Useful or Useless: Surgical masks

Earlier I posted some pictures of people wearing those surgical masks in trains. I used to think that people just use them to avoid spreading germs when one is ill (besides the normal usage of hygienical purposes in medical facilities). I guess it is considered polite to wear one so you can’t be a “meiwaku”, trouble or annoyance causing thing or person. With the society being that the majority does not deviate from the norm, everyone who even as much as sneezes needs to wear one. But it seems I was wrong. People also use them because they think it might help to prevent getting infected with the swine flu after it made its entrance in Japan. Since then, the masks have been sold out in a lot of places. And whether it really helps, no one knows… And I was going to buy a few to take home as souvenirs…

Useful #2: Train door location markings

Yet again not unique to Japan, still worthy of a mentioning under category Useful. This is one of the rather modest ones, some have lines indicating how to queue up. No idea why the lines aren’t the same length or direction though

Useful #1: Prepaid public transport cards

Why this works in some countries and not in certain other ones is a mystery to me. There are plenty of examples where this system works just fine. The only explanation I can think of is that cracking systems like this isn’t made into a sport like it is in certain other countries. Or perhaps this system here has long been cracked but just never made public and used by a select few. Anyway, it’s useful for it’s multifunctionality and also, it’s mildly funny when someone doesn’t have enough credit left and the gates close and you hear “ding dong” instead of  “peep”. They should add some sort of batsu game to it, like a cage that comes down, trapping you until then you’ve missed the train you were supposed to take.