Castles in the sand & Woburne

Soon, oh so very soon, I'll be boarding a jet plane - destination Bangkok - short stopover in Soeul. And then, oh yes, then, it's sandcastles and sun, full-moon parties and starlight, jungle raves and vine-twisted temples. And of course over it all the insidious doom of "terrorists", "insurgents", "Islamic militants". I come to think that the Japanese are like us in our views of foreign developing economies as lands of lurking treachery. It's the discourse of the non-European, the islamic, the exotic and it's simply fear-mongering.

But before I claim that Japan is the sanitized society I have to tell you about my tap water. Echoes of Walkerton ring through my memory as I read my latest book, "A Civil Action", which is the true tale of the town of Woburne, it's water supply tainted by tetrachloroethylene, it's residents afflicted by cancer, neurological disorders, nauseas, rashes and headaches. This highly detailed account describes the medical discovery leading up to trial, and outlines the symptoms and presentation of the tainted water in the population. It smells like bleach. My tap water smells like bleach - I bought a water filter in my first week here. It causes headaches. In my time here I've had an increased incidence of headaches. And the pollutant, TCE, is a common degreaser used in machine shops to clean metal parts. There is an auto repair shop within 200 feet of my building. Sometimes the strong odour of industrial solvents and airborne paints wafts from there.

Before you freak out, although I do drink the tap water, the filter removes the taste of bleach. I don't know if this means the water is properly clean, though. However, in the investigation of how the TCE entered the body it was discovered that 60 times the concentration of TCE from drinking water entered during hot showers, as vapour absorbed in the lungs and as molecules through the skin's heat-enlarged pores. Yet the residents of Woburne complained of burning eyes during showers, and I don't think I've had that experience at all.

I told Nick about the water situation today and he was interested. I'm going to tell all the other JETs in the building and ask what their water experiences are. I would like to organize to have the water tested by a lab and be done with it - just find out whether it contains any contaminants. I'll just be glad to be in clean, safe Thailand for a while.