Yoshida doesn't expect foreign visitors to return until cherry blossom season next year. It is also boosting mail-order sales and has introduced colourful face masks in a psychedelic flurry of hues and bear-shaped pouches useful for carrying hand sanitizers.
“Then suddenly no one could come.”Ħ%DOKIDOKI opened 26 years ago and has a loyal following: when it was imperilled by the pandemic downturn, supporters in and outside Japan started up crowd-funding campaigns to keep it afloat. “We had so many foreign customers before the pandemic,” she said. They use, Kawaii!,' in the same way they say, Wonderful,' 'Awesome,' or Lovely,' " said manager Yui Yoshida, noting Japanese tend to use the word mainly for tangible things like cute puppies. “Foreigners understand kawaii' more emotionally than do Japanese. That's a hardship for the many businesses that had come to rely on foreign tourists, who numbered 32 million in 2019, before the pandemic. While other Asian countries are inching toward reopening, Japanese borders will likely remain shut for some time to come. Like much of Asia, including Taiwan, Vietnam and Australia, Japan's borders remain closed to tourists.
What it doesn't have enough of, as in zero, are foreign tourists. Filled with pink and fuzzy things and cuddly bears, 6%DOKIDOKI, a tiny store in the heart of Tokyo's Harajuku district, is bursting with “kawaii,” the Japanese for “cuteness.”
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