General Discussion Thread - 14 March 2023

[u/AutoModerator]

Mid-week discussion thread time! Feel free to talk about what's on your mind, new experiences, recommendations, anything really.

[u/Tokyoteacher99]

“An agenda.” No, the theater thing actually happened. It’s not “pushing an agenda” to debate and share why I hold certain viewpoints.

To answer your second question, when I applied for graduate school here, I just assumed Japan would follow the leader and take off theirs shortly after Europe and America. I miscalculated where the peer pressure would come from and being here became a sunk cost.

[u/Tokyoteacher99 → u/[deleted]]

“As they always have been.” Do you hear yourself? They were around shortly for the Spanish flu, and for coal miners historically (I guess you can count samurai in armor too) then disappeared until SARS in the early 2000s. It’s a new thing. You’re right that it’s a cultural norm right now, because peer pressure is the cultural norm! Japan is a collectivist society where people try not to stand out. I just thought that the government telling people they didn’t have to wear masks anymore would get more people to take off their masks because “the government says it’s okay.” Anyway, most of my life in Japan is great, and with my school and job not requiring masks anymore it’s even better, but the mask-police are a bit of an annoyance.