Also, I think it’s really human nature, and teen/young adult nature in particular, to rebel or want the opposite of what the adults or “authorities” want.

‘You want to have a nice, clean, respected statue in your court? We’re gonna disrespect it and vandalize it. Yeah!
You take the statue away from us? We’re gonna build it, and beautify it. Take THAT! Hah!’

The school should take a hint from the psychology of this and take down all boring looking statues and little monuments from around the school, maybe uproot a few trees and shrubs here and there, and leave the spaces empty, and they’d probably end up with a really beautiful campus full creative students spending much their potentially destructive free time, planting guerilla gardens, and erecting some really fun and inventive instillation art. :)

However, I worked at a private school, so we did some things differently. We had space heaters in every classroom (kerosene), which produce harmful gasses so we also opened SOME windows every once in a while to get fresh air flowing. And this was in Okinawa, which gets cold but not nearly as cold as mainland. So I don’t know if it’s all public schools, or perhaps just in your area, that’s so backwards but it doesn’t happen everywhere.

It’s interesting that when you quote the signs at your school they don’t say “Let’s open ALL the windows,” just “Let’s open the windows.” Maybe some people take it too far.

Yes Japan needs to work on the social stigma of taking time off work, among many other things. It probably won’t happen anytime soon though. So in the meantime, I think wearing a mask (which, as I’m sure you know, isn’t just for people who ARE sick, but for prevention too) is better than being sick and NOT wearing a mask.

Because I HAVE lived there (and my wife is Japanese), I know of the “superstitions” they have. Every country has superstitions, and health superstitions are the most common. But sometimes we can learn something from them, and it’s not possible if you’re not open to the idea they might be right about some things where we’re wrong. For example, Japanese people say that stomach pains are often caused by a cold stomach, so they’ll put a hara-maki on to warm themselves up (mostly women). I thought that was a stupid misconception, but it turns out Japanese people may have a physiological weakness that causes this problem. So what I thought was a superstition may turn out to be true. Of course a lot of superstitions are just that, but if we’re blinded by ethnocentrism, we’ll never discover the ones that turn out to be true.

Yes, I have dealt with frustrations too. But strangely, the uniqueness of Japan that makes me frustrated is also the thing that keeps me intrigued and challenged to help things begin to change.