¡°Teacher, I¡¯m very sorry. I can¡¯t meet you for my English lesson because of Corona-san.¡±
At first I wasn¡¯t sure if my student, who is in her early 70s, had made a joke. But she wasn¡¯t jesting. She had purposely added the honorific ¡°san¡± to the coronavirus, as if it were an honored person. Like ¡°nikuya-san¡± for a butcher or ¡°isha-san¡± for a doctor, the coronavirus has become a part of our lives, and thus, in its own way, demands respect.
New Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will have to respect the virus, too. Recent economic data shows that Japan¡¯s gross domestic product shrank by 7.8 percent in the second economic quarter. This suggests that a lot of businesses are having to paddle considerably harder just to keep their heads above water.
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