If you go to a job interview inJapan, one of the first questions that you will have to answer will be what is your blood type. And it is not that they are looking for donors. For the Japanese, blood type defines our personality.
According to the Japanese, those of the blood groupA they are perfectionists but too eager. Those of the groupB they are cheerful, eccentric and selfish. The0they are curious, generous, and headstrong. And ABs are creative, mysterious, and unpredictable. The downside is that, although it makes as little sense as the horoscope, most Japanese seem to believe it squarely. Even Prime Minister Taro Aso has given it enough importance to make public on the Internet that he belongs to group A, while the leader of the opposition, Ozawa, is “a B”.
And there is still more. Four of the ten best-selling books in 2008 in Japan were dedicated to how the blood group (ketsueki-gata) determines personality. The obsession has reachedmarriage agencies, who test their clients for blood compatibility; to the departments ofhuman Resources, that take into account the blood type when accepting or rejecting a candidate; and even manykindergartens, where children are separated according to their blood group. Until thevideo game charactersas popular asResident EvilOFinal Fantasythey include the blood type in their profile. “We could be facing anew type of discrimination“Alerts Junichi Wadayama, from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labor, who assures that the problems that are beginning to appear are very similar to those posed by racism.
