Quarantine through the eyes of a Japanese director
Print Edition
When Ryo Takeuchi returned from Japan to China in the middle of February, he was stunned to learn he would have to quarantine himself for 14 days, even though he tested negative for the novel coronavirus during health screenings when entering the country.
The Japanese documentary maker has lived in Nanjing, capital of eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, for the past seven years. When he vociferously complained on social media about the seemingly “over-strict” measures, he received many comments from ordinary people explaining the necessity of the self-isolation process.
This experience prompted the former employee of Japan’s national broadcaster, NHK, to record the extent to which his adopted city has been working to stop the spread of the virus.
“This video was partly inspired by my growing anxiety about the situation in Japan,” says Takeuchi, who is fluent in Chinese after years at Nanjing University.
He said he was worried by the sight of Japanese people going to concerts and taking public transportation without masks, even as confirmed cases of infections increased every day.
“I think the Japanese public haven’t taken enough precautions. People don’t seem to understand the gravity of the epidemic,” said Takeuchi, who now has a fan base of almost 2 million on Sina Weibo. “So I decided to tell the real story of China’s fight against the virus through this video.”
The 12-minute movie begins with a drone broadcasting messages about the prohibition of mass gatherings. Takeuchi then takes his audience on a fact-finding journey around Nanjing to see how the pandemic has affected economic and social life there.
For starters, the notion of safe social distancing has hit many professions. In one scene, Takeuchi settled into the backseat of a cab to find the masked driver had doubled down on safety by separating himself from passengers with a Plexiglas sheet.
In another sign of the pervasive awareness of social distancing, Takeuchi and a colleague are seen ordering their food at McDonald’s through mobile apps and then eating separately at their own tables with a partition board between them.
Even as life slowly returns to normal, security remains tight in this city of 8.2 million people, with everyone required to show identification to enter some of the most popular tourist attractions, including the famous Confucius Temple.
What impressed Takeuchi the most was being denied entry to the lobby of a hotel where he tried to deliver daily necessities to a colleague quarantined there after returning from abroad.
To comply with the “touch-free” policy, hotel staff left the colleague’s items in an elevator that rose to his friend’s floor and called him to retrieve them.
“I knew quarantine was strict, but I never expected it to be this strict,” he said
Takeuchi has raised his family in Nanjing, and at first, the rules and restrictions struck him as stringent and even exaggerated, but he soon realized they were pivotal to controlling the outbreak.
It has now been several days since Nanjing reported its last infection, a result he credits to a strong sense of discipline that permeates through every segment of society, from the top echelons of government to ordinary citizens.
He normally takes two to three weeks to plan, make and edit a video, but from beginning to end the Nanjing process took only three days. Almost as soon as he uploaded the video (with Japanese subtitles), it went viral, drawing millions of clicks while receiving coverage across Japanese media.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
