00:00 John Daub: Hello everybody, welcome to Tokyo. We're on Odaiba Beach right now, just having a kind of a slow father-son Saturday, which is what we typically do. Here's Leo dancing. He's doing Michael Jackson. I don't know why, I don't know where he learned it, but he's learning the moonwalk and other various things that are very inspirational. And there'll be more of that in a minute.

00:27 John Daub: But I got a question from a viewer here, and I think this is a really interesting question. It's something a lot of people are probably on their minds as well. "I see many Japanese people wearing masks in public spaces. Is it mandatory to wear them or just a gesture of good courtesy? Do you think as a foreigner and tourist it would be sufficient to wear a mask only in very crowded places such as trains? Thanks a lot." This is from Yutobaner1 from about two weeks ago when I asked for some information.

00:57 John Daub: Now, it's a good question because you do see all over Tokyo people wearing masks. And the answer is that you do not, there has never been a mandate to wear a mask in Japan. And I know that a lot of the Western countries had this during those years. Japan, Japanese have been wearing masks before that all happened, and they've been wearing masks after it for a variety of reasons. None of it has to do with that. You know what, I can't even say the word because then YouTube kind of knocks it down. A little bit even after a year and a half of it. We never had any mandates. We never had any kind of you had to wear it because we wear it because it is it.

01:37 John Daub: All right, let me break down why Japanese people wear them and I think this maybe will help you understand. The first thing is for kafunshō (hay fever). When there's pollen in the air, people will wear it to block them from getting the congestion and the things here. So if you have hay fever, people will wear it and it really does reduce the amount of pollen that they intake. So they don't have as much coughing and they don't have as many of the symptoms of it. And it's not weird to wear it. So that's one of the reasons you'll see it at this time of year. Peter von Gomm wears one as well. He's a narrator, so he wants to protect his voice to keep it from getting raspy. And I will too at certain times, especially when in the winter people wear it to stay warm. So the mask will keep them warm because the air can be so cold by doing that. It keeps also your voice moist, so to speak. So you're not getting all that dry air, which does dry out your voice and your body.

02:58 John Daub: These are things like in the Western countries no one would ever do this. Go to that length to wear a mask for hay fever or to stay warm. You'll wear maybe a balaclava or something. But here they'll just wear those face masks. Typically, you don't wear a mask to protect you from not getting sick. That's not something that most people do in Japan. Most people wear the mask if they are sick as a courtesy to other people to try to minimize the risk of infecting other people. And this is in particular necessary if you've got to go to work and you're sick. They don't ask you to wear a mask, but they shouldn't have to. So you'll wear one because you don't want other people to get sick. You're thinking about other people when you wear the mask.

03:47 John Daub: If you're not sick, typically my Japanese friends are not wearing a mask. They only wear it if sometimes they are a little bit worried. And maybe January or February or March when there's influenza season, you might wear them on the subway or trains as something of a preventative measure. But in Japan, unless the person who's sick is wearing it, if the person who's sick is not wearing a mask, it doesn't really matter. The person who's sick has to wear the mask or else the person who's not sick, if you wear the mask, it doesn't really protect you. That's the thing. It's like very minimal. But if the person wearing it is sick, the chance of transmission decreases. So in a crowded city like Tokyo, it's kind of necessary to do that during the influenza season, which is why people have been wearing masks for a very long time.

05:06 John Daub: Right now, no one that I know of is wearing them because of the reason why we did about four years ago. We didn't do that then. And so that's not something that I don't think is in a lot of my friends' minds anymore. Nobody that I know is getting vaccinated anymore for that kind of stuff. So that's all a personal choice. And it's up to you if you want to wear a mask. You don't have to. I see some foreigners doing that. I don't know why. I guess they think that they need to. But let me be honest with you. I haven't worn a mask in maybe a year and a half. I'm never going to wear it again unless I am sick and I don't want to give it to somebody else.

