Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood

by Rose George

The Nazis, obsessed with the purity of blood, decided A was Aryan; B was inferior.23 The Japanese even now believe that blood type involves far more than what antigens are on the outside of each blood cell. A types are perfectionist, kind, calm even in an emergency, and safe drivers; Bs are eccentric and selfish, but cheery. Os are both vigorous and cautious while ABs, obviously, are complicated.24 A book on blood types in beautiful women was a bestseller, along with the author’s follow-up, a book on blood types relating to lunch boxes.25 Blood typing has serious consequences: people are denied jobs because of it and it is thought necessary to making a good dating choice. In 2011, when government minister Ryu Matsumoto resigned a week after taking office, having offended survivors of Fukushima and the earthquake, he blamed his blood type. “My blood is type B,” he told reporters, “which means I can be irritable and impetuous […] My wife called me earlier to point that out.”26 Blood type discrimination somehow nicely slots in with perceptions of inferior minorities: AB and B, more common in Taiwanese and Ainu people, are thought to be violent, backward, and cruel.