Skirting past the massive, fever-wracked, dry hacking elephant in everyone's room for just a moment, it's almost two weeks post-equinox, and with calendar winter finally a bit behind us - spring seems to be making a more tentative and measured debut in these storied precincts. This week it actually snowed in Tokyo - a bit of an aberration for the end of March.
The first sakura started emerging on a couple of frail little trees in the courtyard behind our danchii almost three weeks ago, and now the main-event blossoms are starting to enter their prime. Explosions of tiny pink-white flowers are finally starting to overwhelm the multitudes of cherry tree boughs in the park across the road, and up the canal side. The temperatures have been doing their seasonal jet coaster thing since the beginning of the month. Typically, this consists of a short stretch of mildish, even slightly warm weather, followed by an equal measure of cold, wet and wintery days. It usually carries on like this until around mid-April, when things tend to settle down just a bit - at least until early June, when the rains take over.
When you happen to be out in a t-shirt and light jacket (because 'yesterday was 22C'), and that dry Siberian north wind comes roaring down across the Sea of Japan, it can feel like you're being hit with a hail of a thousand tiny, icy knives. Needless to say, this plays absolute havoc with my bronchial asthma. Throw the annual fun-fest of non-specific spring pollen allergies, and end-of-winter colds into the mix, and it's easy to just sort of wallow in a morass of endless symptoms and medications until early May. Under normal circumstances.
This year is far, far from normal.
For a start, don't dare sniffle, cough or sneeze in public. Or say the word 'corona' too loud. You're liable to start a stampede of people running around like their hair is on fire...or have someone call the hapless J-cops...who will show up half an hour later with over-sized butterfly nets, dressed up like they're fixing to go hunt for Easter eggs in the still glowing ruins of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor facilitry. At which point, the 'offending party' is long, long gone. Likely on public transit, or screaming, "I am corona! I am corona!" in an electronics appliance store, or on a street corner. All jesting aside, if one has a fever, and some anxiety about possibly being 'positive' for the virus, this approach seems to be the only way of actually insuring that a PCR test is administered in a timely fashion. There doesn't seem to be any enthusiasm at all for testing and screening would-be cases here in J-land. It seems that the priority is keeping the numbers down the simplest way possible. By not checking.
In a few recent instances, certain 'hyper-vigilant' commuters have actually gone so far as to pull the 'Emergency Stop' lever on moving trains because 'someone' without a mask inadvertently coughed or sneezed. Of course, chaos and panic ensued, and untold numbers of passengers were 'inconvenienced' while the authorities were summoned, and...well, you get the idea.
I can't help but wondering if these hyper-vigilant 'good citizen' train stoppers will be heeding the constantly repeated advice to practice 'social distancing' this hanami (cherry blossom viewing) season...or whether they'll be huddled together on smuggled blankets and plastic tarps with their friends and colleagues, sharing half-eaten yakitori sticks and toasting 'kanpai!', like there's no tomorrow? From the 'devil may care' types of public behaviour I've been seeing recently, all indications are that a good chunk of your garden-variety J-folk, while apparently aware of the risks, simply think that this type of viral infection can't, or won't happen to them. The sakura are calling...and while there are plenty of public advisories requesting that people refrain from their usual group drinking forays into Nagoya's popular hanami party areas, thus far there are no actual laws prohibiting it. Therein is the rub. Without an actual, enforceable law on the books, a good number of people are likely to simply shrug, and carry on. For such a 'group centered' society, it's curious to see so many people so utterly wrapped up in themselves. "Community spread?". Thousands of grinning Alfred E. Neumans, shrugging, lighting cigarettes and sipping canned beer under the shimmering pink blossoms. "What, me worry?" Ad nauseam.
