13. Covid Vignettes from the Japans
and- announcing the paid subscription option
Greetings, and congratulations if your world is now unmasked. Here in Japan, mask compliance remains around 99.5%. The hot, humid summer is right around the corner. Soon the cicadas will be buzzing and the sky will go from fluffy clouds on a canvas of brilliant blue to a single sheet of white haze. That 2 minute there-and-back to the community garbage shed might necessitate a 2nd shower. I've gotten used to it and can put up with the all-day soaked shirt, but with the masks, it's too much. Of course the mask will be soaked too, with the muggy air, your hot, damp exhalations and the sweat off your face. Who still thinks this is healthy?
Thirty kids at a junior high in Osaka were treated for overheating/exposure on an 84 degree day. One required hospitalization. They were all outdoors, and masked up. The principal got on TV for the obligatory I'm sorry. “We told them to take their masks off but they didn't.” Yeah, sure. At least nobody died, like the Chinese high-school basketball kids.
The two-year anniversary of my father-in-law's funeral was last week. We all dressed-up in formal black to attend the ceremony at the temple in the mountain town where he was born. The extended family was there, it was cool with a nice breeze up there on the hillside overlooking the town. I really didn't want to create a scene- maybe I could shuffle in unmasked, to a corner seat with nobody noticing. Nah, impossible as brother-in-law and mother-in-law were waiting at the entrance. What to do? I spend my pro-bono time on projects and interviews with KLA TV where we constantly tell our viewers how dangerous the jab is, how ridiculous the covid narrative is, and how useless and unhealthy the mask is. I should probably walk the walk, right?
But, but...it's faaamily! Do you want to be the course, unruly gaijin ruining grandfather's memorial ceremony, with everyone thinking you're a selfish idiot (my kids exempted, hopefully)? On the other hand, if I don't take the mask off, who will? What do my kids think about my principled stance on the internet, juxtaposed with my various capitulations in real life? How many Allen Stevo articles have I read and agreed with every word about tossing the masks? How often do I nod in agreement when RFK jr., Chuck Baldwin, and Archbishop Vigano exhort us to take a stand?
Then again, will it make a difference in the land that loves the mask? And most of my foreign friends here, even the anti-covidians, mask up when push comes to shove. “You're only going to look like the selfish, foreign jackass, even though you're right.” Yes, and the foreigner should leave his political activism back in his home country right? When in Rome, learn the language and do as you’re told!
But what if the local rules and norms are insane? What if compliance and obedience (to masking, jabbing, surveilling) is the path to hell?
What would Jiji (gramps), the man whose life we're celebrating, tell me to do? If he's watching us from the other side, how does he feel about his dear grandchildren all veiled for his ceremony? My lame, spur of the moment solution was to just skip the ceremony and take a walk around town. My wife saw me shuffling off and said, “It won't be long so take my cell phone.”
Wow, that was easy. The ceremony will be short and it'll all be done with. You see how things turn your way when you take a bold stand? I started off up the hill. A pleasant walk in the hills among the lush, springtime green. I passed a guy working in his garden. He looked at my suit and tie and said, “Are you coming from the temple?”
“Yeah, grandfather's funeral.”
He smiled and nodded and then the phone rang.
-Hello?
-It's starting!
-What?
-The ceremony. You have to get back now.
As my wife ran out to meet me in the parking lot, I said, “I'm not wearing the mask.”
-What!? Why are you doing this now? We're already out here! You should have decided this before coming!
The unspoken part was, “Don't ruin grandpa's ceremony in front of the whole family!”
My kids were at the entrance, watching me as I approached, now masked.
“You guys see this face?”
“Yeah.”
“It's the face of defeat.”
A year ago a US Navy guy drove his car into an elderly lady and her son-in-law just after turning off the road to the Mt. Fuji hiking trail. Both the woman and son-in-law later died. The 37 year-old lieutenant was on vacation with his family. He was driving down the mountain and pulled into a restaurant parking lot at one of the roadside stations. No precise cause was established by the court, but according to his family, the naval officer abruptly lost consciousness in the car, causing him to slump over behind the wheel after suffering acute mountain sickness. The man was put in solitary for 27 days and interrogated without legal representation. Recently the court found him negligent and he's looking at 3 years behind bars if the appeal fails. His parents from California are pleading for leniency. The comment section featured some criticism of the harshness of the legal system here, but lots of comment jockeys were harsh on the parents for expecting any sympathy. Stuff like, “It's Japan and you have to respect the local laws!... Throw the book at him!... It serves him right to be driving while tired... He shoulda let his wife drive!” Some commenters mentioned that it seemed like a weird time to black out, as you are coming down, not up into thinner air.
