It’s a fine April weekend, the first after Prime Minister Abe declared a state of emergency. Compliance has visibly increased, with activity down to 30% of the normal rate, according to data collected by NTT Docomo. In Meguro, many restaurants, bars and izakaya have closed altogether; others shut at 8 p.m. as advised.
Even in the immediate aftermath of the 3.11 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, this never happened. People got together in bars and drank by candlelight, thirsty for consolation and companionship.
This time the threat is other people, so no late night bar-hopping, no clubbing, no karaoke echoing down neon-splattered alleys filled with the smell of roast fish and yakitori.
For how long? Tokyo without its nightlife is like Switzerland without the Alps.
Yet the lockdown is mild by comparison with some Western countries. The emergency powers are not exercised by the prime minister himself, but by the governors of regions who have requested them. The governors cannot punish any individuals who ignore the guidelines, nor can the police hassle anyone for non-compliance.
Anything more drastic would risk breaching Japan’s constitution, imposed by the U.S. in 1947 and never subsequently amended. Indeed, the government seemed reluctant to go as far as it has, fearing the disastrous economic consequences. Public and expert opinion was strongly in favour of tighter restrictions and a surge in confirmed infections gave the authorities little choice but to act.
Interestingly, critics who have previously accused Abe of wanting to return to a pre-war authoritarian mindset have been amongst the loudest voices demanding stringent lockdown measures. The complaint now is that the government is putting “wealth” above “health,” as if crashing the economy would have no consequences for the lives and well-being of ordinary citizens.
There is, however, at least one anti-Abe voice who has stuck to his guns. Ryuichi Sakamoto, of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence fame, has likened Abe’s declaration to Hitler’s use of emergency powers to create a dictatorship in 1933. “From the perspective of the future,” he wrote in the Asahi Shimbun, “This will be remembered as the first step towards totalitarianism.”
Sakamoto is not the first ageing musician to compare Abe to Hitler. Keisuke Kuwata of The Southern All Stars did it live on Japan’s most widely watched TV programme in 2015. Taking your political opinions from musicians is about as sensible as taking your musical opinions from politicians. So it is easy to dismiss Sakamoto’s comment as the blather of a bubble-dwelling celebrity. But in the world beyond Japan there are indeed some disturbing signs.
Consider this message to the public from the Northamptonshire police in the UK –
“We will not at this stage be starting to marshal supermarkets and check-in the items in baskets and trolleys to see whether it is a legitimate necessary item but… if people do not heed the warnings… we will start to do that.”
Lord Sumption, former justice of Britain’s Supreme Court, is worried by the direction of travel. “We have given the police powers that, even if they respect the limits, will create an authoritarian pattern of life utterly inconsistent with our traditions,” he warned. “These things represent an interference with our lives and our personal autonomy that is intolerable in a free society.”
Meanwhile, a US-based digital rights group warns that “Governments around the world are demanding extraordinary new surveillance powers intended to contain the virus’ spread, often in partnership with corporations that hold vast stores of consumers’ personal data.”
Lord Sumption’s concerns about a free society seem so, well, twentieth century.
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‘You greedy bipeds
Terrified by my disease’
The pangolin smiles
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We sit in a French eaterie overlooking the Meguro River and enjoy a close-up view of the yaezakura, late cherry blossom. Unlike the better-known somei yoshino variety which grow leaves after the blossoms have fallen, these trees display blossoms and leaves at the same time.
They are much older too, closer to the blossoms admired by the characters in The Tale of Genji a thousand years ago.
The restaurant is about an eighth full. In a normal year it would be heaving with visitors. Now, there are signs in four languages – Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean – warning people off blossom-viewing.
The ‘inbound’ tourist economy has vanished, as have so many other familiar markers of contemporary existence. The APA (‘Always Pleasant Amenities’) hotel chain has repurposed some almost empty hotels into facilities for virus victims with mild symptoms. Rakuten founder Hiroshi Mikitani has also offered up a 600-room hotel that he owns personally.
A cruel April is here, but in the restaurant playing in the background is a French language version of Waters of March, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s lyrical masterpiece.
