All the Koreans are in a dead panic today over the fact that it's raining, and presumeably this rain, coming from the southeast, has been Japanified. Fukushimized. Radioactive.
I'm sure the rain is more radioactive than normal. I have no doubt. But people have such strange perceptions of risk in this type of thing. Mostly, Korean culture seems to enjoy jumping on a once- or twice-a-year bandwagon of xeno-hypochondria (i.e. a fear of health risks associated with things from foreign places or things foreign people do).
I would bet everything I own that in terms of background radiation, I am exposed to more and more dangerous radioactivity by the children of the nuclear power plant workers whom I teach on a daily basis - which is to say, their dads bring stuff home, that stuff gets on them, and the kids bring it with them to school. And that's not to say it's a lot.
I'm just saying that I expect that I get exposed to more radiation by virtue of the fact that I work in proximity to a major nuclear reactor here in Korea - and so, panicking about Japan-sourced rain seems out of place.
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