“I am ashamed of our government” messaged Inoue san*, a 65 year old woman from Osaka. She is retired and has been staying at home as much as possible during the coronavirus outbreak. “In Japan, regretfully it seems that people don’t think it’s so serious. I can’t believe it!” For the past month my friends in Japan have been telling me that they are concerned by the slow response to the coronavirus from the Japanese government. 

For many people I got to know, it is customary to go to the clinic or even hospital as soon as you suspect you may have the flu. According to my doctor contacts in Kyoto, hospitals are starting to become overwhelmed by the numbers of people seeking help and advice. As the story of Sato san shows, illustrated above, even the official corona virus hotline recommends for people to go to hospital. There is a feeling that unless drastic measures are taken, such as a lockdown, the number of infections will soon explode and hospitals will not be able to cope.

While here in the U.K. the numbers of cases and fatalities rose dramatically during March and early April, in Japan the number of confirmed cases remained low and is only just reported to be rising. While some of my contacts believe that the government’s response has therefore been appropriate, in general trust in the government’s crisis response is low among the 60 or so individuals I got to know well during my fieldwork. This negativity is primarily due to their concern over how the government handled the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. Japanese media is largely state-controlled and many people question the transparency of reporting. During the coronavirus pandemic people are turning to their smartphones to seek out the latest information about the virus, such as through the messaging app LINE which collates news from various sources. 

The smartphone is not only a key source of news, but it is also where people can express their frustration with the government’s response. What many people want is for employers to be forced to close businesses, and for there to be financial aid given to workers. For example on 16 April there was an organised Twitter protest targeting government policy, with the hashtag #休業補償と一律給付で命を守って, meaning ‘save lives with leave compensation and uniform benefits”. While Japan’s working poor continue with their daily commutes to work, the government have promised to send face masks to every household. This gesture has been widely regarded as out of touch with reality, and has prompted ridicule online, such as the memes below and the trending hashtag #Abenomask which plays on Prime Minister Abe’s eponymous ‘Abenomics’ economic policies.

On 16 April the government issued a nation-wide state of emergency, giving them greater power to request the closure of businesses. The Japanese constitution makes it difficult for the government to issue the sort of lockdowns that we have seen in Europe, so they have relied on issuing requests for people to work from home if possible and avoid mass gatherings. Yet these guidelines have not been binding by law, meaning that many employers have largely been carrying on as normal, while individuals feel increasingly conflicted.

See Laura’s Instagram for more illustrated ethnography.

*Names have been changed for anonymity in this blog post.

Japan has gained a global reputation as being the sort of place where one can ‘imagine our digital future’ – from stories of men marrying their virtual girlfriends, to techno-cemeteries replacing tombstones with LED Buddhas, an imagination of ‘techno Japan’ has developed which can be quite removed from the everyday experiences of people living there. Japan has been slow in many ways to adopt new technologies despite an international perception of being at the forefront of technological innovation. This imagined futuristic Japan is perhaps a result of the prominence of robots and advanced technologies in Japanese popular culture, or because of the impression made on travellers by iconic bullet trains and singing washlet toilets. Day-to-day life in Japan is actually remarkably low-tech; the economy is still largely cash-based despite government attempts to encourage card and mobile payments, much bureaucratic work is still paper-based rather than computerized, and old technologies such as fax machines are still popular. Indeed the name of new Reiwa era (Japan’s new imperial era following the end of Emperor Akihito’s 30-year reign) was announced internationally in April 2019 via a fax sent to Japanese embassies worldwide.

On 26^th of February I will present my work at a symposium in Sheffield called ‘Imagining Our Digital Futures: The View From Japan’. The event is organised by Sheffield University’s School of East Asian Studies, bringing together scholarship on technical innovations of Japanese art and design with discussions about the use of digital technology to understand Japan. The organisers envision Japan-focused digital research as a productive model for emerging and developing studies of digital cultures around the world. “Imagining our digital futures” requires us to look at our digital present, which in Japan is more commonly about the smartphone rather than robots. And the age-group who are especially keen to imagine a digital future is the middle-aged to elderly, who are finding digital means for challenging previous models of ageing. While Japanese youth have historically been seen to drive innovation in digital communication practices, older people are now starting to embrace the smartphone and are developing their own digital cultures.

My talk will present findings from long-term ethnographic fieldwork I conducted among older people in Kyoto and Kōchi Prefecture, examining ageing, health, and everyday usage of the smartphone. Given the economic and social challenges posed by Japan’s ageing population, the government has turned towards technological solutions, such as assistive robotic devices, to cope with a decreasing health and care workforce. Yet it is in everyday smartphone practices such as messaging, Googling, and using social media that older people are re-imagining care, finding new forms of independence, and crafting new experiences of ageing when compared with previous generations.

With many nations around the world exhibiting ageing populations, there is international focus on how super-ageing Japan is dealing with this demographic shift. By studying the digital practices of middle-aged to elderly Japanese people, this research demonstrates that the smartphone is increasingly central to their lives, and will be key to developing technological innovations for dealing with the challenges associated with ageing.

If you’re near Sheffield do come along, and also check out the Japan Now North festival in the week preceding the symposium with a range of film screenings and discussions on Japanese art, literature, and film. The festival includes a screening of the film ‘I Go Gaga My Dear’ by veteran Japanese documentary filmmaker Naoko Nobutomo. After the screening I will be chairing a Q&A with Nobutomo, discussing her film within the wider context of the Japanese ageing society.