Today Tokyo has Haru Ichiban. Haru ichiban is the first southern gale of the year. After it blows, the area gets warmer day by day. Plums are beginning to bloom, the cherry blossoms will come out soon. Is everybody waiting for a warm and beautiful spring? Unfortunately recently this is the case. Look at this asahi.com news . Can you believe that nearly one in four Japanese adults is already suffering from pollen allergies (= Kafun sho in Japanese) . In the spring, they suffer from sneezing, sniffing, itching, and puffiness or hyperemia of eyes, which causes insomnia, and tiredness. I met a guy who could not stop sneezing this morning. But I know it was no laughing matter for him. Actually sereral of my co-workers have to sneeze just from looking at this photo, and get very angry very if we open the office windows.
Since pollen allergies are such a big problem in Japan, yahoo Japan has a pollen count warming board of everydday. There are many protection tools on the market, such as this big mask ( every year it looks to be getting bigger), over-sized eyewear, nose spray, tablet, drink medicine, eye wash, Candy, Gum, soft tissue to help relieve the discomfort of blowing ones nose a thousand times etc,.etc,. Here is this year's trend in protection foods. High pollen counts are inconvenient because people with allergies can't dry their clothing and linens outside and have to take off their jacket as soon as they get home. But why are we having such a problem now? This site explains the reason why. As for Me? I am super no problem with allergies whatsoever.
Hi abraxis
Hmm this is not only Japanese problem. All over the world people has this problem much or less. But Japanese one would be harder than other countires I heard.
Posted by: Mari | Saturday, February 26, 2005 at 12:45 AM
You are lucky one not to have allergies. I get them big in SFO and I usually time my annual Asia travel around peak allergy season here...
Posted by: abraxis | Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 07:29 AM