TOKYO, March 17, 2023—There were 14 people at an after-work-hour meeting of volunteers and city government officials on that night, four days after the Japanese government lifted a face-mask mandate, telling the Japanese that it’s up to them whether to wear one. All of them entered the conference room with a mask on, except me, and only one person removed his during the 100-minute meeting, though he put it back on immediately when other people gave him a dirty look.
As I wrote some while ago, it’s not easy for the Japanese to kick a habit once enforced, be it an administrative guideline, tax, or government policy. The mask mandate, which was introduced three yers ago, is one of the latest practice.
Like with numerous other practices, the Japanese are shy about becoming a top runner (this expression had been used and abused by bureaucrats as a key strategy for Japan to retain its global leadership status in key environmental technologies such as energy conservation and efficiency. It’s now dead words).
Making it complicated to remove the mask is the impression gap between the mask-on and off face that gives to other people. This holds true especially for women who might have inferiority complex about how they look without a mask. Random street research I have done proved that hardly any women were seen walking on the street without a mask while some men are occasionally spotted bare-face.
Plus, there’s a quasi-discrimination issue: During the mask-on three years, women didn’t have to put on makeup, a not-so-small expenditure, particularly for low-income earners. When they remove the mask, it’s become an extra expenditure and since many want to look better than three years ago, they need to spend more to go for luxury brands. Those who continue wearing a mask may not be able to afford such a luxury because many saw their income shrink during the pandemic.
What can prod this Japanese pack mentality to change is, exactly like in the 270-year Edo feudal period, public service employees, from central government and small town office offices, take off their mask. Until then, the face-mask may stick to Japanese faces.
Wages rise in pack except for SME workers
For years, Japanese businesses and workers have been slighting the ‘Shunto’ or the annual spring labor offensive, in which employers and unions negotiate wage increases. ‘Shunto has become obsolete and meaningless,’ top business lobby and labor leaders would say, as new tech companies give fat pay raises and bonuses to workers while old brick-and-mortar firms struggle to keep paying workers.
Not this March, the month when employers and labor sit across the table to negotiate wages from April, which is the beginning of Japan’s business year. From Toyota to the debt-laden Tokyo Electric Power, most big companies swallowed all that was demanded by labor, some, like Japan Airlines, giving more than sought by workers. The average raise of major companies is expected to top 5 percent, the highest in more than 30 years. Shunto climaxes March 17.
Why this sudden about-face from the kill-Shunto bravado? Political and administrative jaw-boning arising from centuries-long conniving between government and business with an implicit agreement that what employers give would be repatriated with tax and other incentives, in immaculately coordinated psyche of ‘It’s not scary to cross the red light together.’ Prime minister Fumio Kishida March 15 reiterated that generous wage growth is what can spur Japan’s global competitiveness recovery, meaning that businesses need to pay well to hire talented workers.
This, however, can leave behind small and medium-size companies, which represent more than 70 percent of Japanese businesses, as well as more than 40 percent of none-regular workers. SMEs are constantly pressured by big businesses to cut costs and prices, and something like 16 percent of all Japanese companies, including SMEs, cannot raise wages, some even being forced to lower.
This is how Japan is progressively becoming a country where the rich gets richer and poor gets poorer – the condition far worse than the Edo period.
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Insight Into the Future