East Meets Worst: Patrick

I can’t breathe very well right now. Every time I exhale I get a hot blast of stale air down my collar and up in my eyes. But there’s really nothing I can do about that because my school is requiring me to wear a sick mask.

Rather than explaining what it a sick mask is, it’s better to just show you.

These masks have been worn all over Japan for decades by people who have a cold or don’t want to catch one. It’s pretty common to see them in the winter time and it’s a nice gesture to wear one when you’re sick, seeing as you work and live in such close quarters with everyone around you. However, being forced to wear one when you are not sick and no one around you is sick is kind of aggravating.

If you remember back a few months, I’m sure you can recall the big scare about swine flu. Pigs from Mexico escaped from an underground research facility and started biting tourists in Cancun. Or something like that. One way or another, a special Piggy Brand of the flu started spreading around and making people mildly sick. Yes, some died unfortunately, but the number that did were only a fraction of the number that die every year from the regular flu.

Nevertheless, people got crazy! Swine flu was sweeping the nation and no one was safe, especially not you. Everybody reported on it, everyone was scared of it, and that most certainly included Japan.

During what I refer as the “first scare” (in actuality, pig flu has been around since 1918), Japan joined the U.S. in their obsessive freak-out over the flu. But while America got bored and moved on to other useless fears, Japan stayed on the case and ceaselessly beat the horse until it was not only dead but hardly recognizable as an animal.

Every day in our morning meetings, the school nurse gave an influenza report. People around my desk where always talking about “buta infuruenza” (pig flu) and how many people were infected.

Pretty soon, English-speaking teachers in my school kept coming up to me and telling me new facts about the pandemic. “Someone in Japan was infected. I think it was in Kyoto.” “The pandemic spread to Kobe. One hundred people died yesterday!” “Did you hear the five hundred people died in Osaka? It’s getting closer to us!” These words stirred visions of oinking zombies in my mind. I mean, how could five hundred people die in one day from a mild form of the flu? Zombies had to be involved.

It was around this time that Katie and I went to Korea. We ran into quite a few English speaking Koreans and talked extensively with an American soldier and his family. None of them seemed to care about swine flu and most had forgotten about it. The Korean TV we watched had nothing to do with pig flu and offered three episodes of the Simpsons every night. It was a beautiful break from Japanese TV.

Upon returning to Japan, the airport was on lockdown. EVERY worker wore a mask, and we were required to sign a paper declaring we felt perfectly fine. If it was found to be false we would be imprisoned for five months and fined 500,000 yen (about $5000 USD).

It turns out we got off easy. A week later, flights coming into Japan from foreign countries were kept on the ground for an hour to have people in biohazard suits take everyone’s temperature.

School got worse. People started wearing more and more masks, and schools all over Shiga started to close for weeks on end (mine didn’t unfortunately). The annual sports festival was cancelled because such a large gathering of people would certainly result in thousands dead. The festival, of course, is nothing like the crowded trains everyone rides every day.

The last straw came for me when my friend Patrick was prohibited from going home to America to be the best man in his brother’s wedding. The PTA put pressure on his principal who did not allow him to use his vacation days. Up until this point, it was just some ridiculous and mildly inconveniencing hype. But this took it too far.

It surprised me so much that all of Japan’s attention was on the fact that it was a “new type of flu” and not that the symptoms were actually milder than the average flu. It also surprised me that the signs posted everywhere about properly washing your hands after peeing were still ignored by every man I saw leave the bathroom. And the real kicker is that a country so concerned with hygiene still poops on the floor and (occasionally) washes their hands with a communal bar of soap sitting in standing water.

The one thing I can’t stand about Japan more than anything is the blatant disregard for facts and new information. If you find out that bugs get under your tatami (rice straw floor mats), then put carpeting in your house. If you find your house gets unnaturally cold in the winter, try that new insulation everyone’s talking about. And if you find you’re getting sick, wash your hands after you pee on them!

To be fair, the pig flu hysteria died down but only after the damage was done. Everyone got crazy, kids didn’t go to their sports festival, and Patrick didn’t get to go to his brother’s wedding. But despite it being low-key, it’s still annoying that because of an even newer new type of pig flu, we all have to wear masks even today. It doesn’t matter that no other country in the world cares about this new type of flu. It’s still capable of destroying the nation.

And to make my point one more time, I’d like to show that Center for Disease Control does not recommend the wearing of face masks for prevention of swine flu. I’m not saying that they just don’t mention it; I’m saying they flat out advise against it! In fact, according to mask manufacturer 3M “standards show how well respirators filter out particles in industrial settings, but there are no established exposure limits for biological agents such as swine flu virus” And Dr. Laurene Mascola, director of acute communicable disease control for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health says that, “Masks may give people a false sense of security.”

Of course, that’s what it’s all about in Japan. A sense of security. Scared of pig flu? Wear a mask. Scared of women? Get a virtual dating game. Scared of people? Become a shut-in. Scared of dealing with problems or social expectations? Buy another Hello Kitty charm or character strap to hang off your phone. In fact, buy as many as possible because the more character goods you have the happier you will be.

I'm not trying to be a Japan hater, because I'm not. I really do love living here. Illogical panics that serve no purpose just get under my skin. And I am infamous for buying too many little character key chains and action figures, but I don't use it as my primary source of comfort. I promise you, I really love this country but sometimes it can be the most ridiculous place on earth.