In an oddly encouraging, if not largely token move, it seems that the local authorities in Tokyo have actually taken to cordoning off some of the more popular sakura viewing areas, in an effort to 'dissuade' the intrepid local natives from grouping, and generating more 'cluster' infections. The J-folk love grouping. It permeates every aspect of how they function as a society. Personal space and individualism have never been big things in these parts; in fact, they are discouraged, and essentially frowned upon. I fear that it will take a great deal more than a few cordoned-off sakura viewing spots, or 'suggestions' to 'practice social distancing' to effect any timely change in the way these folks go about things. It will likely take a few rather harder shocks. Even then...hopes are not particularly high.
As for me? You couldn't keep me far enough away from the hanami shit shows at Nagoya Castle or Tsurumai Park on a 'normal' year. Don't get me wrong...though I adore the season as much as any dyed-in-the-wool sakura-loving J-native...I can absolutely do without the grouping and drunken buffoonery that goes part-in-parcel with the annual festivities. Twenty or thirty years ago, I loved it. I'd be right in there, getting pissed and acting like an idiot until the wee hours, on as many separate occasions as I could squeeze in. Somehow I had the time, energy and enthusiasm for all that shit. I guess it was still a bit of a novelty. That cheap gold watch ain't so shiny anymore. Mission accomplished. Several times over.
These days, I get my sakura viewing in on my daily 10 km shots up the Horikawa canal. Nagoya is a loser, deadbeat town...but there are some beautiful, scenic local spots scattered hither and tither. My current running course takes me through some old historic areas peppered with landmarks and gardens, and a lot of well appointed public park land. The only problems (of course) are other runners, random 'dumb' pedestrians, and the odd smart phone fixated arsehole drivers looking to take my life into their hands. As with everything, timing is key. On a good day, I can get out the door in the 'sweet spot' (just after the early morning rush) and not get pissed rain on, "buffeted by a hail of a thousand, tiny icy knives", or set upon by smart phone fixated cyclists, motorists or fellow pedestrians...and just run, pretty much unfettered by the inherent douchebaggery of 'Joe Nagoya'. On days like this, life is indeed grand. Then it's back to base, to take care of business...and barring a couple of irregular, and dwindling, but as yet un-suspended teaching gigs, that's where I stay. Not such a huge deviation from the usual thing.
No more shots out to the used record shop, though.
That stings a bit.
Social distancing? Self-isolating? Right in my wheel house.
No, things weren't always this way. There was a time when I had a lot of 'friends' in this town, and spread myself around pretty liberally; but events of the last decade over here pushed me to turn a corner...and see the situations and people that I had surrounded myself with... not as I particularly wanted to see them - but as they really were. My own folly and carelessness...almost 20 years of it, all came home to roost. From crisis often comes clarity.
In the aftermath, metaphorically speaking, I decided to bury a lot of people. Or was it they who decided to bury me? Hard to reckon.
So called 'friends'.
I had to walk away, and start again. Back to 'zero'. Through this transition, my wife was amazingly steadfast. My 'rock'. My guide through, and ultimately out of the wreckage. I shudder to think of how I would have made it past that mess without her. I don't think I would have. I probably would have just pulled up my tent pegs and decided to 'call it a day'. Or a 'twenty years'. She is an amazing woman.
No looking back. At least that's the idea. There will always be a degree of bitterness that accompanies the betrayal of not just one individual; but an entire (former) community, though. Groups and grouping are everything to this lot. Isolating and banishing the outsider or misfit, to preserve the integrity and 'beautiful harmony' of the group is a time honoured matter of course. That's just the way things work. I always knew that. 'Hammer down the nail that sticks out', as the old adage goes. Or remove it.
On the other side, I've downsized. Rebuilt, and reassessed. Remade, and re-modeled. Built some nice walls...and dug myself a pretty deep mote too. I keep my distance now. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice..."
Social distancing? self-isolating? I'm already there.
Welcome to my world.
Needless to say, with the recent advent of this massive, fever-wracked, dry hacking elephant in everyone's room, we've entered a new era..and not everyone will have had the dubious benefit of having been put through a master class in social distancing and self isolating like yours truly.
