Seasons Greetings

It rained much of the day. It will almost surely rain a bit tomorrow. Also, the next day.

And while June kicks off this region's Rainy Season, ask a local if this three-day streak of precipitation is Rainy Season rain and they'll laugh you off. "It's not June!" they'll say by way of a soft, judging chuckle. "Rainy Season starts in June."

"Haha!" you'll say, until you realize it's not a joke.

I've said it many times, but I would stress here that I am not a weather scientist. However, I am willing to wager that the Rainy Season sometimes starts a bit earlier or later depending on, you know, patterns and models and Russian intervention.

Everything has an assigned season here. Last night, after a dinner of Indian curry and nan, a small group of us went down by the sea and lit off some fireworks. This is a summer activity no matter where in the world, but in Japan it's narrowed down to August.

When I told a Japanese friend via online chat what I had been up to, she admonished that it was a little early for fireworks. "We usually do it in August," she said, using "we" to mean "Japanese people." Of course we had a Japanese person in our group, and she actually was the one who suggested it.

It may not come as a surprise though that this person just got back from living a year in Australia. It's pretty clear that her season recognition abilities have been affected by her trip overseas.

Either that, or it was the Russians.

Swine

After a long vacation from the blog I though I'd try a post.

How could I not start with the Top Breaking Urgent Panic Bulletin item of the day:

Swine Flu!

In Japan, it's called shin-gata influena, with "shin" meaning "new," "gata" meaning "type," and "influenza" meaning "panic."

Japan's first reaction was to try to keep the new flu out, despite conventional wisdom among public health experts that it was too late to contain the disease.

The general murmur here was to avoid travel to infected countries, screen incoming passengers from said countries, and prepare just in case it somehow gets in.

Of course, it got in. Not long ago a some students who had been on a homestay program in Canada were found to have the new flu (since they changed planes in Detroit, however, the Japanese media decided they had come from the United States).

Since the only cases among Japanese people were those who contracted the disease overseas, Japan continued to operate under the inside outsie mentality. Xenophobia prevailed. One ALT colleage had a Japanese teacher come up to him and ask if he was going to get checked out for the swine flu, despite the fact the he hadn't been overseas or exposed to anyone else who had.

Over the weekend, a explosion of cases in two western prefectures, Osaka and Hyogo, has renewed -- and perhaps recasted -- the panic. Now there are at least 130 cases in Japan, most in Osaka and Hyogo, where more than 3,000 educational institutions have shut down for at least week.

The public schools in Mie have restricted out of prefecture travel and are strongly suggestion personal travel be put on hold unless it's absolutely necessary. A friend who recently went back to the states for a wedding is barred from going to work this week.

My question -- especially since I'm planning to go to Oregon for a friend's wedding next month -- is how the new developments might change the attitudes of panic-happy Japanese.

Logic says that since it's already here and spreading, efforts to keep Japan sealed have failed. Why restrict travel when it's already here and spreading?

But I'm not sure it works that way here. They increased panic might just inspire even stronger reactions out of ignorance or an effort to appear to be doing something about the threat.

Anyway. I'm watching developments closely.

Wow ... I set out thikning I'd try a light-hearted post on swine flu in Japan but looking back it's not very light.

More later!