A fit and trim navy guy in his 30s just conks out at a roadside station at around 2,100m. Hmm. Seems I've heard this kind of story a lot recently. Are you wondering what I'm wondering? Aren’t those navy guys are all jabbed up?
One commenter gently posited the same thing I was thinking:
He was coherent, driving, and talking with his daughter then just collapsed? Was he vaccinated? Sorry, but I think it is a possibility that it could have been an adverse side effect of the vaccines. There has been many instances of people that unexpectedly collapsed from the vaccines. Lots of videos online.
The commenter was harshly ratioed for such conspiracy nonsense. In any case I might have to cancel that summer road trip in the Colorado Rockies. Colorado Scenic Byway and Pikes Peak Highway both top out at over 4,300m. It’s a wonder they allow driving at all, with all the acute mountain sickness and subsequent driver’s collapses.
Yesterday I went to Joyfull, a dirt-cheap family restaurant that serves a passable breakfast with unlimited espressos at the drink bar for about 5 bucks. Wasn't wearing a mask so I kept my distance from the 3 retired folks who shuffled in in front of me. In fact I waited from the other side of the glass front door while the three of them took their time with the alcohol goo squirter.
Wait, what are they doing now? Why is the lady bending over? Crikey, it's a temperature-reading machine, set at children's level, and you have to bend, bow, or kneel to get that low. That lady is only five feet tall at best. I'm going to have to squat like a catcher. The old folks are seated and I waltz past the forehead scanner and say, “Just one, for breakfast.”
“OK, sir. If you'll just get your temperature checked first, please.” and she gestured to the machine behind me. I turned around, passed the machine and walked out. How brave of me when the stakes are low. I went and got a coffee and a roll at the Family Mart. The cashier girl didn't care about my missing mask and I gathered by her friendliness that she was smiling behind hers.
I had to go to Tokyo last week with the boys to get their passports renewed. The embassy forces them to renew in person so instead of the cost of postage for the by-mail option, I pay
$65 for gas
$170 for toll fees
$20 for a parking spot a mile and a half away
which is cheaper than the $400 for round-trip train fares, but it would almost have been worth it to just take the Shinkansen and subway and avoid the full day of driving with the Tokyo traffic headache.
Then you add on $165 fee per renewal application and it comes out to a pretty expensive day. But hey, now we'll be good to go, after our $200 per-person PCR tests to get into the US. I guess I shouldn't complain; my Austrailian buddy paid $450 for his passport renewal, and it takes them 3 months to process and send it out.
On the way to the embassy, we walked under a viaduct. There was a cop in a flourescent yellow coat, talking into a megaphone and reading off a clipboard. In this age of super-weird, I’m often only half paying attention, but reaching the other side of the crosswalk I snapped out of my oblivion and wondered why he was talking to a wall. I asked the boys, “What’s that cop doing?”
-He’s telling the smokers about rules.
-What smokers? What rules?
-It’s a smoking section on the other side of that wall and there are people smoking there. The rules are like special things they have to do during covid.
First they banned smoking on the streets. Then they corralled the puffers into special zones. Then they made them congregate behind a wall. Now they can’t catch a 5-minute break from the hectic office without a harangue.
Astonishingly, the visit to the embassy wasn’t a complete headache. The staff was downright friendly and our paperwork processing only took about 30 minutes. We got out and only allowed ourselves a quick moment to admire the pride-month rainbow flag on the wall, and hurried to the car park. If you are late and go past your alloted time block, you start getting charged 3 bucks every ten minutes in this part of car-unfriendly Tokyo.
Looking for cheap eating options on the way home, we pulled into a ramen shop. I can usually get away without masking at individually-owned restaurants, but the corporate places like Denny's and Joyfull have their rules and enforcement. My boys know the drill and dutifully don their masks before entering, but I leave mine, which I brought for the privilege of petitioning the embassy for travel rights, back in the car. I'm hassled immediately so I go back to get the compliance symbol. Yes, I know I could have taught the boys a lesson in defiance and said screw it, we'll pick up a rice ball at the convenience store, but teaching resistance is not an exact science and it's never clear whether you're inspiring or repelling your teenage kids with your disobedience. My kids hesitate to go with me anywhere these days. We got our food tickets at the vending machine in the entrance, then the server came around to pick up the stubs and bring the water jug. “Please don't remove your masks until the ramen has arrived.”
-Can I remove it to drink some water?