Crowding and social grouping are like second nature to the local natives. Personal space? TWO METRES? Ha!
Good luck.
When my wife and I go grocery shopping, she always parks in the emptiest section of the supermarket parking lot...even if that means a longer walk from the car to the store. Her reasoning is that people here drive like such careless arseholes that she doesn't want to take a chance on getting sideswiped, or having our siding dented or scratched by some haphazard jerk-off that doesn't know how to open their car door properly.
Seven out of ten times, no matter how far away from the main 'cluster' of vehicles we park, or how many empty spaces there are, we'll come out to find that we've been sandwiched in. A car on either side of us, though there are scads of perfectly good vacant spots all around.
It's the same with bicycles. Though I always go to the far, empty side of bike parking areas, away from the parking 'cluster', it's virtually guaranteed that when I come out of the shop, three bikes are going to essentially be piled right on top of mine - despite the fact that there is ample space for these people to park elsewhere.
What gives?
In an earlier blog, I talked about the situation at movie theatres, with pre-booked/reserved seats. It's almost assured that no matter how many un-booked seats there are in the auditorium, people will insist on booking the seats on either side of my wife and I, making sure to book-end us.
The Japanese apparently group by nature.
The only situation where one doesn't see this happening is on the train. The (perpetually empty) bench seat beside a foreigner on a crowded commuter train is euphemistically called the 'gaijin space' by long term ex-pats-in-the-know.
NO ONE WILL SIT THERE. No matter what.
It can be rather amusing watching the flustered and exhausted natives do anything they can to avoid taking 'that seat'. If asked why they won't sit, they'll make some manner of excuse, like, "oh, it should be kept open for a senior, or disabled person", "I enjoy standing", "I only have 10 stops", ...etc.
Right.
Never mind that there's A GAIJIN THERE. Given the opportunity, these very same 'pious' individuals will invariably pretend to be asleep, rather than give up their own prized seats to an incoming senior or handicapped passenger. The only thing that the natives excel at perhaps more than 'grouping', is making excuses. It's absolutely second nature to them.
How on earth will these people manage to social distance? A tertiary glance back at history indicates that they may not be able to manage it.
They couldn't do it a century ago.
As history again proves that there really is 'nothing new under the sun', let's scrap the idea that we've entered some new, previously unseen nightmare paradigm.
Let's simply settle for 'recently uncharted territory'.
As of this writing, COVID-19 is a certified, full blown, worldwide pandemic, the like of which hasn't been seen on these shores since the global Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918-20.
Of course, no one currently living could claim to remember a thing about that; but the history is not hard to dig up. It was extremely well documented. The Spanish Flu is said to have initially been brought in to Japan by three sumo wrestlers, arriving from Taiwan (then a Japanese colony), and a single infected Japanese sailor from a warship anchored at the naval base in Yokosuka, during the spring of 1918. It was dubbed 'the epidemic cold'. As it spread, face masks ran out. It wrought havoc, shutting down schools and businesses, and forcing the cancellation of political rallies, sumo tournaments, and cultural events. It also decimated entire rural villages. When it finally subsided towards the end of 1920, the estimated death toll in Japan alone is said to have been in the area of 2.2 million people. It now appears that the lessons learned from this experience, not only here in Japan - but worldwide, have largely been lost to the sands of time. Obscured by the later horrors of the 20th century.
