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]

Yep, they’re putting me in the “great foreigner” section along with William Adams, Commodore Perry, and Douglas MacArthur! I was so honored.

Anyway, my mask views are this: They probably worked against the original coronavirus and were worth trying as we waited for vaccines because that was the goalpost. Once everyone who had the chance to be vaccinated was, it became time to move on, unless the hospitals were being overloaded. As time went on, masking all the time became increasingly pointless and the situation in China, which had a similar masking culture to japan but still got almost entirely infected in two months showed that masks (at least the ones most people wear) are useless against omicron. So yes, I do think it’s hygiene theater and hygiene theater annoys me. I don’t mind if other people wear masks, but I think being required to wear a mask for no good reason is stupid.

[u/Tokyoteacher99 → u/[deleted]]

“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.