-Yes.
My boys had that nervous look that said, “When is dad going to make a scene? (or had I already?)
So I stared at the masked faces of my dear sons for five minutes and slowly sipped my water. Just in case, to prepare them, I said, “You realize how ridiculous this is, since we're going to be eating, breathing and talking in 5 minutes without the masks, right?”
-Yes.
-Well, I'm not putting my mask back on. If they make me, I'll wait in the car. You guys can take your time.
And even though I only saw their eyes, I could see they were worried that I indeed would be asked to put the mask back on, and I would leave. Aint it wonderful to be the insane oddball, when you're the only sane one in the crowd?
Come to think of it, there are a lot of oddballs in the resistance (I include myself). But that's natural. The first people to rebel aren't the successful, well-connected and comfortable. My cousin Ed took me aside one day and said, “All the stuff you talk about. The corona stuff. The 911 stuff. I know quite a few very successful people. If any of them heard you they'd say you're nuts. None of them would agree with you.”
Well, no shit, Sherlock; doubting the official story of Muhammed of the Indestructible Passport and his Flying-ace Boxcutter Brothers is no way to succeed in this upside-down world. Since when has honesty and bravery in going against the grain been part of the recipe for financial success?
Then Ed added, “And as far as the election goes, I'll bet you a hundred bucks that Fred Corcoran (Ed's next-door neighbor, a Republican land developer who is loaded) isn't giving it a second thought as he drives around in his BMW. He knows the election was perfectly legit.”
Remember: Democrats and establishment Republicans are fierce enemies, so if they agree on something, it must be true.
Anyway, cousin Ed is right; successful people like Fred Corcoran don't dispute the going narrative and he would probably say I’m nuts.
On Thursdays I teach an English course to two groups of software engineers at a prestigious company downtown. They only hire graduates out of the top four universities in the country. Seven out of eight are jabbed. Cousin Ed would say, “There you go. Why don't you listen to the smart guys?”
And I would answer, do you think those guys, with their plum jobs and big salaries want to rock the boat? Is a well-paid dude with the big house, nice car, pretty wife and good schools for the kids more, or less likely to question authority?”
This reminds me of that bumpersticker, “Question Authority.” Did you ever see one on a Porsche? It was always on some put-put car like a Honda Civic or VW Rabbit, maybe an aging Volvo at best.
On the bright side, the one who rejected the clot shot for himself and his 3 kids is a U. of Tokyo (best in nation) guy who is the most soft-spoken, mild mannered, easy-going and happy guy in the group. So he's quite successful and awake. Exception to the rule I guess.
In any case, my resistance is making me feel the pinch. As I explained in my last post, I left the regular job out of defiance, and now I feel I'm on the cusp of getting locked out of the house. I'm on board with the bold leaders on our side who say, “Now is the time to fight! Do not give in! Do not comply! Refuse the vaccine and the app! Take off that mask!” but for some reason my wife thinks that this stance needs to be concurrent with gainful employment.
Alas, nobody is going to hire me here in obedient, rule-loving Japan if I don't walk into that interview good and masked up and ready to comply. And even then I’m sunk if any school or university bothers to call my last employer; they'll get the word that I was the dangerous, unmasked rebel spreading vaccine misinformation to the students and left mid-contract in protest. I'm afraid my bridges are good and burnt.
The only way now is to do my own thing.
On that note I will introduce the paid-subscription option to my Substack account.
Please subscribe and help me:
get my own interview gig going*
produce my next children's book, Look Up, Japan**
open up my no-mask school***
write more on Substack
And thank you for reading.
*As I mention in my bio, I have millions of views for my interviews at KLA TV, but I’d like to get my own thing rolling and have total control over content. I want to discuss just about everything under the sun. I am the top interviewer at KLA, but it is a 100% volunteer operation. Your financial support will help me continue quality reporting and interviewing.
**A book about putting down the smart phone and taking in the wonders around you, Japan version (with other countries on the backburner). I need funding to be able to criss-cross Japan to get to the sites I write about and get photographs from. Here’s a read-aloud version of The Letter Thief, for an example of my goofy-children’s-book writing skills.
***It’s either going to be a full-time ‘free-school’, as they call them here, with the total educational package, or an ESL school. Either way, no masks.
I’ll have more information on all this stuff soon.
Sad. Glad I was there in early 2019 and experienced Japan before they embraced the insanity of Big Harma's Bio-Medical Healrh Tyranny. Best of Luck to you and the kids! ❤
Have you thought about changing your substack name to GA Shumway?
It would be way cooler.