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A previous article reported on a group of volunteers who walk around the neighborhood checking things out (see link below).  The group is called "Bo-han Pato-roru" (防犯パトロール) -- which means "crime prevention/deterrence patrol", and it is usually in the older, long-established residential neighborhoods or shopping street (商店街・Shoten-gai) areas where such patrols are active.  The Bo-han patrols not only walk around wearing high-visibility vests, jackets, ballcaps, etc., to ward-off would-be wrong doers, but sometimes pick-up litter/trash and look closely at the appearance of their neighborhood to see if there is anything which looks suspicious or abnormal.  Of interest, when the weather turns cold, many Japanese will start using electric space heaters and kerosene stoves to stay warm in their homes.  The low humidity winter air also dries things out, so if a fire starts, it can spread rapidly.  Around the time of the setting sun, Bo-han Patrol members will slowly walk around the neighborhood and periodically clap-together wooden sound-making blocks and then in loud voices will chant the following: ('Clink, Clink'), "Hi no Yo-jin, Hi no Yo-jin" (火の用心、火の用心), which means "Be careful with fire".  This local/live form of public service announcement has been going on in Japan since the olden days as the winter months have unfortunately always been a time when house fires frequently occur.  Modern space heaters have built-in safety features to help prevent fires, e.g., shut-off timers, automatic shutdown if jarred or knocked over, etc., however, they must be monitored and turned on & off as needed.  Hearing the neighborhood "Hi no Yo-jin" warning chant ends up being a good reminder of the danger which comes with using heaters during the cold months of winter.   Written by Goodfield

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LINKS:

Neighborhood "Bo-Han" Patrol

https://us.iino.cc/blog/blog.html?eid=00189

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