06:01 John Daub: A question for the chat is one day enough for visiting Shibuya. Probably. Love your videos and your streams. Wanted to say on here that God loves us all. Thank you for that. Yeah, he does. It's a tough year right now. So it's nice to have as many on your side, so to speak. Hello, Nick. How you doing? Nick and family. Nice to see you. So there you go with that. I hope this answers the question. No, there's no mandate to wear a mask. No, you do not have to wear a mask if you're not feeling sick. Like you could feel it coming on, then maybe it's a good idea to wear a mask because you don't want to get other people sick. But you don't have to wear it at all. It's not something that is mandatory. Even in February or March, you do it because if you're feeling bad, you don't want to transmit it to other people. And in February and March, there's a lot of people feeling bad. So there's a lot of people wearing masks. But there are other reasons why they wear it as well. As I said, to stay warm, especially girls will do that. And if you go up in Hokkaidō, wearing a mask might be an easy way to keep your warm air in as well as if you've got hay fever. And there might even be some other reasons if there's pollution in the air. I remember a few years ago we were getting some really bad pollution coming over from China. You could smell your iPhone being made a couple of years ago. And because of the particulates in the air, the matter, a lot of people were wearing masks because of that. So there's various reasons why they do it here. It's not because of the reason that you think. And there's never been a mandate to wear them despite the mandates that you had in your country. We never had that here. So it's totally up to you. There is peer pressure to have done it in those years between 2020 and 2022. But that's all over. And once again, you'll never see me wearing a mask unless I am sick or there's some kind of pollution going on here.

08:07 John Daub: You want to do Michael Jackson? You want to show everybody? We come here as well to get like a Kua 'Aina burger. It's one of the burger places in Tokyo. I get extra large ones so we can share. I get pineapple so I can give to him. He likes the French fries. He says he made a torch with fire out of his French fries. And I don't know what that means. But he burned me with them. So I'm still kind of recovering. We like to dance. We kind of do stuff like this. He looks too serious but he's really the one who's dancing inside. He knows he wants to dance. This is stuff that we do here. And I asked him what he wants. He said potatoes and ketchup. And I guess that's a vegetable. Mothers, fathers, please chime in in the comments below. Our French fries and ketchup salad. I'm not sure. I'm a new father. So let me know in the comments. I know the answer. But let me know anyways. And encourage me to give my son more vegetables. He ate the avocado. So there you go.

09:17 John Daub: I love the questions. Gary's writing a no. Kua 'Aina's got some pretty good fries. I know the answer there. But listen. Leave me a comment below if you have anything about Japan traveling here or you want to know. On days like this where I don't really have a livestream to do, I want to keep it going. There are about four days where I didn't do a livestream. I feel bad about that. But leave me a comment. I might pick it and do an episode like this and answer it. And share it with the... A lot of you have been asking me about places to travel within Tokyo in October and November. If you're going to Morioka for example, somebody wrote about Morioka. I don't know exactly where to stay. I would stay maybe around the station because it seems to be the most convenient with the most hotels. But look. If you're going to stay in a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) or a traditional Japanese inn, then you're going to probably stay outside of Morioka City. So it's totally worth it to do that. But pick onsen (hot spring) resorts if you're going to stay at a ryokan. Because it's always good to couple a soak in a volcanic bath with your stay with that kaiseki ryōri (multi-course Japanese dinner) which is so good.

10:21 John Daub: We're in Odaiba today, Michael. I don't have any maps for you because it's pretty central. And I showed you that many many times. We had a really good stay. And if you haven't seen the videos that we did, a couple days ago we were in Hakuba. I took you outside of the city of Tokyo. I've been doing that a little bit more. I was in Asahikawa and Hokkaidō last week. But this is such a wonderful place in the fall. It's famous for the winter. But go take a look at those three live streams that I did showing you the beautiful countryside in the early fall in Hakuba and Nagano near the Sea of Japan side. It was really beautiful. And I'm glad you guys could join me for that.

11:03 John Daub: Alright everybody. I'm back to being a daddy now as we drink and eat and play in the sand a little bit. I told him don't kill any ants. So he's been pretty good about that. When I said the ants would lose their mommy and daddy, I think that really resonated. He just doesn't realize that ants have maybe like a thousand mommies and daddies. I'm not sure how the ant society works with that. Oh you did. You got a stick and a rock. How much? Is that money? He said he found it. He had found money he said. And it was a rock. And he said it was 100 yen. And when it came time to paying at the restaurant, he forgot his money. We lost his rock. That's kind of funny. Anyways have a good day. See you again tomorrow on another live stream. See you. Bye from Odaiba.