One of the most culturally insensitive things I do to Japanese relatives with limited English ability is to ask them to repeat after me:
“The Monster…”
“The Monster.”
“Godzilla”
“Godzirra”
“Is coming. Ev-ery-body RUN!”
And they do. And I think it’s funny. And my sister-in-law, who is Japanese, yells at me.
I think of this as a picture of panic grips the planet over the H1N1 virus.
Hong Kong is the best place to be in this crisis. They’ve been there, done that. In 2003 this is where SARS began. “Since SARS people pay closer to hygiene and was their hands,” a fellow passenger on the Star Ferry told me yesterday. Also yesterday the head of the government issued a public call for calm in the wake of its and Asia’s first diagnosed H1V1. At this hour, we are up to two cases: a 51 year-old woman in South Korea and the 25 year-old Mexican fellow hospitalized here in Hong Kong.
A hospital authority spokesman told me “the Mexican” is doing fine, eating normal food, stable. I hear the woman is ok too. Masks have yet to infiltrate the population here as they did six years ago during SARS. But they were available at the airport when I arrived Thursday along with health declaration forms and blue sheets that described broadly what to expect when you’re infected.
One of my new friends, a 42 year-old Amway salesman from New York on his way through to visit family in Xinjiang had the same thought I did yesterday: that if 186 countries can get their act together to mitigate this potential pandemic, imagine what else we can do that is positive.
China has banned all direct flights from Mexico. Front page yesterday carried a photo of a team in white protective suits, masks, goggles and surgical gloves boarding a plane with MEXICO splashed across its side. They spent two hours taking people’s temperature. Of course passengers can be asymptomatic, as one was. But as with all the actions listed below, the appearance of efficiency is more important than efficiency itself. Now the search begins for the 142 passengers who sat near the guy who was probably on that plane.
Besdies all that, here’s some of the other actions being taken as Godzilla approaches, credit to the South China Mornimg Post:
– China Southern Airlines banned pork from its menu
– China Railway Construction Corporation called off its annual results press conference
– Cathay Pacific flights attendants threaten to sue if they can’t wear masks and rubber gloves when they pick up trays (the company says it would send the wrong signal)
– 15 people visited Kwan Chi-yee’s clinic two days ago to buy ban lan gen (Radix isatidis), an herb believed by many Chinese to fight the flu. He usually only sees two or three clients a day.
– The Mainland Government is placing an herbalist into every flu contingency task force and the PRC’s Ministry of Health has posted herbal formulas on its website.
– A man in Australia kissed a pig to show he wasn’t afraid
A press conference has been called for 4:30.