Coronavirus: contagion fears, paranoia reveal cracks in Japan’s polite facade
- Tensions are running high among Japanese, from frantic shoppers panic-buying toilet roll to irate commuters arguing about coughing on trains
- Even school closures, a move made to lessen the outbreak’s impact, have left working parents stressed and unsure of what to do with their children
Last Friday, a video uploaded to Twitter showed a heated confrontation aboard a Tokyo train between a man who appeared to be in his 50s and a younger man who was not wearing a mask and had apparently coughed soon before the footage was recorded.
The older passenger shouted angrily and said the man had to stop coughing. The younger man retorted that he was the one who was acting strangely, which led to a further confrontation as other passengers attempted to intervene.
A few days earlier, a passenger in Fukuoka reportedly pressed a train’s emergency stop button to report that someone who was coughing while not wearing a mask.
“People are really feeling a sense of personal risk and that means that the calm that you usually see on trains and in society in general is being forgotten,” said Ken Kato, a Tokyo businessman.
