First H1N1 Cases in Japan....ah shit!

Yep.....my life became just a little more difficult. I live in a mask culture. People in Japan wear masks at the drop of a hat. Not ski masks or welding masks(which are popular with middle aged women in Korea), but surgical masks. Yep, when someone is sick and doesn't want to share it, or wants to prevent getting little germies, they wear little white or blue masks.


Look! It's me wearing my fashionable, "Stay Away Influenza" mask! I actually feel like I'm beginning to fit in here!


Well, ever since the "swine flu"...or the name I prefer, H1N1 has been sweeping across the world, I've had to wear a mask t work. it's a regulation. All the teachers and students are supposed to wear them. I suppose not everyone though. The kiddies in the daycare don't have to. The masks are uncomfortable, hot and obviously not very effective. BUT....I will be now forced to wear one (it's some sort of government regulation at schools) of the cursed things indefinitely since as of TODAY, Japan has it's first OFFICIAL cases of H1N1. Yep, 3 people from Osaka. Two high school boys and their teacher who had been staying at a home stay in Oakville, Ontario, Canada! Eeeekkkkk.....


Osaka school holds assembly to explain new-flu infections to students
OSAKA —

An Osaka Prefecture-run high school held an assembly Saturday to explain developments after two of its students and a teacher were found on their return from a trip abroad Friday to have caught the new strain of influenza in the first cases of the new flu in Japan. Masato Nakanishi, chief of the Osaka prefectural education board, told reporters that the school in Neyagawa, Osaka, will remain open as usual as students who did not take part in the trip are unlikely to be infected with the disease.

The two 16-year-old students and the 46-year-old teacher had been staying in Oakville, Canada, from April 24 on a short-term study program. In the face of reports about the spread of the new flu in Canada, the school sent 50 masks to the group of students there. They did not wear the masks as there were not many local residents wearing them, school officials said. ‘‘It may have led to a different result if they had wore masks,’’ the school principal told reporters.Japan Today...


The best way to describe the Japanese Media's way of dealing with the H1N1 situation up until this point has been frenzied hysteria. It's only going to get worse from now on! By the way, what is the level beyond "frenzied hysteria"? "Shitting your pants everywhere panic"??? I'm not sure!


Of course...I almost forgot, check out my latest You Tube creation!
Weird Crap under a Bridge