Hay Fever in Japan
Do you suffer from hay fever? Check out the article by Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor for The Times. He has lived in Japan since 1995 and unfortunately suffers from hay fever.
It begins as it does every year in this season: on the first of the sunny days of March, I am woken from sleep when, with a brief tickle of warning, my nose explodes. Between bed and bathroom, I sneeze another half a dozen times; by the time I've got my hands on a piece of tissue paper, my nose is drooling and my eyes feel as if they are being gently buffed with sandpaper. I have had only one other experience like it - six years ago, when I caught a dose of the notoriously powerful tear gas used by the South Korean riot police. This is peaceful Tokyo, but for these few weeks - between the first of the spring sunshine and the passing of the cherry blossom - it is takes on the look of a place under chemical and biological attack.Outside, people wear white surgical masks over their mouths and noses; even those with perfect eyesight have wide protective spectacles. Salarymen weep into their newspapers; office ladies fumble with nose sprays and eyedrops. For this is the season of hay fever, and across Tokyo millions of people are suffering like me.The English term hay fever hardly does justice to what Japanese call kafunsho - literally 'pollen symptoms', but better thought of as Particle Plague. Cast from your mind images of delicate sniffling on freshly mown lawns - Japanese hay fever is industrial in its scale and ferocity. Scientific studies estimate that 20 million people are affected by it; a couple of years ago, it was reckoned to be costing the country an annual US dollars 2 billion in lost productivity and medical fees. Japan's parliament even has a parliamentary group dedicated to the problem, known as the Hakushon Giin Renmei (which translates literally as the Atishoo! MPs' League). But in the face of kafunsho even the most mighty politicians are powerless.