Classes are being held in Japan to coach students on how to smile and show their teeth. — AFP
SMILING can be good for you! In Japan, wearing a mask throughout the pandemic rendered the facial expression basically useless so that it became such a rarity that residents find themselves in need of smile lessons to brush up on the muscle movement technique. Classes are even being held to coach students on how to smile and show their teeth, for a good cause.
While Finland – ranked as the happiest place in the world for the last six years – offers happiness training in the form of a learning module based around the philosophy of this state of being – it's in Japan that courses are being given on how to smile.
Reported on by The New York Times in May, the phenomenon was spotted by The Japan Times back in March. Three years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Japanese government authorised residents to circulate without a face mask in place. Over the last year, masking recommendations in the country changed; while mask-wearing wasn't compulsory, it was ubiquitous, as The New York Times points out.
Something that isn't particularly surprising, since even before the pandemic, the mask was a frequently seen accessory on the street and in the subway in Japan, with residents wearing them when they caught a cold or seasonal flu to protect others.
And indeed, over three quarters of the population told the national television channel NHK that they would continue to use a mask in a survey released at the start of May just days before the World Health Organisation (WHO) officially declared Covid-19 to no longer be a public health emergency.
Nicknamed kao pantsu or "face underwear" in Japan, it became so universal that many residents lost their smiling capability. The South China Morning Post reports that a lesson to retrain the relevant facial muscles costs 55 US dollars for an hour's training. Students use small mirrors to activate facial muscles.
The codes of smiling
While these types of lessons may seem unusual to Westerners, keep in mind that in Japanese culture smiling is an action that has specific codes. The word egao means "smiling face," and is related to positivity in attitude and appearance, notes The Japan Times.
Keiko Kawano, who teaches smiling, also explains to the Japan Times that smiling with teeth hasn't always been appropriate in Japanese culture. Traditionally, emotions are essentially shown in a circumspect manner in Japanese culture.
Practising the art of smiling actually isn't a totally new activity. French author Françoise Champault, who studied Japanese culture, points out in a 2015 academic paper that there were already smile coaching activities in place, with the intention of "making the world a happier place".
Employees of East Japan Railways, Tokyo's Narita airport, Mitsui-Sumitomo bank and Daiichi Seimei insurance company were among those receiving such smile training. – AFP Relaxnews/ Berangere Chatelain
