In Finland, they’re drinking boxed wine and playing Korona, the board game. In Greece, they’re stockpiling feta. The French refuse to stop kissing. ISIS is telling its members to avoid traveling to Europe to conduct attacks. And, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, hand-washing stations are everywhere; they know the drill.
As coronavirus continues its deadly spread, the whole world is preparing for the onslaught in similar ways—social distancing, working from home, panic buying at their local grocery stores. But people in different countries are also weathering this crisis in vastly different ways, finding, for example, different products to hoard, different ways to pass the time, different people to blame and even different things to worry about.
……..
Not everyone uses toilet paper
You probably think everybody’s buying toilet paper. And across the Western world, you’d be right. A dramatic supermarket fight over TP between two Australian women went viral. When the Dutch prime minister visited a grocery store, he reassured shoppers there was sufficient supply so “we can all poop for 10 years.” (Perhaps more worrisome, a 2015 survey found the Dutch were the least likely among Europeans to wash their hands after using the restroom; Bosnians and Turks fared much better.) A Lebanese friend cited a local saying that “we lived 20 years of civil war and never once were we out of toilet paper.”
The great divide occurs around the use of bidets. As a Jordanian smugly told me, the TP hoarders are those who don’t use them. An Azerbaijani friend said his compatriots “tend to use water.” An amused Bosnian pointed out that toilet paper takes up storage space and people could simply shower. And an American posted on Facebook that her husband presciently requested a bidet last Christmas; sales have recently increased ten-fold. Across Africa, expats told me many people there cannot afford or culturally do not use toilet paper.
………
Masks serve multiple purposes
In the West, people are mostly avoiding masks, heeding doctors’ pleas to save them for health workers. But they are ubiquitous in Asia, though many already wore them to address air pollution. An Indian friend reported that a temple covered its idols with masks to protect them. In Lebanon, a friend said masks are serving a new purpose: Many women get botox in their lips every few months, but now some are wearing masks and postponing their fillers.
Panic-buying is widespread, but ingredients vary
Germans, who have a word for everything, describe panic shopping as “Hamsterkauf”— mindless spending like a hamster storing food in its cheeks. Almost everyone across the Western world is stockpiling pasta. Spaniards are panic-buying toilet paper and jamón, with a meme showing someone slicing a loo roll as if it were meat. An expat in Kyrgyzstan heard radio commentators encouraging people to buy sugar and flour. Moldovans are purchasing garlic, with the cost recently tripling. Afghans are stockpiling rice, wheat and cooking oil, as prices skyrocket. Feta cheese sales are high in Greece. Serbs are buying rakija (a fruit brandy), while Finns are investing in multi-liter boxed wines. In the Netherlands, people panicked after the government announced plans to close “coffee shops” and formed long lines to stock up on weed.
Some shoppers are driven by memories of previous periods of deprivation. In Lithuania, a friend saw Soviet echoes in purchases of buckwheat and other grain for making porridges, pasta and potatoes. In Denmark, people are buying rye bread and yeast. (A Danish friend explained that a 1998 labor strike led to yeast hoarding when locals anticipated shops closing; although a shortage occurred then, producers anticipated the coming crisis and ensured sufficient capacity.)
……..
- Discussion
-
People in different countries are weathering this crisis in vastly different ways — finding different products to hoard, different ways to pass the time, different people to blame and even different things to worry abouthttps://t.co/dXyHzuseVg
— POLITICO (@politico) March 22, 2020
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.