Handtowels

Today, the smell of a bathroom wafting down the hall sent the kids in a frenzy. Some begin frantically searching for their influenza masks while other searched for their hand towels. That’s right, the kids carry both around. Those surgeon masks that people wear around in fear of influenza, they carry with them in their backpacks. And the hand towels, it is considered unhygienic to NOT carry a small hand towel with you, as none of the bathrooms here have paper towels. EVERYONE in Japan, and I mean everyone, carries a towel with them everywhere.In fact, it is considered so important that there is a huge hand towel chart and graph displayed at school that is updated daily. This chart shows the classes that have all brought hand towels to school and the ones that haven’t. The classes that all have hand towels are announced over the loudspeaker. I don’t know how I feel about this, except that I do find hand towels useful in these increasingly humid days. I can also find other uses for these towels like wiping off my sweaty water bottle, covering things from the rain and wrapping things like my cell phone in it.