love-affair

日本にはじめて来た外国の人が驚くものに，自動販売機の数，ボディカラーが白いクルマの多さ，そして透明のビニール傘などがあります。さらにこの時期にはマスクをした日本人の姿と，うがいにいそしむ人々も彼らに強い印象を残すそうです。記事は最後のうがいに関するもので，結構，面白い内容になっています。
記事にあるlove-affairは常時じゃない，「情事」のことですが，ここではおかしいですよね。Koyamamotoくんならどう訳しますか。寂しいあなたに愛の手です。（UG）

Ugai: Japanese People Love Gargling

Despite Japan's love-affair with gargling and the consequent potential for bias, these studies seem to have a solid, logical setup: In all the ones I read, individuals had been randomly assigned to either a non-gargling control group or a gargling test group. The experiment ran for a few months like this, and at the end researchers tried to find out which group had caught the most colds during the experiment. Some studies included iodine mixes among their test groups; other studies tried to calculate the cost-effectiveness of gargling as preventative care.

But aside from each study's tweaks to the formula, the main result seemed pretty consistent: Gargling (with water*) appears to have a statistically significant correlation with better respiratory tract health. Whether this is actually causative is still open to debate. Maybe gargling just encourages you to also take sips of water more often throughout the day, keeping you well hydrated. But regardless, gargling is by some means associated with better health.

(*Gargling with iodine, on the other hand, kills your mouth's native flora and is apparently as harmful as it is helpful.)

So next time you walk into a public restroom only to find a line of people head-upturned in burbling chorus, cut them a little slack. Gargling lacks refinement, sure, but it's neither unhygienic nor meaningless, and it's part of what makes this country an endless source of quirks to write about.

http://www.accessj.com/2012/12/ugai-japanese-people-love-gargling.html