Why does Japanese love the flu mask? – 日本人のマスク愛用癖

I saw more and more people wear flu masks last few days in Japan, which is a unique landscape in the winter under the normal condition, but now the reflection of their instinctive thought to stay away from the virus of swine flu. It may be interpreted as an action of Japanese faithfulness, or it reveals our paranoiac attitude for cleanliness. I myself feels that I’d better wear a mask when going out to the middle of town, but logically speaking it helps reducing the expansion when you’ve caught the virus but does very little to prevent yourself from catching it. The current social problem is that the masks do not reach those who essentially need them because of the fatal shortage.


ここのところ目立ってマスク着用者が増えてきた。日本固有の冬の風物詩なのだが、豚インフルエンザをもらわないようにとの防御本能の現れだ。日本人の実直さが行動に出ているとも言えるし、一種異常な潔癖症と言えなくもない。自分でも街中に出る時はマスクをしておいた方が良いかなと思いつつ、あれはウィルスに感染したら伝染抑制に有効だが、防衛効果は期待薄と考えて思いとどまる。むしろ本来マスクを必要としているところに品不足でマスクが届かない事態を引き起こしていることが社会問題かなと思う。