Question on Japan episode - Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (2016) Discussion

[–] Silver_Bullets 8 years ago

Masks have been popular since the Bird flu and SARS outbreaks.

http://qz.com/299003/a-quick-history-of-why-asians-wear-surgical-masks-in-public/

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[–] Susan_1980 8 years ago

Thanks!! I probably should have known that :)

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[–] mythbustfan 8 years ago

not only that, it's supposed to help in polluted areas too

name the movie or tv quote
This is something. The MEANS something.

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[–] Sam-953-169285 8 years ago

A simple face mask would have no affect on pollution. If it did then thousands of people would have worn them in the San Fernando Valley area of southern California in the late 1960s and the 1970s. I doubt that the Japanese wear face masks due to pollution.

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[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

People in China are wearing them in profusion..it's a combination of pollution or the latest contagion pandemic scare, or just wanting to give themselves an extra flimsy line of defence against general air-borne viruses and bacteria.

The way they are noted for hacking and spitting everywhere in China is so alarming that I would give the mask a try in desperation too, if I had to be there.

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[–] buddhababy6 8 years ago

In Japan if you are feeling sick you wear a mask. This is to prevent making others sick

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[–] darkavenger77 8 years ago

When they showed the market scenes with all the people, a fair amount of them were wearing masks. What's that about?

Ninjas in training? 

Ignoring politics doesn't mean politics will ignore you.
-Pericles paraphrased in <100 characters

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[–] mamechiyo 8 years ago

Hi, I'm Japanese. I have to say that everyone's answers here are partly right but not totally correct.
Many Japanese do wear these masks which are basically for avoiding and spreading colds, mostly when some bad flu is going around. But otherwise, you'd never see that many people wearing masks like in this episode. Nobody wears them because the air is polluted either, cause there are no heavily polluted areas in Tokyo.
There were so many strange descriptions of Tokyo and Japan on the whole in this episode. I'm not going to point out all of them cause there are simply too much....except for one. Japanese do not think suicide is honorable at all(not even the old people like they said in this episode). The number of suicides have become very high in recent years, it's a problem all Japanese are concerned about.
I don't mind US shows and films depicting Japan incorrectly much. Japanese shows and films get many things wrong about other countries too. But suicide being considered honorable was way too absurd and kind of insulting. This show may be okay to watch just for fun, but definitely not the best source to learn about different countries and cultures.

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[–] Grafite 8 years ago

There must be a reason why Japan has such high suicide rates (17th in the world). It might not be considered honorable by most people, like you, but there probably is a percentage of Japan's population with more traditional values that finds suicide to be an honorable way to go.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why South Korea has so many suicides (2nd in the world). Older people with more traditional values don't want to be a burden on their families, so they kill themselves.

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[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

there can be little doubt that there is such a thing as Seppuku, and that there are differences in the cultural place of suicide between Japan and quite possibly Korea, vs the West.

It is a bit like when a muslim, usually the usual frock and beard holy man "expert", will appear and glibly smirkingly say that suicide-bombers are un-Islamic, that suicide is forbidden in Islam.

It is double-talk, because he is not telling the whole truth of the matter, that the suicide-bomber is seen simply using the body as a weapon to kill kuffar and not even an example of suicide. Killing yourself because you are weary of life might be un-islamic, killing enemies by fatal use of your body is not, because it is not just a simple baseline entry-level suicide.

BTW, I am not accusing the Japanese poster in any way of any comparable double-talk. In his-her case, I am merely pointing out that it is a brief incomplete conversation.

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[–] pfarnell 8 years ago

This show may be okay to watch just for fun, but definitely not the best source to learn about different countries and cultures.

you sure nailed that up in understatement,Mamechiyo-San, and I like your whole post.Banzai.

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[–] GypsyNomad 8 years ago

I've noticed a lot of cultural inaccuracies that even a novice person who's aware of different cultures would be able to point out.

This show supposedly did "extensive" research before filming in these areas but there's a lot of holes and mistakes. However they were slowly getting better and more accurate as the season went by.

As for the Japanese and masks, I feel like they went to Korea for that. I lived in Korea for a year and while I was there, there were massive amounts of people wearing masks against pollution, sand, illness, etc, especially in the summer when they were worried about the yellow dust from China.
That's at least what they told me, I thought it was silly because I didn't notice it being dustier.

"I totally saw his wolf junk"

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[–] ScrystaLz 8 years ago

Alot of people in Japan wear face masks for a variety of different reasons actually, 1 reason is for hygiene purposes, congestion and the prevention of spreading diseases. But another reason is because wearing face masks have also become sort of like a "fashion trend" in Japan in recent years for some reason...some people in Japan just like to wear those masks sometimes as a fashion accessory of sorts, I don't know why though. I heard another reason could be they just want to hide their faces, some Japanese are quite shy, and they may wear these face masks just to hide their faces except for their eyes.

I frequently watch this Japanese documentary called 'Japanology' created by the Japanese TV network NHK world, and I remember they did an episode about Japanese people's obsession with face masks, and these are the reasons they gave in the documentary to explain why people wear face masks in Japan.

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