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<\/p>\nJapan Trend Radar is a feature for members of our Unseen Japan Insider program that tracks trending issues in Japanese news and social media. <\/p>\n
While the Kumamoto earthquake captured most of Japan\u2019s attention this past week, it was hardly the only subject that caused waves online. We\u2019re taking a look at how social media trends shape online discourse. This ranges from emergency responses and anti-foreigner sentiment to the cost of living and its impact on those hit hardest.<\/p>\n
The Kumamoto quake: outrage against uncaring businesses<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A massive 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture on Tuesday, July 28. Soon after, people flooded social media sites like X and Threads with posts of sympathy, encouragement, and grief. One of the most notable came from former Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen<\/a>, who made a heartfelt post on X that garnered over 180,000 likes, offering her sympathy.<\/p>\n Taiwan didn\u2019t just send thoughts and prayers, though. As of August 1, people and businesses throughout the country donated 15 million yen (USD $95,000) to send tents, beds, and other relief supplies to Kumamoto. The earthquake damaged nearly 4,000 homes, leaving 9,200 people crammed into evacuation centers, so the help is more than welcome.<\/p>\n Alongside the gratitude for Taiwan\u2019s help, though, some on X said that Japan\u2019s politicians should be ashamed. After all, a foreign country seemed to be doing way more for the quake-struck region than they were.<\/p>\n Members-only article<\/p>\n \t\tLog in – or unlock one for free.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tThe rest of this article is for our Insider<\/a> program members, who get one bonus article like this a week. Join our free weekly newsletter and we’ll email you this Insider article, gratis. Already used your unlock? Subscribe today<\/a> and access this article plus our entire back issue archive<\/a>. (Already a member? Login<\/a> )\n\t\t<\/p>\n \t\tKeep reading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan Trend Radar is a feature for members of our Unseen Japan Insider program that tracks trending issues…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[37714,3805,1112,1578,2461,8,17,6298,11119,1441],"class_list":["post-68096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-cost-of-living","tag-earthquake","tag-feminism","tag-immigration","tag-imperial-family","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-kumamoto-prefecture","tag-lgbtq","tag-takaichi-sanae"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}