Comments on: Coughs and sneezes

By: adekun

adekun — Fri, 29 May 2009 13:42:43 +0000

The news does tend to be of the same sort. If there’s something to be fearful of, then the people can see all the efforts being made by the bureaucrats.
There was hardly any coverage of the radiation leak and fire up at the power station in Niigata – unlike the rest of the world (it’s just reopened for testing). That was quickly forgotten by most people.
I guess things aren’t panicky up here – still you can’t buy face masks…

By: lapiz

lapiz — Thu, 28 May 2009 10:12:36 +0000

Yes, One case in Kyoto and we were swiftly ejected from our language school for a week. While my partner teaches at 3 unis, all have which have closed – but at different times! Now we are back, although as far as I can tell there’s no particular evidence the danger has passed after only a few days.
What we want to know is, what’s the real news? Remember that pop star who covered the news for days for stripping off in a park? A friend told me that was the day Japan backed out of an environmental protection law (i think she said it was)which activists were campaigning about – and none of the major papers reported it.
On the other hand, I’ve certainly been told to wash my hands and use that spray enough times recently – and if masks were going to work anywhere it’d be in Japan, since they only work if it’s the sick people who wear them, requiring some responsible public-spiritedness not just self-protection.

By: Denise

Denise — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:59:25 +0000

A “sukiyaki party” party sounds like an excellent trade for an air show! Are you talking about Swine Flu? We haven’t heard much about that over here lately. For about a month, it was ALL we heard about – especially being so close to Mexico .. but then, it disappeared.. Of course, our attention span is quite small, so when the American Idol finals came around, THAT was all we focused on. LOL! )