Battling the Creeping Crud
"Benihana's Revenge"
My introduction to the Crud started two days after I arrived in Japan for the first time in February of 1988. I met my prospective boss and we went out to a local Benihana's for dinner, along with the entire school. Benihana's in Japan isn't like the Benihana's grill places you see in other countries: in Japan it's just a run-of-the-mill restaurant with no flashy knife-wielding chefs and no grill. And apparently, there was something in the food that didn't agree with me, for the next three days, I was wracked by fevers and nausea. I crawled beneath my hostess's kotatsu (a table with a heater built in the bottom and a quilt covering the whole thing to keep your legs and feet warm) and stayed there for the duration. Fortunately, I don't remember much of it; only one moment between bouts of unconsciousness when I heard my hostess, Sumiyo, talking on the phone to a friend. I overheard my name, then Sumiyo said, "Oh yes, she's here. I think she's dead."
Sumiyo's Revenge
It didn't stop there. The period of immobility became an agonizing sore throat and stopped-up, feverish sinuses. I'd been warned to bring plenty of American over-the-counter remedies with me to Japan, but they didn't last long, and I discovered that the prices for these things in Japan were horrifying: $20 for a standard-sized box of Contac. I tried resorting to Japanese medicines, but in the beginning they didn't put even a dent in my symptoms--there must be something to the Japanese claim that their physiologies are different. I complained and groaned loudly though all this: "Japanese medicine is for wusses!"To keep the peace, Sumiyo bought a little brown vial of stuff for me to gargle with, then headed off to work. I looked at the bottle: No instructions in English, and the kanji was a bit beyond my level. Well, she said it was gargle, so I went into the bathroom, tipped my head back and shook the contents of the little bottle onto my feverish, prickling throat.
The result was similar to a firecracker going off in my head. As I danced around the bathroom, howling, my eyes watering furiously, I realized that both my sinuses and my throat were clearing up. Cool! Once you got over the pain, this stuff was great! I'd have to find more of this. When Sumiyo came home from work, I happily told her of my success: "It was really strong for a change, and it worked great!"
"Uh, how did you use it?" she asked, eyeing me suspiciously. When I told her, she went pale, then found the bottle and checked the instructions. "According to the label," she said, "You were supposed to put three drops into a glass of water and gargle with that."
But hey, it worked!
The Crud and the House of Three Gaijin
Two months after getting settled in Japan, I moved with two roommates
into a three-bedroom apartment in Setagaya ward.
This was my first home away from family, but I soon found that, despite my
best efforts to act tough and independent, I would not be deprived of any
amount of mothering.Some time during that chilly, rainy autumn, the Crud struck with agonizing force. I staggered around the little apartment, wheezing and groaning, my whole body aching and my head and chest full of what felt like cement. Though it's expected for people with colds to visit the doctor, I considered that useless and a waste of fear (I loathe hospitals). After a couple of days of this, however, one of my roommates decided she'd had enough and was going to put me out of her misery. Hauling out her all-purpose home medical kit, she managed to catch me (not hard, since I had no stamina), pin me to the floor and assault me with Vicks Vapo-Rub, and then confine me in a tent made from several blankets, the dining room table, and an electric vaporizer her mom had shipped over from the US. This worked, only I quickly became bored in the dark confines of the tent. So we decided to move the vaporizer into my bedroom, where I could rest and read and listen to music and be out of the traffic areas. I liked this idea, so we resettled, I renewed my layer of Vapo-Rub, plugged in the vaporizer, grabbed a good book and before long, fell asleep.
I awoke when a big drop of water splatted onto my face. After a moment, a second followed. Then a third. When I opened my eyes, I discovered why one should never use an American-style vaporizer in a room that's only 6' by 8' in size. It was raining. Inside my room. Water dripped from the ceiling, and the posters on my walls had buckled and curled down toward the floor, looming ominously above my head. The wallpaper had wrinkled and was threatening to buckle as well, and a waterfall cascaded merrily down the inside of my window. It took at least two days to air everything out, and my posters were never quite the same again.
SAD is HELL
The Japanese don't use daylight savings time, so it gets dark in the winter. The sun rises at eight and sets before four in the afternoon, and if you time it right, you will never see daylight save through your office window. Some people are more sensitive to lack of sunlight than others, but for me, SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) packed a wallop. By February of every year, I went through what I called, "Godzilla Season," because I spent my days stomping around and breathing fire. It also marked my annual big hospital visit, when I thought I was dying of something. Then, after eight hours of tests, the doctor would tell me it was only stress. Hah.
Traditional Remedies
When I moved to Kamakura, I was lucky enough to have landladies who checked on me occasionally. Believe me, this was comforting while you're lying on your futon, wondering how long it'll take for someone to find the body. Once in a while, my landladies would find me staggering back down the walkway to the house, looking positively awful, and within two hours, someone would be knocking at my door with a tray of food. More than the food, it was nice to know someone cared.Americans have chicken soup; Japanese use ochazuke, a hot mush made of rice, vegetables and green tea. Some people swear by this as a hangover remedy as well. Green tea is said to be full of vitamin C and can act as a measure against cancer. It also packs more of a caffeine wallop than coffee. I drank a lot of green tea, but I don't know if it helped or not.
Keeping the Crud at Bay
There's not much you can do to keep the Crud away, short of leaving the country. Especially in a place where coming to work sick is considered a mark of diligence. One of my Japanese bosses showed up at work one day with the measles--I wonder if he ever realized this was a great way to incapacitate his workforce?The best you can do is wear a mask during cold season. In the old days, people with colds wore surgical style masks in order to keep from infecting others. This isn't as common anymore. Of course, if you wear one, the sight of a foreigner wearing a face mask could be more intimidating than average. And you can wash your hands a lot. Every time you touch a ring or railing, consider your hand covered with germs. Wash up a lot.
I left Japan before the big antibacterial craze started, but it'd be interesting to compare notes on whether it helps fend off the Crud. I think, however, that tougher strains of the Crud developed as a result. When my old roommate returned from a trip to Japan last year, I picked her up at the airport to find she'd been overcome by the Crud--it had been lying in wait and nailed her the second day out. On my next visit, I'll be sure to pack my bags with echinacea, zinc tablets, Sudafed and plenty of Kleenex.