Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Coronavirus is revealing uncomfortable truths about Japan

I’ll never forget an unusually frank conversation I once had with a Japanese acquaintance (let’s call him ‘Yoshi’). He was explaining how his marriage had failed, after only a few weeks:

‘I never had time to myself. Whenever I got home, she was always there.’

He stressed the words ‘always’ and ‘there’, drawing them out with a sad, weary, frustration. I remember wondering what exactly he’d been expecting, but it seemed rude to ask. Yoshi’s words came back to me this week when I read that, in an impressively opportunistic move, a firm in Tokyo is capitalising on the Covid-19 lockdown by letting out rooms for people who are finding prolonged exposure to their partners in small gardenless dwellings rather more stressful than potential exposure to the virus.

The firm Kasoku is offering short-term rental units, with facilities for tele working. The object, they say, is to prevent a surge in the numbers of ‘Corona rikon’ (Corona divorce) the new trending phenomenon here in Japan. Apparently, the head of the firm got the idea after losing a girlfriend in this way.

This is a worldwide issue, of course, but the fact that the Japanese have given it a name, and started to exploit it commercially, suggests it may be more acute here than elsewhere. Why this is may be explained by considering Japan’s adherence to traditional gender roles, and certain peculiarities of Japanese marriage.

The concept of a woman’s realm is still very much alive in Japan, and this is causing tensions under the current circumstances. One such realm is the supermarket, and last week Osaka mayor Ichiro Matsui called for men to take over their wives’ traditional shopping duties for the duration of the crisis. We are advised to shop quickly and infrequently, and Matsui’s reasoning was that women take too long, fretting about tiny price differences or fumbling endlessly for point cards and discount coupons.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in