A National Infection...?

By the end of the year, the number of people wearing a mask gets increase so much, and it ends in the end of spring. If you go outside, you'll see a lot of people on the train or passing streets with a white mask. Maybe it looks so weird for you, and you might think that a big infection is spreading. Actually, my friend from another country asked me why a lot of people were wearing a mask so much. It can be classified into two main reasons.

Firstly, during winter, it's because of the flu. It's so dry in winter, so flu becomes popular. People don't want to catch it, so we try to avoid it by wearing a mask.

The second reason is pollinosis. It is said almost 40% of Japanese population is allergic to Japanese cedar's pollen. The condition of the patients depends on the person, but it cause sneezing, nose running, and itching eyes. The pollinosis is characteristic in Japan, because we have a lot of Japanese cedar trees in the main island, and it's unique in the world. Why do we have the tree this much is, after the Second World War, government recommended planting Japanese cedars to the places trees were cut off during the war. Because the tree grows up straightly, and it's easy to process. So a lot of cedar forests were made in the era. But after a while, a lot of cheap woods from abroad came to Japan, and the cedars prise went down. The owners of the cedar forests couldn't make money with them anymore and stopped taking care of the forests. Therefore the neglected forests' pollen spreads trough Japan by the wind and cause pollinosis patients. We even have some pollen forecast on TV in this season. It might be so funny when you see such a thing, but pollinosis is that serious thing for us.

Anyway, in the winter, you should care because you might get flu from someone. But in this time flu is almost over. Maybe you won't bet allergic to Japanese cedar if you grew up in other countries, so you don't have to be scared of people that are hanging around with a mask.