Last weekend was a “Mid Year seminar” for both ALT’s and Japanese Teachers of English (aka JTEs). The seminar covered a plethora of topics ranging from common teacher-alt problems to teaching methods for younger aged kids (i.e. Elementary Schoolers). Of course like most seminars there was some grandiose “hocus pocus look at me I’m the best” presentations… but on the whole it was a worthy experience that got me out of work for two days.

The down side was sharing of disease amongst everyone. Kids, of course, sneeze here almost nearly all the time without covering their mouth and that’s only because Japanese adults do too. For a “clean society” the simple act of “covering one’s mouth” has been replaced by a cheap 2 ply painter’s mast that’s been “dubbed up” as being a quote “surgical mask” which is supposed to either shield you from them, or protect them from you.

Suffice to say a child transferred a cold to an ALT, and the ALT gave it to me and probably several others. Now, the thing about having a cold in Japan is that here you have to fight two fronts. The first is the actual fighting of the symptoms and getting better… the second is the publicity fight where you have to convince on a regular basis that you’re not carrying the black plague.  I’m finding lately that being a part of a group is really awesome at times. The bad side is like right now where my cough get’s me ostracized from the group for no good reason.

It makes having a cold suck more I think. Even if you carefully explain to every passing soul that you simply have a bad cough and runny nose, they insist vehemently that I have a fever too and that I probably to go to a hospital.

At the same time as this all has been happening, it has also been quite a challenge to navigate the shelves of all the local drug stores here. In Japan, I’ll walk up and down isle after isle finding some aspirin here, cough syrup there, and maybe something for my runny nose if I’m lucky. Then just as I think my bases are covered a man or woman in white might walk over to me and stare at my meds without saying anything. Followed by them standing at a little desk staring forward… I picture it like a video game: Once you collect three plot items a new character arrive and perhaps a speech prompt bubble will pop up. Except in the real world there’s no speech prompt bubble.

Here in Japan I could probably buy my meds without this guy saying a peep, however when I say “excuse me I have a cold and could you tell me if I have the right medications” (in Japanese)  they’ll tell me that in fact these meds I’ve collected might be right in principal, but none of them can be taken together and that I should rather purchase this other box that covers all my symptoms (but is also like $25 for 10 pills). Then comes that stupid feeling on top of the having a cold feeling.

Good times. Good times.

~J

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