Self-isolating here at Atsuta base, Olde Nagoyaland, I'm privy to essentially the same (dis) information as everyone else. It's troubling, and more than a little frightening watching how this is all being (mis) handled by the Abe regime here in Japan. One would be hard pressed to find a government outside of North Korea that was less forthcoming, and more inherently untrustworthy. Whereas the J-natives have apparently been conditioned to simply accept whatever the sitting administration decides to tell them (which borders on nothing), ex-pats and foreign residents online have come out in numbers expressing fear, concern and dismay over what isn't being done - and what we're not being told. Look at how they utterly botched the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantine - finally just releasing cross infected and un-tested passengers in to the Tokyo mass transit system, to pack latent cases of infection to every corner of the country. It is still next to impossible to get tested. The sheer number of bureaucratic flaming hoops that need to be jumped through to even be considered for testing is almost unimaginable. This is the last thing someone gasping for air, and burning up with a fever of 39C needs to go through; yet...this is what's happening. The virus is gradually finding its way into the ex-pat community, as well. Tenable English language crisis services are virtually non existent. If and when sick foreigners do manage to reach someone who can furnish them with advice in their native tongue, they are being told to suck it up, and go home. To wait 4 days, then jump through all of those flaming hoops again if they don't feel any better. I am so fortunate that I'm not alone; yet that my wife is a veteran nurse in a large hospital is a huge worry in itself. The level of disorganization in hospitals here is astounding. She's entering the hive everyday, and taking risks that I would simply rather not see her take, simply by being there. All this from a country that expects to host a massive international event like the Tokyo Summer Olympics? It's absurd. Whereas the Japanese are loathe to practice any kind of social distancing that isn't being strictly enforced by a 'lockdown' edict, foreigners seem to be shutting themselves in and isolating. With cases spiking in recent days, the sense of fear and uncertainty among thinking people is palpable.
The thing is...so many appear not to be thinking.
The Abe regime's mantra is 'money first'. Following the leads of other major industrialized countries and implementing a two or three week lockdown would cost a great deal of money, and really put a hot fork up the arse of the Japanese economy. Until just over a week ago, Abe's lieutenants were insisting that the Olympics would move forward, 'no matter what'. They didn't back down until the IOC grudgingly agreed not to force a cancellation; but allow Japan to 'kick the can down the road' for another year, and 'postpone'. This is a first. Almost immediately (as if on cue), the number of 'disclosed' (read: impossible to conceal) infections shot up nearly 300% in Tokyo alone. Still, no decisive action. Just 'advice' and 'suggestions'. I work with two doctors over here. Last Saturday, one of them agreed that the only responsible way for Japan to avoid a situation similar to what we're seeing unfold in New York City, or central Europe, would be to order a three week lockdown, so as to get a handle on existing infections, flatten the curve of new cases, and at least begin to starve the virus out.
It's like Jaws. The corrupt fat cat mayor won't close Amity Island beach for fear of losing out on the 4th of July holiday weekend profits.
As long as there are bodies in the water, that shark ain't going anywhere, but to breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local beach. Yet - so it goes.
More tepid advisories. The latest is to try to avoid going to live houses, karaoke parties, or frequenting 'adulty' places like hostess clubs, because these types of establishments can provide ideal venues for clusters and 'community spread'. In other words, 'try to control yourselves'.
Jesus.
This Monday, I was waiting for my solitary evening student to show up. A nephrologist (kidney doctor) that I've been working with for over twenty years. Nice guy. Mild character. Because of his work, I'd made his start time flexible. As I currently have no other bookings on Monday evenings, anytime between 6:30 and 8:30 is fair game. Unsurprisingly, he's cancelled often these days; sometimes at the last minute. He hadn't come to any of his weekly classes this month, and Monday night was the final one for March. At around 8 pm, I finally got an email message. He apologized for the cancels, and asked if I would, "...suspend his class, until at least May", due to the unfolding local 'situation' with the COVID-19 pandemic. Of course, I agreed. Naturally, I can't charge a cancellation fee, as he's been so reliable and constant for so many years...and this is the definition of an extraordinary set of circumstances.
