A picture created and posted on SNSs by Ofuna Botanical Garden to call for measures against the new coronavirus. (Photo by Ofuna Botanical Garden)
KANAGAWA, Jun. 23 – “Keep one-banana-leaf social distancing with others”. A botanical garden in Kamakura City, Kanagawa Prefecture, says so in its poster it recently created. It was posted on the walls and the Internet for encouraging visitors to maintain social distancing as a preventative measure against the novel coronavirus, catching the attention of many, especially among social networking service (SNS) users.
Ofuna Botanical Garden in Kanagawa Prefecture had been closed since April 10 after the state of emergency declaration, but it reopened on June 9.
On the same day, the botanical garden posted a picture of two staff members standing apart from each other with a long big banana leaf between the two on SNSs to call for preventative measures against the disease, and received more than 1,100 favorable responses by June 22.
The Kamakura-based botanical garden currently has around 500 visitors a day, less than usual. However, it has more people visiting a banana area lately because of the SNS posts and the posters on the wall.
Toumu Ishikawa, 29, a public relations official of the botanical garden, said, “Bananas are popular among children. We hope them to learn about the importance of social distancing and the size of a banana leaf at the same time, and have more interest in plants.”