Tuesday, June 2, 2009

UNMASKING JAPAN (by Michael C.)

Excerpts from

"A slight unmasking of Japan's flu 'pandemic'"


By PHILIP BRASOR

Japan Times
Sunday, May 31, 2009

link

"Japan's anxiety over the sudden increase in confirmed cases of H1N1 flu that led to closings of schools in the Kansai region. Europe seemed barely concerned about the new flu and when I caught BBC World in hotel rooms or at friends' homes the flu was mentioned only in relation to Japan, even if there were still more cases in North America. Nevertheless, the feeling of alarm in Japan was conveyed. All a report had to do was show footage of a crowd of people wearing face masks."


"So if Japan's own sense of its hygienic habits could be seen as having an exceptional cast it probably comes down to this whole mask business, which offers the starkest contrast between Japan's approach to the flu outbreak and the West's — or the rest of Asia's, for that matter."













"I just came back from Singapore," said a prominent entrepreneur when he was a guest last week on the Nihon TV news show "Bankisha." "I could tell who was Japanese because they were the only ones wearing masks."



































After reading this article about H1N1 (Swine Flu) as it relates to Japan, I went to search for some images of a traditional Japanese Masks, and stumbled across all of these. Not to be outdone, (and true Japanese Spirit) it seems as though Japan is cashing in on the H1N1 epidemic and turning it into a trend.

Japanese designer simira boon
http://www.samiraboon.com/

1 comment:

  1. I was in contact with some of the people in Japanese classes at my high school. Their trip to Japan got cancelled due to the swine flu epidemic...

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