The Pandemic Through Japanese Eyes: Covid-19 Reflected in Digital Haiku

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, cyber literature, particularly digital poetry, has seen substantial growth. The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in late 2019 in Wuhan, China, and spread globally in 2020, has altered people's livelihoods. The requirement to wear masks and the policy of enforcing home quarantine have transformed society. People can stay up to date with COVID-19 developments every day thanks to the rapid flow of information made available via social media and the internet. Schools are closed, and instruction is delivered via the internet. Many organizations have introduced work-from-home policies for its staff. This social transformation has had an impact on society's online culture. During the epidemic, social media and the internet have become one of the primary means of communication, news gathering, study, and working. COVID-19 has influenced not only the world's social patterns, but also Japanese poetry, including haiku. During the COVID-19 pandemic, haiku became a way for Japanese people to cope with despair and aggravation caused by having to work from home or limits on activities outside of the home. Haiku is a brief form of Japanese poetry that evolved from the game haikai no renga, a chain poetry game popular in the fourteenth century. Haiku is thought to be able to capture the mood of the Japanese people. This study looks at how the Japanese perceive the COVID-19 epidemic through digital haiku on the jphaiku.jp portal. The data used is a collection of pandemic-themed haiku from 2020-2021. The data analysis method is based on van Dijk's critical discourse analysis theory. The study's findings revealed that the COVID-19 epidemic was initially viewed as a brief pause in activity before evolving into a terrible beast that was expected to vanish soon.