Jun 13, 2020 (Japan Times) - I was sent scrambling for my dictionary on June 4 when Finance Minister Taro Aso declared that the different "mindo" between Japan and other countries was the reason behind Japan’s low COVID-19 death rate.
A quintessentially nebulous Japanese word, mindo denotes the standard of living and cultural level of a people, and can variously be used to refer to a population’s degree of maturity in terms of intellectual, educational, and cultural levels, or behaviors.
The word "mindo" was created during the Meiji Ea (1868-1912), a time when Japan became interested in comparing itself with other countries. Inherent in it is a sense of judgement about which populations’ “level†or “standards†are higher or lower. Scholar Michael Kim notes that during the colonization of Korea, “The Japanese deployed the mindo concept frequently to justify their unequal colonial policies and explain their rationale for excluding Koreans from the welfare and educational policies instituted in Japan proper.†Last week, television personality Dave Spector said that he had been told never to use the term on air.
Assailed over the use of this loaded term, Aso later explained that he didn’t mean to put down “other countries,†but rather to point out that, unlike Japan, they were unable to keep their death rates down despite using coercion, and that the Japanese should be proud of how they cooperated with social distancing requests that were more gentle.
For many Japanese, Japan’s low death per capita rate from COVID-19 in comparison to many other industrialized countries has indeed become a point of pride — one that is not necessarily misplaced. Initially, many observers were worried that Japan would have a much higher death toll than it currently has. With its high proportion of elderly residents and densely packed cities — combined with little polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing and a reluctance to impose harsh lockdowns — it seemed that Japan might end up looking like hard-hit areas such as northern Italy or New York. Fortunately, though, that grim scenario did not materialize.
The resulting relief and pride have fostered a sense of exceptionalism. Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka has hypothesized an as-yet-unknown “Factor X†that accounts for Japan’s low death rate. Explanations of Japan’s success have been various, with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lauding an undefined “Japan model,†the vice chairman of Japan’s coronavirus expert panel Shigeru Omi citing hygiene practices such as wearing masks and washing hands, and commentator Yoshiko Sakurai, in echoes of Aso’s use of mindo, praising “the Japanese people’s higher public health consciousness, moral values, and sense of solidarity to overcome adversity.†One Japanese blogger listed 43 different theories that have been circulating.
It is important to keep in mind, however, which “other countries†Japan’s low death rate is being compared to. As of Tuesday, according to data website Worldometer, Japan has had 7 deaths per 1 million population from COVID-19. That number indeed looks excellent in comparison to some of the hardest hit countries, such as Belgium with 829, the United Kingdom with 598, Spain with 580 and Italy with 562.
On the other hand, there are quite a few countries with lower death rates than Japan’s. They include South Korea with 5 per 1 million; Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia with 4; Thailand with 0.8; Taiwan with 0.3 and both Vietnam and Mongolia with zero. I wonder, would Aso say that that all those countries have higher mindo than Japan?
