Japanese filmmaker contrasts how a Chinese city and his country dealt with coronavirus, sees attitudes to privacy as a key difference
- Ryo Takeuchi filmed a two-part documentary to show how Nanjing in eastern China, where he lives, successfully contained the coronavirus, with no deaths
- It was a response to seeing Japan mismanage the crisis. There ‘they need to discuss everything’, he says, but in Nanjing ‘everyone just worked together’
Japan’s fumbling efforts to contain the coronavirus outbreak have raised eyebrows in some quarters. Despite a state of emergency having been declared last month, the country famed for its hi-tech prowess and attention to detail has been grappling with patchy testing and a shortage of hospital staff and personal protective equipment.
For documentary-film maker Ryo Takeuchi, who lives in Nanjing, eastern China, with his family, the contrast between how that city and Japan have dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic could not be bigger.
“With a population of over eight million, Nanjing does not have even one single death [arising from the new coronavirus]. All of the more than 90 confirmed cases there recovered and were discharged from hospital in March. [In contrast], Japan’s containment measures didn’t work and it is very slow [in dealing with the outbreak],” Takeuchi says.
“Japanese are cautious. They need to discuss everything [before coming to a consensus]. [This] doesn’t work at all during crises,” he adds.
Takeuchi has produced a two-part documentary, A City with Zero New Cases of Covid-19, showing how Nanjing restaurants, supermarkets, public transport, hotels and hospitals adopted measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. It has made waves in Japan, where the films were broadcast by major TV stations, including NHK and TV Asahi.
