Swine Flu, USA dangerous

My student (adult female, age about 45) and her teenage daughter are going to Hawaii for a week to study English, take a tiny stab at living abroad, and to have a nice vacation.

The woman's husband was all worried she'd catch H1N1 (Swine Flu) while there. Discounting the fact that even if Hawaii were a hotspot for H1N1, the risk of infection would still be small, let's look at other factors at play here.

Osaka recently closed many high schools for a week because of H1N1 flu outbreak. With most of those young people, an age group at greatest risk of infection, then spending their new holiday at karaoke, sharing microphones in small enclosed rooms, the wisdom of this move could be questioned, but the fact remains that it was big news that the megalopolis of Osaka was a swine flu hotspot. Kochi (where I write this) just got its first few cases too. Big news locally.

As far as I know, Honolulu has not had to shut down any schools or take drastic health measures.

I would imagine, it's the Honolulu authorities who will be scared about flights coming from Osaka Japan. They'll probably fumigate my student's plane.

So why would her husband be scared?

I think it's the deep seated assumption that foreign places, especially the US aren't very well organized and therefore, in a word, dangerous. If Japan has a problem like this, it's assumed that it must be worse someplace else. People seem surprised to learn that the US has basic things like a social security system, volunteer fire departments and so on. Sure hurricane Katrina was a fiasco, but US doctors and scientists are always on TV for discovering new cures, performing radical operations that can't be done anywhere else, finding water on other planets, winning nobel prizes and so on.

I'm not trying to brag or claim the US healthcare system isn't in need of an overhaul. But if the student had been going to Germany (I don't know how bad the swine flu is there but does it matter?) I think the husband wouldn't worry. After all, it's Erurope (well, not Spain or Italy, or Portugal, or maybe England anyway they don't really count unless it's a food or arts conversation) and not just Europe, but Germany, hey, that's where they invented aspirin like 150 years ago. (Ask any Japanese over the age of 40 why they think Germany is on the cutting edge and there's a good chance that one will come up. Ask them to name a famous German computer printer or mobile phone maker and watch the gears collide while they do a Stereotype System Reboot.)

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is I think it's another example of the "USA =McDonald's / Coke / crappy movies and crappy cars / fat racists" trumping the "USA = loads of nobel prizes / great universities / high tech powerhouse / culture of volunteering and tolerance" especially when played with the "Japan = prosperous hard-working modest harmonious live-for the-greater-good / samurai spirit / we love nature nation" and not "Japan = isolationist / declining economic power mired in debt / scandal ridden / ineffectual gov't / desperate horny salarymen taking sex tours to Asia / child porn powerhouse and rape video game / prosperity based on chemicals, steel, earth moving machines and motor vehicles that burn fossil fuels and depend on free international trade."

Don't attribute these off the mark generalizations to me -- they're just the way I hear people & reporters portray the respective countries.

Anyway, I retold the story to other students and as soon as I got to the "worried about swine flu" but before the "isn't that funny?" part, **everyone** had the same reaction: raised eyebrows, pursed lips and nods of agreement. Oh yes, Hawaii, swine flu, that is a worry.


After I explained my take on it (maybe it's the Honolulu authorities who are worried? Maybe the US has a few trained doctors around?) most people agreed at least that the trip wasn't risky.

Let me put it another way: in the past few months I've had adults and teens say they are going to visit or will be residing in the Osaka area. Not one person has expressed worry that they'll catch swine flu during their 3 day or 9 month stay.