Don't bother to pack hand sanitiser

Is Japan the cleanest country on earth? It could be a competition between Japan and Singapore, and while Singapore has a reputation for being a beautifully clean city, when it comes to personal hygiene the Japanese win hands-down. And those hands would be wearing gloves of course, to avoid touching somewhere others have been.

My travel essentials always include a tiny bottle of sanitiser and wipes, but on this trip they are just a waste of space: facilities for washing are everywhere. I have noticed a lot of houses have wash basins at the front door, presumably for washing before entering (outside of central Tokyo of course, bit hard to manage this in apartment living). We even saw a communal bottle of hand sanitiser sitting on a stand in a suburban street - I wonder whose job it is to keep it full ?

There is some thought that the national obsession with cleanliness has lead to an unhealthy aversion to germs and the constant disinfection is leading to an increase in allergies and poor immunity. A leading Tokyo university professor has referred to this growing propensity for cleanliness as “keppeki-sho,” translated variously as fastidiousness, fussiness over cleanliness or phobia of dirt. The result of this mysophobia have been a decline in parasites, but sadly this includes a decline in those good parasites as well.  In the postwar period the U.S. occupation troops frequently came down with parasites from eating raw vegetables. At that time, some 60% of Japan’s population were found to harbor some type of parasite. By 1960, the figure had declined to 20% by 1965 less than 5%. Today it is believed to be below 0.2%.  Despite eating all that miso soup!

And this is why we see so many people wearing face masks.  I always thought at home when I saw Asian tourists wearing masks that they had flu, or were worried about catching flu.  But no, they are avoiding the pollens that irate asthma, hay fever and related conditions.  I saw data that referred to 40% of Japanese people as having asthma and you can buy the masks everywhere.  The man next to me on the train has sneezed twice and has now reverted to popping on a mask. Gosh, I sneeze twice and think nothing of it. 

So Japan is an excellent travel destination for those concerned about the general unsanitary conditions of the world at large - my mother would have loved it. And while I like a bit of cleanliness, can you go too far?

Today we are travelling to Kyoto by bullet train. Apparently we went past Mt Fuji - I seem to have missed it.