Secret of the japanese masks and precision

  When there is little bit of time I am questioning our japanese booker Maiko about the life here. Of course I was curious about the masks which every second person wears here on the street.Is it because they are sick and they dont want others to get it? Or they dont wanna get something from others or both, maybe due to pollution from the cars?

   So I was told that few years ago there were lot of people dying due to dangerous type of flu. Now I understand why Maiko was so worried when I called her that my nose is running and I got a flu. She even asked me if I wanna go to hospital, I was like nooooo its just flu, come on, men might die but not me, strong czech woman :)).But now I know that based on experience they are reasonably worried and obviously people keep eyes open. Of course I have seen something about that in News but  It seems to be so unreal if you watch it from your comfortable sofa at home. Same with hurricans, earthquakes etc...

When I was telling her how I am impressed about the clean streets, kind of sterility and really functioning system, she told me that it wasnt always like this. They did big changes in past 30 years or more. Because Of number  of the people living there,the water and air wasnt clean and people were getting very sick so  when it became irresistable, they decided to do radical changes so they save  the nation and keep people healthy.

I was thinking alright, but exagerated sterility is also not so good to keep a good imunity, but they balance it differently. You can bearly see people  dressed properly  in January. Today I even saw one girl in sandals. You can also see kids walking down the street just in school uniforms with no jackets. Me and Sara freezing of course. Although I read that the weather is the same like in Czech Republic, winter is warmer. These days we have up to 11 degrees and sun :).