Sneezing in Japan

There's one thing that annoys me every time it happens here in Japan. When people sneeze. Not that they sneeze more than anywhere else in the world or sneeze in my face or anything like that really. Just the fact there's no word to say when people sneeze.

In Sweden people say 'prosit', which sounds like it comes from French or something, in English 'Bless You'. If I'm not mistaken there's some old belief that you're possessed by a demon/devil when you sneeze and someone needs to say these above mentioned words to help preventing anything bad from happening to you. Nowadays it's practically just used as a polite phrase.

In Japan, there's practically a word for everything, but no word to use when people sneeze. However, Japanese people in general insist on being very polite and show consideration for other people, so usually they just have to say something rather than not saying anything. This means when someone sneezes, 9/10 times their friend or person they're speaking to will say '大丈夫ですか' (daijoubu desuka) which means 'are you alright/okay?'.

Each time I hear it I find it more stupid. Why the hell would someone not be alright only because they just sneezed? Personally I sneeze every time I go out from a dark place and get blinded by the sun. I don't find it that dramatic. The next time I sneeze and someone asks me if I'm alright, I'll answer 'No, I guess not, after all I just SNEEZED so probably I've caught a bad case of lung cancer, but thanks for asking'.

Well, to not only be a whiner, I've decided to do something about this! I'm going to come up with some word in Japanese to use when people sneeze and see if I can spread the message. Anybody who reads this and speaks Japanese, why don't you give me a hand and figure out a good word to use when people sneeze and write me a comment!

About photos I promised to upload. Erhm well, they're on their way in a few days or so. When I've got time :P.