April 1, 2020　(no foolin’)

I have been holed up all day in my office writing and listening to recordings of Eric Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos concerts from 1970, venturing out just a couple times to take care of some errands.  I am staying inside not because of the coronavirus but because it is cold and rainy.  Just like a typical day in Oregon.  Although the virus scare isn’t what is keeping me indoors today, it has been on my mind and is the subject of this essay.

I have been following the news about the virus in America more closely the past few days as it increasingly takes its toll on lives and normalcy.  It feels like I am watching science-fiction movie where some unseen alien life form has invaded and is trying to take over not just the US but the entire world.  No one knows what to do (especially in the US!), and no one knows how to fight it, at least not yet.  Even the US navy has no idea what to do to prevent its spread.  It made me think back to nine years ago when the great earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, killing something like 20,000 people and somewhat disrupting life in general for the entire country and, in some regions, immensely.  I still vividly remembering turning the TV on and watching live helicopter shots of the approaching tsunami as it hit the shore, speeding much faster than the cars trying, and failing, to escape to higher ground.  The difference is the tsunami happened quickly, in a matter of a few minutes, or maybe a couple of hours.  The virus is doing something similar, but without the physical destruction, and in slow motion.  On March 11, 2011, if you were in Japan you probably knew for sure if you were going to be safe and out of harm’s way.  This year you don’t know.  Is my scratchy throat due to the coronavirus or from the smoky izakaya I went to the other night?  Since I have not had any other symptoms, I am pretty certain it is from the smoke, something that hopefully will no longer happen in most places from today on thanks Tokyo Governor Koike’s efforts at implementing a ban on indoor smoking before the Olympics.  I just hope the one-year delay in the games doesn’t also mean a one-year delay in the smoking ban.

I must admit I feel fortunate to live in Japan and to be here now.  For most people life is going on pretty much as normal.  Restaurants are open, many of them full, especially the better places.  Stores are for the most part open as usual, although I can’t understand the panic buying of toilet paper.  Nor of Suntory Kakubin whisky, which seems to missing from the shelves of all the stores I have been to in the past few days.  I can understand department stores closing on weekends, as Takashimaya did over the weekend, as there just are no customers, or at least foreign customers.

WHY?

Clapton singing “Why Does Love Have to be so Sad” gets me thinking about why Japan has not been harder hit by the virus.  Because Why? Why has Japan been spared so far, despite being having the oldest average population in the world, meaning the highest percentage of elderly people, the group most at risk, as well as the highest percentage of male smokers among the group of G-7 nations, smoking being perhaps the biggest risk factor as far as the risk of infection and especially death goes.  Is Japan safe because much of the population, especially in the Tokyo region normally wears masks in February and March and into April?  Normal years not because of virus fears but because of the much more immediate and annually appearing problem of pollen allergies, mostly from the pollen of the Japanese cedar tree (sugi), a specie that was widely planted as a mono-culture forestry crop in the post-WWII era.  Is it because people bow rather than shake hands or, as in much of Europe, kiss on the cheek?  Is it something in the diet here, perhaps something found in sea vegetables or fermented foods like miso.  Both are eaten by most people most days and are also quite unique in world cuisine.  Or is it because people here have access to healthcare, and they use it?

I guess, or maybe I should say hope, we will soon find out what the cure is.  In the meantime, I think it is time for a quarantine which today will be tequila base.  Cheers!