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Silent screams: Japan rollercoaster virus guide wins hearts

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Agence France-Presse

<figure class="op-interactive"><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PMm5QVZ6QeY?enablejsapi=1" width="560"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div><p>TOKYO -- It might be the unlikeliest instructional video ever, but footage of two Japanese amusement park executives demonstrating how to &quot;scream inside your heart&quot; to avoid spreading COVID-19 while on a rollercoaster has been a roaring success.</p><p>&quot;Now our customers stay silent while riding on rollercoasters,&quot; a spokeswoman for amusement park operator Fujikyuko told AFP, after the video on riding etiquette for the coronavirus era went viral.</p><p>The video features the executives, one in a full suit and tie, the other in a shirt and bowtie, sitting stiffbacked and straightfaced in silence, with only the only sounds coming from the whipping of the wind and the grinding of the rollercoaster.</p><p>As they plunge downwards, one executive serenely readjusts his hair, and his facemask, but both otherwise remain stoically silent, even as they sway violently in the coaster car.</p><p>At the end of the ride, one man lifts his hands off the seat handles, visibly trembling. A black screen follows featuring advice that some social media users have dubbed a slogan for 2020: &quot;scream inside your heart.&quot;</p><p>The video was first posted last month, as coronavirus restrictions eased and reopening theme parks asked visitors to avoid screaming and keep social distance.</p><p>&quot;Even though the amusement park association&#x27;s guidelines ask you to &#x27;refrain from speaking loudly&#x27; we have received complaints it is &#x27;difficult&#x27; or &#x27;impossible&#x27;, so Fujikyu Highland offers a good example,&quot; the operator said on its website with the video.</p><p>It promised customers who could keep their screams silent would get a discount on photos taken of them on the park&#x27;s signature Fujiyama coaster, which plunges riders from a height of more than 71 metres.</p><p>On Twitter, the footage delighted viewers in Japan and around the world.</p><p>&quot;This video is great fun,&quot; one Japanese user wrote. Others lauded the theme park for inadvertently summarizing the way many have felt after months of the coronavirus pandemic.</p><p>&quot;Literally the best description of 2020 I&#x27;ve ever read: please scream inside your heart,&quot; one Twitter user wrote.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

<p>It might be the unlikeliest instructional video ever, but footage of two Japanese amusement park executives demonstrating how to "scream inside your heart" to avoid spreading COVID-19 while on a rollercoaster has been a roaring success.</p>

It might be the unlikeliest instructional video ever, but footage of two Japanese amusement park executives demonstrating how to "scream inside your heart" to avoid spreading COVID-19 while on a rollercoaster has been a roaring success.