Oink

It's kind of strange to obviously be a foreigner in a country that is worried about a foreign illness. Of course, I am talking about swine flu.

It kind of makes me wonder what it's like for Mexicans in the US now. Are they looked at by people as being likely carriers? That would suck- some people back home don't need MORE reason to be racist. *sigh*

I think it's kind of similar here now, although no one's been super obvious about it. It seems like people seeing me and other foreigners around might wonder if we just arrived in Japan the other day or if we've had any recent visitors.

I got a flash of a GLARE a little while ago at the grocery store checkout line when I sneezed. Whether it was in relation to that, I don't know.

I guess it doesn't help that I have a cold or something right now.

IS it swine flu? I really doubt it. Although my last interaction with someone newly arrived to this country WAS about a week ago at a party I went to, I think the chances that I got swine flu from that short interaction are very small. Have there been any cases of swine flu in Italy? There have been absolutely no known cases of it in Japan. But I guess it's not -great- to be a foreigner with a cold right now.

In other swine flu chaos related news-

It's Golden Week now (5 day weekend) and a lot of JETs are taking trips right now. Many of them are traveling overseas, even. Last week, I got an email TWICE instructing us to be careful traveling and warning that it might be difficult to get back into the country. It also recommended that ALTs have travel itineraries to our offices. One day, I found the exact same notice printed out on my desk as well. I realized immediately that my office was trying to tell me that they want an itinerary. BUT- since I have no plans, I just threw it away. I assumed that they would figure I have no plans because they didn't get any info from me.

However, yesterday, on Friday, one of the bosses of the office came up to me and began asking me if I was going anywhere. He seemed very surprised to hear that I really DID not have any plans.

I told him that I kind of plan to go to the US in the end of July and he warned me about the swine flu (...he thought I never heard of it *sigh*). We have no way of knowing what the situation will be like in July, so I see no reason not to plan for it now.