The Masquerade

After getting off the airplane in the monster city of Tokyo one of the first things I noticed was the large number of people wearing surgical hospital masks. Surgical masks are very familiar to me because my friends and family had to wear them when visiting me in the hospital after my Bone Marrow Transplant in 2000. It was clear to me that the reason the residents of Tokyo did this was the same one that lead me to wear them when my immune system was compromised - for protection against the pollution caused by, in their case, a ridiculously gigantic metropolis, and any harmful germs.

I had already developed a mild cough leading up to my departure from the states that seemed to metastasize greatly after my first day in Tokyo. By the time I hit the sack, which consisted of a pad on a bamboo mat that lined the floor; I had already developed a decent wheeze. It was a good thing I packed my inhaler. My health as of late had taken a huge turn for the better or else I never would have left home with the comfort of the close-by New England Medical Center. Wheezing was a symptom of the past for me. Clearly this was not my body’s fault. I have come a long way since my transplant in and have morphed into a strong male human specimen. This was "the damn overpopulated city that had made its environment unhealthy with its material obsessions" I complained to my girlfriend. I was not about to step another foot outside of our ryokan into that dirty air without the protection afforded by a hospital mask. Luckily Shinjuku has numerous Lawson convenient stores. First thing the next morning I braved the pollution covering my mouth with my new red scarf, and purchased a three pack of masks for 150 yen. This would surely protect me from the toxins these callous people had put out into the defenseless air.

Over the course of the next few days I didn’t go anywhere without a mask. The diligence paid off. My wheeze and cough quickly dissipated and by the time we had completed our stay in Tokyo my complaints had returned to my lumbar pain. I had no qualms about leaving a city where if you walked out the door without covering your mouth you were putting yourself at great risk for all kinds of Lung infections. En route to the JR bullet train that would take us south towards the small sparsely populated mountain town of Takayama, I threw the masks in the trash can and said farewell.

As we rode the 180 mile per hour train out into the suburbs I still saw the occasional mask-wearing folk wandering the streets. I thought this to be a bit bizarre seeing as we were far away from the city by that point, but I figured the Japanese people were just being cautious because they know how horribly poor the air quality in Tokyo is and with one gust of wind the pollutants could be knocking on their doors. My Ipod serenaded me and I fell asleep for the remainder of the train ride. When we arrived in Takayama I picked up my pack, pulled on the appropriate straps to lesson the burdensome load on my back, and walked off the train, out of the station, and into the great out doors.

"Aww fresh mountain air," I said to my girlfriend as I inhaled and exhaled deeply, "Go ahead, take a deep breath and get a taste of it. You can`t beat this." She looked at me skeptically. As we were looking at the map in the Lonely Planet trying to figure out where to go a few more Japanese mask wearers wandered into our line of vision. We decided to brave the cold snowy weather and walk around the town to orient ourselves. I was puzzled to see that people were still wearing masks, in-fact there were more of them, maybe twice as many mask wearers as Tokyo. Confused and bewildered I finally found an Australian staying at our youth hostile who had been in Japan for a month.

"The masks? Oh yeah, they wear those because when they get sick they like to prevent spreading their germs, you know, just to be considerate to one another."