This year, there are no Fuwa Olympic mascots to welcome me in the airport. Instead, I find myself filling out a wellness health form on the plane, and walking through not one, not two, but three quarantine checkpoints where masked officials primly monitor my temperature as I walk past a heat-sensing camera. Forms are checked and stamped. People around me sport masks of all shapes and styles, a talisman of protection in an atheist country. As I walk past each checkpoint, I am handed pamphlets on H1N1 prevention and isolation techniques in both Chinese and English.

My direct flight from Taipei to Beijing is a welcome convenience unheard of since 1949. Yet the mood is unexpectedly somber when upon arrival, we passengers were told to stay in our seats until airport officials take everyone's temperatures with a "thermometer gun" and respiratory masks. We were still sitting in our seats 25 minutes after landing when suddenly, several officials walk briskly toward the front of the plane and 10 rows behind me, passengers stand up and look around in confusion. "Does someone back there have a fever?" the young mother of two beside me asked with alarm.

In east Asia, previously terrorized by the fear, if not the actual scourge of SARS in 2003, Influenza A (H1N1, or swine flu) is officially perceived as a very real threat - and understandably so. In areas with the population density of Hong Kong, Beijing and Taipei, an outbreak could International travelers and their unlucky fellow passengers are being quarantined left and right in Hong Kong and Shanghai. One of our China program participants spent a night in quarantine about 60 km north of Shanghai's Pudong Airport after a passenger on his flight allegedly exhibited "flu-like symptoms." I secretly speculated about the possibility of the entire hotel's occupants manifesting flesh-eating zombie tendencies within a week. But I probably watch too many movies...

But despite the masks, thermometers, and quarantines, plenty of people here view the situation with nonchalance. A young mother one row behind me placed a perky pink cotton mask on her five-year-old daughter's face as we left the plane. "If Daddy asks you whether or not you wore this while on vacation, you tell him yes," she instructed with a laugh.