Japanese children allowed to talk again over lunch as Covid cases fall

Throughout the pandemic, primary and middle school classrooms have reverberated to the sound of cutlery meeting crockery and, in some cases, piped music, but the young diners have been silenced as part of efforts to prevent the spread of the virus.

In many schools, children have been told not to eat while facing each other and to refrain from talking to their classmates. Instead, they must observe mokushoku – or silent eating.

But with Covid-19 cases falling across the country, some schools have abandoned the code of silence, amid concern that it is affecting the social and educational development of children as young as six.

The board of education in Fukuoka in western Japan said it was lifting the ban on lunchtime conversation at primary and middle schools – where children eat together in their classrooms - provided that pupils spoke quietly.

Their desks will continue to face the front of the classroom, however, and they will have to wear a mask when they join in a communal chorus of “Itadakimasu” – a widely used expression of thanks uttered before eating.

The move was welcomed by teachers in the city. “Silent eating has gone on for a long time now,” Kenji Tanaka, a primary school principal, told the Mainichi Shimbun. “I hope happy school lunchtimes will return soon.”

Parents, though, were divided. While some were pleased their children would now be able to interact normally with their friends, other said lifting the ban was premature.