In addition to being concerned for his well being. I had also been harbouring just a bit of worry that he may inadvertently pack a dose of that virus back here, which might be potentially disastrous...as my age and chronic asthma situation puts me in a higher risk group. What's really going on at the hospital he works at is uncertain. My wife felt that it was probably pretty bad. Or chaos. In over 20 years, I've never had him ask for his weekly class to be suspended. He's a pretty stoic guy. He also has a young family. Fingers crossed that he comes through this alright.
The local news is rife with reports about New York or Italy...but they say very little about what is happening right here. As with the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown (ongoing), they aren't allowed to report on things that may cause panic, or disturb the country's 'beautiful' societal 'harmony' They can't say anything that may upset the status quo and interrupt Japan Inc.'s all important 'economic activity'. So we have no idea what's really going on under our own noses. The same goes for hospitals. Between regional medical facilities, there is no mechanism for the sharing of vital information regarding local cases, and where numbers of patients are being treated. Why this level of secrecy between medical institutions and care providers? It makes no sense.
I suppose it's that they don't trust their own health care workers to keep quiet. The rumour mill is always churning, and word travels pretty fast.
In what seems to be an April Fool's twist, the latest from Herr Abe is that the government, in its great wisdom, has decided that TWO CLOTH MASKS will be posted to every household in the country. Regardless of the number of people in said households. Not to mention that it's already been pointed out by experts that said cloth masks materially fall well below the threshold of WHO guidelines for what is considered adequate to provide a minimum level of protection against the airborne micro-droplets that can carry and spread the virus. Yet, the all knowing Japanese government marched forward anyways, spending a huge wad of tax-payer's money...on a cynical, empty gesture. A load of garbage that someone connected to the government just made a huge amount of money off of. Viva capitalism!
Then there's the matter of financial assistance for people struggling to pay their bills and put food on the table...in lieu of being able to work. Even without a full lockdown, tons of places have laid off, furloughed or simply fired their staff. Spring contracts are not being renewed. The initial idea was to issue cheques of ¥100,000 (around $10000) to everyone on the tax rolls. Now the Abe regime is suggesting that this may be 'too much'...and that perhaps simple vouchers for discounts on Japanese beef and fish may be what they finally settle on. REALLY? At what point do the J-folk take up pitchforks and torches, and start marching on the Diet buildings in Tokyo?
Which brings us back here to Atsuta Base, Olde Nagoyaland. Friday, am. No classes lined up for today. My remaining doctor student will be in tomorrow morning. It looks like the frigid Siberian wind and rains that have been the theme here since last weekend are giving way for a couple of days. Today and tomorrow promise to be mild and sunny...then it's back into the cooler. Mina just scooted off to the hospital. Fingers crossed that things are quiet in the dialysis ward, and that she practices adequate social distancing. The danger over there is community spread among staff, caused by administrative 'over-sight'. Or shall we just say 'boobery'.
I'll wrap this up, and get ready to do my run up the canal. My trek takes me up past a huge pachinko complex across from the far end of the north side of the park. The parking lot is packed every day. Through the bay windows of the chain ramen shop out front, the fat arses of shagged-out pachinko players can be seen on all the stools, slurping noodles elbow-to-elbow. Way to go J-folk. Like fucking champions. I'll run to the Horikawa canal-side, and check out the sakura, - which should be hitting their peak. Watch the locals not social distancing. Then wind my way back, and lock the doors. Probably come online, and watch people virtue signal and/or showboat like attention starved narcissists on Facebook. The usual. It would be nice to think that this would be all over by the next turn of seasons...but I can't see the current situation changing for the better anytime soon. One thing is certain, though...at the end of this road, things are going to be different.
At least for awhile.
If you've managed to ride this slightly longer than usual blog entry out to this end point, here we are. Stay safe. Away from the numbers. Keep your mitts away from your face...and wash your fucking hands. Oh - and do keep in mind..."No matter where you go - there you are". I'm hoping that's in your place of residence, and not some smokey pachinko hall, or sharing yakitori sticks at some cosy hanami party with your ne'er do well friendies.
Until next time...