A truckload of bricks
In the soft morning light
The shot of a gun
In the dead of the night
A mile, a must
A thrust, a bump
It’s a girl, it’s a rhyme
It’s a cold, it’s the mumps
The plan of the house
The body in bed
And the car that got stuck
It’s the mud, it’s the mud
Afloat, adrift
A flight, a wing
A hawk, a quail
The promise of spring
If the pale, delicate somei yoshino flowers symbolize transience and death, these thick clutches of pink petals evoke growth, the cyclical momentum of the seasons that continues whether we are here to witness it or not.
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An availability cascade is a self-sustaining chain of events, which may start from media reports of a relatively minor event and lead up to public panic and large-scale government action… This emotional reaction becomes a story in itself, prompting additional coverage in the media, which in return produces greater concern and involvement. The cycle is sometimes sped along deliberately by “availability entrepreneurs”, individuals or organizations who work to ensure a continuous flow of worrying news. The danger is increasingly exaggerated as the media compete for attention-grabbing headlines… The issue becomes politically important because it is on everybody’s mind, and the response of the political system is guided by the intensity of public sentiment. The availability cascade has now reset priorities. Other risks, and other ways that resources could be applied for the public good, all have faded into the background.
From Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
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Not a tsunami
Yet drowning the entire world
Statistics of fear
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We walk the four kilometers to Senkakuji, the temple where the forty seven ronin are memorialized. The garden of the Teien Museum is closed, but in the parks along the way families are playing baseball and footie.
Children of a certain age, like dogs, need to be exercised. Staying at home for days on end may make little difference for childless, well-to-do knowledge workers who earn their salaries by staring into computer screens and can afford a spacious apartment with a nice balcony from which, wine glass in hand, to enjoy the sunset.
For families crammed into 3 LDKs filled with clutter and mothers-in-law and bawling kids unable to go to school, life is not so simple. In normal times, the bar and izakaya would be spaces of socialization, fulfilling the function of living room and therapy centres. Extended lock-ins would be like prison sentences. The pressure on marital bonds would be unbearable.
Then you have the folk who can’t telework – the construction workers, petrol-pump attendants, taxi-drivers, bank clerks, garbage-collectors, etc. etc. The coronavirus crisis is exacerbating class differences everywhere. In Japan, it is no surprise that the political leaders want to keep the lockdown soft.
Buddhist temples, like the Don Quijote discount stores, would stay open even if the world was ending. So there is a trickle of visitors at Senkakuji. We buy a mug listing the names of all 47 heroes from a mournful-looking souvenir shop owner. The collapse in his income is frightening to contemplate. And that will be passed on in cuts in his own spending, reducing the income of others.
What we have here is Keynesianism in reverse; outward-spreading ripples replaced by a vortex of debility. This can’t go on much longer.
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The announcement that there had been 302 deaths in the third week of the plague did not stir the imagination. On the one hand, perhaps not all of them died of the plague. On the other hand, nobody knew how many people died every week in ordinary times… People had no idea if this proportion of deaths was normal. These are the sort of facts that no one bothers with, interesting though they clearly are. So in a sense the public had no point of comparison.
From The Plague by Albert Camus
Camus’ novel, written in 1948, has become a best-seller in many countries, Japan included. The publisher, Shinchosha, usually sells about 1,500 copies of the Japanese translation a year. This year they have shifted 150,000 copies already.
Few Japanese seem aware that a relative of le grand Albert is in their midst. Thane Camus is a well-known TV personality in Japan who happens to be the novelist’s great-nephew. He has appeared in countless dramas and variety shows, teaches English language classes on NHK’s educational channel and has even peddled instant noodles and Kentucky Fried Chicken in TV advertisements.
What would the great existentialist say about that? Conscious of the complexities of destiny and human nature, he was wary of casting judgements on the behaviour of others. Probably he would have nodded his head in acceptance of the commercial realities of life. Probably Sartre would have penned a bitter denouncement in response.
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Laughter in the park
Late blossoms erotic pink
Shaken by the wind