone who's received their 100,000 yen yet, although many people I know have received the application documents), but you seem to be arguing that Japan is somehow unique in the world in completely and utterly bungling the response to catastrophic levels and is going to collapse into a "third-world country" of death and ruin as a result—surely you have to see by now that there's no evidence that we're headed in that direction?musicgood said:I would like to say that Japan tourist industry is dead.
@musicisgood
You're free to believe what you believe, and there's certainly nothing wrong with being careful and circumspect, but some of your posts (e.g. predicting catastrophic death counts because of cherry blossom season, despite the state of emergency already having been in effect for weeks and no people traveling, doing hanami, etc.) strike me as excessively paranoid and fearmongering.
If there were tens of thousands of people dying of COVID, these would be showing up in the statistics somewhere. Read mdchachi's post and the articles above. The Japanese government is not hiding bodies anywhere.
Is that different from the tourist industry anywhere? How many people are visiting New York or Los Angeles or Rome these days? I agree that the financial support has been totally botched (I don't know anyone who's received their 100,000 yen yet, although many people I know have received the application documents), but you seem to be arguing that Japan is somehow unique in the world in completely and utterly bungling the response to catastrophic levels and is going to collapse into a "third-world country" of death and ruin as a result—surely you have to see by now that there's no evidence that we're headed in that direction?
...and I plan to take a 11 hour local train ride in June. ...
So were you and your friend wearing masks?
That's a key point, which you left out.
bentenmusume said:Just to provide a counter-argument, I have been going about my business as usual, trying to be circumspect, and I can assure you that no Japanese person has treated me like I am somehow a walking infection risk (which is more than can be said about how some nurses and medical staff workers have been treated by some people, sadly).
mdchachi said:Every time he posts this stuff, the only reason for these reactions that makes any sense in my mind is that perhaps his appearance is atypical. I imagine he looks something like this:
It's hard for me to "get" that on the one hand you post rather alarming things about the pandemic, and on the other you think that it's okay to mix it up with the public on an 11-hour train trip. And to kyushu? Where there are more people than in yamaguchi? And maybe another trip back on the return?
What's your plan if, you know, you happen to test positive and maybe get sick along the way? Quarantine for a couple weeks wherever that happens to be? You'd be okay if you happened to get hospitalized away from home? Or would you make a dash for home (shedding virus onto others along the way)?
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That's not meant to be harsh. Those questions should be on the list of anyone who is thinking of traveling.
I've been thinking of all the above. And yes, it could be an alarming trip for me. The thing at the moment is that it is in the planning stage if I choose to go. It's a bit puzzling even for me to make a trip, but it may be come necessary for me to make in June.
At any normal time I'd be cheering you on, even asking if I could come along. Also, if you had seemed to be a person who had thought of the virus as just another flu, and/or that it actually had a kill/fatality rate lower than everyone thinks, that you had portrayed everyone's caution as overdoing it, and various things like that...
...then hearing that you might be traveling would not have been surprising.
I dunno. Maybe it will have faded back some by then--maybe the people who think hot weather will attenuate it will be right? Kyushu will certainly be hot come June!
Given what I know about your past cycling, I guess you'll be camping mostly. But you'll still have to eat, and living out of conbini and supermarkets would get old. One reason to visit kyushu would be the food, and I'd want to avoid living off the same stuff as in a local conbini right here.
Sorry, I'm rambling, but that's the idea. Baths, too--are the public onsen open? Izakaya?