J a p a n e s e    C u l t u r e

For about thirty years of living in Japan I thought that the Japanese were dirty because they did not have nail brushes (pictured above), before I realised that vast majority of Japanese do not get their hands dirty because they wear disposable cotton gloves (above right) to do dirty chores even when they are at home. I had thought that only taxi drivers, ticket inspectors and others that appear before other people wore these three for a dollar "soldier's gloves."

For even longer I thought that the lack of soap in Japanese public toilets to be a lapse in Japanese hygiene, and to a certain extent at least in so far as providing for ill-equipped foreigners it is, but then I realized that the fastidious Japanese have personal, portable dispensers containing sheets of one-use, "paper soap" (pictured above left) partly because they don't like to use bars of soap and dispensers that have been used by others.

I now use cotton gloves, and carry my own soap, so the lack of nail brushes, and soap in Japanese public toilets, no longer bothers me.

I still like my British  nail brush (purchased from China) to scrub my hands, however, in these times of pestilence. 

Labels: japanese culture, nihonbunka, 日本文化

# posted by Timtak @ 9:51 AM