WUHAN, China -- Customers formed lines in front of stores in Wuhan from early that morning. At 10 a.m., all public transport, including the subway and buses, stopped operating. The world was about to change on a monumental scale.
Before dawn on Jan. 23, 2020, Masahiko Kakitsubata, managing director of Aeon (Hubei) Co., received an email from an employee. "Today the city will go into lockdown," the email said. That day, a full lockdown was imposed on Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province where the novel coronavirus was first detected.
Kakitsubata scrambled for information. What will happen from tomorrow? How will staff get home from work? Employees arriving at work were already starting to panic. The store opened for business that day, but with restrictions on the number of customers allowed inside. Despite this, meat sold out in an hour; the vegetables were all sold in two.
Kakitsubata, 51, had no hesitation in deciding all five Aeon stores in Wuhan would continue operating from the following day, as supplying food to the region made them a key cog in the city's infrastructure. Even so, Kakitsubata needed his employees to buy in to this plan. Kakitsubata sent an email written in Japanese and Chinese to all of his about 1,000 employees that said: "As a retailer, there are things Aeon should do. I need your help."
At the time, the virus' infectivity and severity were still unknown. Everyone was worried about passing the virus to their family members. "My wife and daughters were worried about me, but taking time off work wasn't an option," recalled Wu Di, 36, who was manager of Aeon's second store in Wuhan. He spent two hours commuting by bicycle each day while the public transport network was shut down.
About one-third of the employees came to work the day after the lockdown started. That figure increased as the days went by. The sight of one employee manning a cash register while wearing a raincoat as protection against the virus brought a tear to Kakitsubata's eye.
"I was really grateful for their commitment. If any of the employees had died, it would have been my responsibility as the head," Kakitsubata said.
--178,000 food deliveries
Wuhan, a major inland city that sits on the Yangtze River, flourished as a transport hub since long ago. More than 150 Japanese companies, including Aeon, Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co., operate in Wuhan, which has a population of about 11 million people.
There had been signs a mysterious virus was circulating.
Since mid-December 2019, Japanese company employees stationed in Wuhan had heard whispers about an outbreak of an unknown pneumonia, especially among people connected to a seafood market in the center of the city. "There seems to be a problem," the rumors suggested. On Dec. 30, posts about SARS -- a contagious and sometimes fatal respiratory illness -- were all over social media.
On the afternoon of Dec. 31, Wuhan city authorities announced 27 people were suffering from a pneumonia of unknown origin. On Jan. 1, 2020, the market was shut down, and a Chinese government team of experts determined by Jan. 7 that the pathogen was a new coronavirus.
On Feb. 11, the city authorities ordered residents to stay in their homes. When Aeon stores started food deliveries, Kakitsubata himself helped pack the groceries and pushed heavy iron baskets up to 1 kilometer to deliver the goods. He lost 5 or 6 kilograms due to these physical exertions.
Food deliveries continued even after the lockdown was lifted on April 8. By April 20, the company had made a total of about 178,000 deliveries.
--Honest business approach
After the lockdown was lifted, an elderly woman in the store suddenly bowed as she approached Liu Xiaoyuan, a senior sales official. Liu, 33, did not know this customer, but she said to her, "Thank you very much for delivering food every day." Liu was surprised but also felt a surge of emotion.
Strict information controls imposed in China have left many people more trusting of gossip they read on social media than of government announcements. Even now, rumors about Aeon – that people got infected in the store, or that people with the virus shop there – ping about online.
On the day the lockdown started, Chinese cabbage that Aeon sold for 3 yuan (about 50 yen) each was being sold for 70 yuan (about 1,100 yen) at other supermarkets. Aeon, which has operated through many natural disasters in Japan, does not increase its prices in times of emergency. The stores in Wuhan were later praised for this "honest approach to business" on social media.
Kakitsubata left his wife and three children behind in Japan when he took up his post in Wuhan in March 2018. Confronting an unprecedented crisis there has hammered home to him what is important as a boss.
"If we don't get fooled by hoaxes and keep supplying products that are safe and secure, we'll win in the end," Kakitsubata said. "It would be wonderful if my employees, and their families, feel glad that they work for Aeon in Wuhan."
Kakitsubata has received a flurry of requests from Japan to give talks on crisis management. However, he has not returned even once to Japan since the epidemic erupted.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
