Japan emerges from Covid hysteria

but how soon will they return to the madness?

Burn in hell, wretched cloth!

Finally, the masks appear to be truly optional. Some here say it was always optional, like the situation with the vaccines, that by law can’t be mandated. But optional is a relative term. Sure, the cops won’t bust you and throw you in solitary here for non-compliance- it’s not Sydney, 2020- but when your boss, coworkers, friends and family, and the neighbor’s dog is barking at you for going maskless, it hardly seems optional, especially in this ever-compliant land.

Riding the train and walking the city streets here, I’d say the maskers are down to about 15 to 20%. It’s good to see faces on the majority of people again, ESPECIALLY among the school kids.

There they go; cutest school kids in the world. For 11 years, if I had a day off, I watched my own kids walk this route. Subdued and blank-faced on the way to school, laughing, joking and cavorting in the afternoon, on their way home.

I only saw one girl wearing a mask among the various single-file groups of kids that crossed the street in front of our house this morning. That’s a much better ratio than my crowded car on the Seattle light-rail train a couple days ago. Six beady-eyed maskers- and all men!

Still, the news is of course hyping the next one. My friend Steve here says Japan will, as always, go along with whatever the US is doing. They were slow to take the masks off, and they’ll be slow to put them back on. I beg to differ; I think the masks will return in an eye blink. All they have to do is trot out a few compliant celebrities and doctors in white suits on TV, and make social pariahs of the refuseniks. Plus, my friend Sean reports that the staff at his high school is back to masking after hearing of the deadly strain coming this fall, with only a couple non-maskers among a staff of over 70. It’s an upper-class, Catholic girls school, so with few non conformists among them, mask compliance is just as high in the student body.

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Last post I told you Japan was goofy, so there’s sure to be some funny stuff for this stack. Here’s the display at the airport train station where you could buy a huge variety of cheap, plastic figurines.

I like the small changes in meaning among the different translations. I doubled over in laughter after reading the Sanskrit.

some wry gaijin jokester had to come up with that one

Yesterday I went for an early-morning surf. No maskers in the parking lot or out on the seaside path- woohoo!

After a year hiatus, it was great to be out in the salt water and sun.

Then downtown for lunch with a friend.

Seven or eight bucks an hour for part-time work at a fast food joint. Over nine if you work the graveyard shift!

We met at the north end of the station. I was a bit early so I perused the advertisements.

What’s this. Is it….no…please, don’t remind me.

NOOOO!

EIKAIWA!!!! (Conversational English Instruction)

These images make me want to run like my life depended on it. Like Lot escaping Sodom.

Global School Course- double Ugh. These poor, wretched souls, Kumbaya Simon on guitar and Tolerance Trevor teaching global warming and sustainable development. Oh, Montana! Keep your pickups and pond rakes at the ready for me.

Hmm. Here’s yet another ad for a local high school. Hey, that kid looks kind of familiar. Wait a second. It’s my son, Roy! From the side, he almost looks Japanese, so he’s poster-boy compatible.

No mention of global/sustainable/bla bla bla here. This trad school understands that boy and girl can have opposite interests, goals, desires. He’s looking toward the recruiting desks for the engineering departments of Tokyo and Kyoto U., while she’s eyeing the lineup of capsule toys at the local Gacha store.

Proud father here wanted to grab the nearest random local and say, “Hey, that’s my son!”

After lunch, coffee at the train station Tully’s.

Unfortunately, the mental rot is everywhere

Here’s a poster advertising the current exhibit at the art museum:

I love how the artist, almost certainly without the help of a still photograph, captured the exact moment when the fishermen down at the wharf startled the giggling young ladies with the baskets of fresh fish. Jacques will not let Sandrine pass without a token attempt at a sale. Gaston has a good laugh.

Light and Wind in Brittany: collection of the fine-arts museum of Quimper.

This exhibit will be very popular. 19th century France and Impressionism is a hit here. The Japanese love to think of European countries, and America and Canada for that matter, in a traditional, nostalgic way. Probably most of them know we’ve all gone to the dogs, that Paris is an African colony and the American southwest an extension of Mexico and Central America. Now the Chinese, with their money and lust for travel and economic conquest, are discovering the no-go Zones of France, Italy and everywhere else.

Back on the street. The Japanese road worker. Always moving- never slacking. With heat and humidity both in the mid 90s, you work up a sweat. Luckily, they’ve got the latest garb. Hard hats with brims, and air conditioned coats. Note the puffy jacket with openings for intake and exhaust fans. Portable, personal AC units. Japan!

That’s it for Japan, part 1. A reader asks why the heck did I leave here for a whole year. That’s a long story, but suffice to say the covid madness was driving me nuts and I had to escape again to the relative bastion of sanity in the Bitterroot Valley. If I could take the whole family I would have. As it is, my wife and kids weren’t quite as bothered by the ubiquitous masking, distancing, TV propaganda, closures and such, while I was about to go mad.

Now, if Bitterroot Beacon Radio doesn’t pan out, my plan is to manage a life where I spend 6 months in Japan and 6 months in Montana- a dream scenario! God-willing, I’ll pull it off.