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Originally Posted by steven
Thanks for your response. I kind of figured that was the case... although I do find it hard to believe that Japanese people would've rest every single day during the heat wave that happened recently if it were to have occured 100+ years ago. The thing I've been noticing is that there seems to be this feeling of you have to "gaman" the weather / "children are so weak these days" style of thinking as far as Japanese teachers are concerned. I think stuff like that is easier to say when you have an airconditioned room to go back to in the middle and the end of the day. I wonder how conditions were 30-50 years ago for that matter... how much "gaman" was going on back then and how much cooler can the weather have been (as most people in Japan seem to believe in global warming). I'm very interested in this... if anyone knows or has experience I'd love to hear about it.
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We have some excellent books about working habits in the past in Japan, and it really is true that there was a lot more resting going on during the hottest parts of the day. Along with a sort of work for 2 hours, rest, another 2 hours, long rest, maybe an hour more and call it a day sort of pattern. I also think that activity times have shifted a bit - in the past it was apparently pretty normal to wake up with the sun, do all the work in the early morning, take a nap through the hottest part of the day, and then be awake through the evening. Now everything is sort of centered on the hottest hours of the afternoon.
Artificial shade, using water to lower the air temperature, and a whole lot of gaman was indeed the norm in the past. All those traditional items to make you think you`re cooler spring from the whole gaman aspect of it. If there is no way to escape it, there isn`t much option other than to put up with it.
BTW, I looked into the Pocari Sweat thing a bit more and it is recommended because it is safer than drinking a lot of water or tea - regardless of sweating. Taking in a lot of fluids will cause a drop in electrolytes. Water is particularly bad at this. Parents worried about their children becoming dehydrated have a tendency to push water or tea at them. There have been quite a few cases of water poisoning in children from drinking too much water or tea. Better safe than sorry.
