TOKYO (AP) – Takeaway menus. Instructions for attending a funeral. Brochure of a local shrine announcing the cancellation of summer festivals.
These humble everyday pandemic artifacts discovered a house at the Urahoro Historical Museum in Hokkaido, northern Japan, a city of only 4,500 people that has no McDonald’s or cinema.
But thanks to the curator of the museum, Makoto Mochida, he has a deposit of the scum of the moment, things that can tell generations in the long term what he likes to live in the COVID-19 era: how life was profoundly replaced with social estrangement and development. fears about the epidemic.
“I’m fascinated by how things relate to people,” Mochida said.
Some other people are surprised that he sells what appears to be rubbish, said Mochida, who also has trouble throwing things at home.
“Things offer a wonderful way to what file history should look like,” he says.
So, there are documents that show how young people learned to move to school online. And instructions, accompanied by diagrams, on how to make a mask with a handkerchief.
So far, hundreds of items have been collected, after the premises.
After the last primary pandemic, the so-called Spanish flu of 1918-19, which killed more than 50 million people worldwide, letters and newspapers gave an idea of life.
But in those days, those analogue communications are gone. And its virtual versions, such as emails and social media posts, are almost lost in an ocean of cyberspace, Mochida said.
It is up to Mochida to handle floating debris and coronavirus waste.
He plans a primary exhibition of his discoveries next February to stick to the smaller exhibition lately at the museum, at the Urahoro Library, appearing how the masks have evolved in a short time.
At first, the masks were hard to find in Japanese stores. The craft types were primitive, made with old shirts and stockings. Then came here novelties, such as the draped mask that allows you to eat and drink, or the transparent plastic mask. They have become fashionable statements, some with elegant embroidery.
COVID-19 cases are highest in Japan, but have reached the levels of the worst-affected countries, such as the United States, Brazil and parts of Europe.
Urahoro hasn’t filed a bachelor case yet. At first, the network swept away the epidemic. Then, fears began to infiltrate, especially to foreigners and families with young adults running in Tokyo or near the cities, who can return home to visit.
Then came the settings. For the small town, takeaways, such as the local specialty “spa cut” or spaghetti with meat sauce topped with a fried meat chop, red meat, have become the rule after restaurants closed the restaurants in person. Before the pandemic, it wasn’t even an option.
Shoko Maede, who was born in Urahoro and works as a cook in kindergarten, believes she can almost believe that other people in decades seek not to forget life in the middle of the pandemic.
“They may think, “Oh, so the way it is Array, ” he said after visiting the museum.
“Things reveal what other people think.”
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