Covid-19 coronavirus: We can and must emulate the Japanese.
Today I watched a TV report which attributed the success of Japan at containing the Covid-19 pandemic, to aspects of Japanese culture, such as preferring to bow to each other rather than shake hands; taking off shoes on entry to a house and generally, a population that is not obese.
I fully concur with the above analysis, and wish to point out that the Japanese culture may have developed from past (unrecorded) pandemics that their people successfully vanquished. You see, the name Japan is written as ancient Kalanga language where vowels, especially the terminal ones, were routinely omitted. Currently, you would write the name as "Ja phani". The infinitive case verb "ku ja" means "to eat". The word "phani" means "scorpion". Japan therefore means "to eat scorpions" in Kalanga language.
For many years I have resisted the temptation to demonstrate this link of Japan to Kalanga language, a temptation to which I have readily succumbed where other cultures were concerned, because I feared that it might upset certain people. I am now revealing it because I want mankind to realise that the Japanese approach to social contact is rooted in their very name; that in today's global village we all are (effectively) scorpion eaters and that therefore the only way to avoid massive death counts in future pandemics is to emulate the Japanese and bow to one another, among other practices.
It is hard to imagine what the Russians are going through in this pandemic. The 1917 socialist revolution brought to power, a class that has no time for idle pleasantries. The workers adopted handshaking as standard greeting. More often than not, Russians will simply shake hands and not utter a word in greeting! Imagine trying to change a 100 years' practice in just two months. But there really is no alternative, is there? Everybody "is gonna have to behave Japanese", to paraphrase the Chinese-American rapper [whose name I've forgotten].
I fully concur with the above analysis, and wish to point out that the Japanese culture may have developed from past (unrecorded) pandemics that their people successfully vanquished. You see, the name Japan is written as ancient Kalanga language where vowels, especially the terminal ones, were routinely omitted. Currently, you would write the name as "Ja phani". The infinitive case verb "ku ja" means "to eat". The word "phani" means "scorpion". Japan therefore means "to eat scorpions" in Kalanga language.
For many years I have resisted the temptation to demonstrate this link of Japan to Kalanga language, a temptation to which I have readily succumbed where other cultures were concerned, because I feared that it might upset certain people. I am now revealing it because I want mankind to realise that the Japanese approach to social contact is rooted in their very name; that in today's global village we all are (effectively) scorpion eaters and that therefore the only way to avoid massive death counts in future pandemics is to emulate the Japanese and bow to one another, among other practices.
It is hard to imagine what the Russians are going through in this pandemic. The 1917 socialist revolution brought to power, a class that has no time for idle pleasantries. The workers adopted handshaking as standard greeting. More often than not, Russians will simply shake hands and not utter a word in greeting! Imagine trying to change a 100 years' practice in just two months. But there really is no alternative, is there? Everybody "is gonna have to behave Japanese", to paraphrase the Chinese-American rapper [whose name I've forgotten].
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