Masks in Japan.

Japan is a county facing natural disasters often such as Typhoon, earthquake, and recently the snow. Tokyo, very clouded city which has 6,000/km2 (16,000/sq mi) population density, is the worst city for natural disasters because of its infrastructure and population density. When it snow, lots of systems stop working such as transportation systems. Not only the natural disasters, but also air pollution, pollen in the spring (Now), PM2.5 from China and flu cause life difficult. For PM2.5 from China, there is a great we page shows distribution prediction map of PM2.5. http://guide.tenki.jp/guide/particulate_matter/

What can we do?? We need a MASK!!!

During the winter season, (January, February, and March) in Japan, you will find something strange. Many people wear a mask in big cities.

Preventing flu and airborne diseases are very important in the areas,places that have high population density.
Main trains in Tokyo are usually packed especially during the commuter times.
This is the Tokyo tradition like traffics in LA called “満員電車 /manin densha/ (full train)”.

Then what do I need to buy? Well, mask is just a mask.  No, there are varieties of maks sold at convenience store with Japanese technologies. These are the masks in Japan

There are masks for men and women, with menthol, different types of shapes and sizes and with moisture retention.

The market size of Japanese mask industry was about 180 million dollars in 2012 and still growing.

When you have a chance to visit Japan, finding your the best matched mask would be fun to do.