Explore everyday life in Japan
Hiya Pita
This is Hiya Pita, a cool-to-the-touch gel pad that actually pulls heat from your body and helps to cool the areas that it is placed. In Japan, Hiya Pita is commonly used to prevent and/or reduce the swelling that generally results from injuries like bumps, twists, sprains, etc. More than anything, though, I think that Hiya Pita is used to reduce fevers.
If you get sick and have a Japanese caretaker, it is almost certain that as soon as you get a fever, a clammy Hiya Pita will be stuck to your forehead and you will be put to bed. If you spend any lengthy amount of time in Japan, I’m quite certain that you will find the Hiya Pita experience to be unavoidable.
In winter, which is Flu Season, doctors’ offices become full of children with these lightly blue tinged pads pasted to their foreheads. In supermarkets, on trains and busses, in stations and on street corners, you will sometimes see children being carried around by their mothers with Hiya-Pitas placed on their foreheads, masks covering their mouths, and with their faces mostly covered, only their two feverish eyes peering out from the space between to the masks and these magical gel pads. These are signs to keep your distance.
Many parts of the world have strong Flu Seasons, but Japan, I feel, is particularly susceptible to Influenza.
Most likely a result of its high population density and heavy use of public transportation, many viruses run wild in Japan during the winter months. Every year, from January to March, nursery schools, elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools, and universities are ravaged by the Flu and other illnesses like micro-plasma, RS, Noro, etc.
Many of these colds and bugs produce high fevers. That, I think, is why, probably more so than any other time of year, if you are traveling in Japan in the winter months, you are likely to see somebody, somewhere, maybe only through a window, wearing a Hiya Pita pad.
Next time you are here, keep your eyes peeled.
This is an ongoing series that will explore various aspects of daily life in Japan. My hope is that this series will not only reveal to its followers, image by image, what Japan looks like, but that it will also inform its followers about unique Japanese items and various cultural and societal practices. If you are interested in getting regular updates about life in Japan, please consider following me at 
If you missed my last post, you can find it here Hourensou.