Japanese are pretty risk aversive folks, so when a school sickness spreads, so does an excessive frenzy of paranoia. Walking into school one day, I was immediately instructed to strap one of these freaky things on my face!
Was it the flu? Some contagious disease? No, they said, just a mandatory precautionary measure... Everyone in the school (all 500 of us) walked around like we were in a leopard ward. They were absolutely flabbergasted when I told them it was my first time wearing a mask, as if the only way to not get sick. I told them "In America, if we don't want to get sick we wash our hands often, cover our mouths if we sneeze or cough, and try not to go around making out with sick people." They were silent. I was silently laughing.
In the end, I was lucky I wore the mask. 10 students died within a week, and another 12 were stuck in a hospital for weeks. Kidding of course, the "school bug" vanished in a matter of days (thanks to all that mask wearing) :)
No comments:
Post a Comment