81–90 of 108 posts
I do this, and I'm not more than 12.5% Asian. I bought a few colored ones online because plain white surgical isn't a cute look. I do this because I don't want my lips/ nose to get dried by wind. Scarves sometimes aren't as good, but I'll probably be wearing both half the time.
Why the linked page and nobody don't mention about the hay fever? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hay_fever_in_Japan If you are living in Tokyo and you have pollen allergy, you too will wear masks all day.
Does this also affect tourists? Since I don't live in Japan, I wouldn't expect to have an allergic response to a Japanese native tree.
I honestly don't know if I've had a day without an allergic reaction in the last decade (the time I've been in Austin). My sinuses are a complete mess and I have to eat low inflammatory diets, give myself allergy injections, pop sudafed, etc.
Surgical masks don't protect you against airborne viruses, but if you wear one when you have a cold it does help protect other people from viruses in your snot/water particles. The facts about this are fairly well known in Japan now (although there may still be people who wear masks in the misguided hope that they won't catch other people's colds despite), so it's not very accurate to try to imply that use of surgica…
And does it work? Like is there a materially lower prevalence of cold/flu in Japan than in countries of similar climate?
Have any Westerners here tried wearing surgical masks in public? What was your experience like?
I wore such a mask in Bali, usually when being on a motorbike. People use it as a protection against the street dust. I thought it was quite effective and I got used to it quickly.
Something that shocked me while visiting Korea was a friend explaining to me that a mask is the only way for her to go out without makeup. The societal pressure on appearance is so high, that just going to the grocery shopping without makeup is seen a socially unacceptable. The simplest way around it is to hide your face, and the best way to do so is to wear a surgical mask. On a side note, in Korea, this is not rese…
I was in Seoul a few days ago and I didn't notice any makeup on men.
I had heard that standards of appearance are high there, so I had this expectation going in. And it was certainly true of the women, though I didn't notice this being true of the men, except maybe a certain more fashionable crowd?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Kind of a tangent, but in Japan what's the situation with taking time off work if you are ill and sick pay?
I can only give you my experience (working as a civil servant, teaching English in a public high school). People generally have 20 days of vacation and 20 days of sick leave per year. You can get more sick leave if there is a good reason (i.e. if you are hospitalised), but at some point I think disability kicks in. I can tell you (since I now have my own company) that disability insurance is private, so the details w…
One time, while I was a fairly new high-level engineer of a university tech spinoff that had been acquired by a Japanese company, I got a bad ear infection that took several doctor visits to diagnose (then was cured trivially). As perhaps a natural "company man", I felt even worse about my performance nosediving, than I did about the symptom misery. No one was happy about it.
I did recover a tiny bit of the goodwill I lost, when I was working in the empty office over some major holiday (Christmas break?), and the Japanese executive appeared at some point, and asked why I was there. I said I'd been sick, and was trying to make it up. He seemed to approve.
That time, or a similar after-hours occasion around then, the Japanese executive asked me where one can get food, so I started telling him directions to nearby grocery stores and restaurants, and he didn't seem to understand, so I went into increasing detail with the directions and other options. Years later, I learned that there's some Japanese office culture around going out after work with colleagues, and I suppose he might've been suggesting that, but not directly enough for oblivious me.
Some anecdotal experience: I travel to Asia for vacations and majority of the time, I catch a minor cold. The endless coughing and runny nose can really sap my energy. A friend suggested wearing a mask. Once I did, the air I was breathing became warmer and my throat and lungs felt less dry. It really helped a lot. I was glad there were so many others around me wearing masks so I didn’t stand out at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
huh after experiences otherwhere in Asia, Vietnam is very void of bugs, compared to Thailand for example. Someone told me it's mainly because of napalm in the war. Who knows
Napalm seems like a bit of a stretch. My experience is that it is because of the high number of swallow bird houses. If you drive around (I've driven most of the southern end of VN and Cambodia), the multi story, windowless buildings are everywhere and in towns with a lot of them, far fewer bugs. The Vice article quotes 4200 houses... my guess is that it is 10x higher than that. I'm currently in Hoi An and there is a…
Surgical masks don't protect you against airborne viruses, but if you wear one when you have a cold it does help protect other people from viruses in your snot/water particles. The facts about this are fairly well known in Japan now (although there may still be people who wear masks in the misguided hope that they won't catch other people's colds despite), so it's not very accurate to try to imply that use of surgica…
Surgical masks don't protect you against airborne viruses Maybe not, but they should be great at protecting you from tiny droplets of fluid (above a certain size) from coughing and sneezing. I would think that alone should cut down on the risk of getting sick.
Something that shocked me while visiting Korea was a friend explaining to me that a mask is the only way for her to go out without makeup. The societal pressure on appearance is so high, that just going to the grocery shopping without makeup is seen a socially unacceptable. The simplest way around it is to hide your face, and the best way to do so is to wear a surgical mask. On a side note, in Korea, this is not rese…
> lot of men wear makeup as well I was in Seoul a few days ago and I didn't notice any makeup on men. I had heard that standards of appearance are high there, so I had this expectation going in. And it was certainly true of the women, though I didn't notice this being true of the men, except maybe a certain more fashionable crowd?