If you’ve recently travelled on an airplane you know that you’re not allowed to bring “liquid” items openly on board anymore. Get rid of your harmless water bottle before you pass the security check, put deo, tooth past and super-duper anti-aging cream into a small transparent plastic bag. Not to mention that none of the items must contain more than 100ml. No, that’s not a lot…

I’m currently travelling in Japan and in order to get there I flew from Zurich to Tokyo. The dutyful Swiss security officer in Zurich noted that my brand new tooth past tube contained slightly more than 100ml. Not good for me as I hadn’t paid enough attention to the size of that tube. He wanted to throw it away. I tried to safe it: “What if I squeez out those extra few milliliters?”. No chance. Being Swiss myseｌf, I knew that argueing with a Swiss “authority” is hopeless. So, I had to travel without toothpast and my hatred for those islamic idiots who like to blow up airplanes and other symbols of the successful west grew even stronger than it already was.

Today I flew from Tokyo to Sapporo and the same rules applied. However, the Japanese installed a small and simple machine that checks your drinking bottle for dangerous substances. Of course they allowed me bring my cold green tea on board. Why don’t the Swiss use that? When checking-in my first aid kit they found my special tape scissors which I had forgotten to move from the kit into my suitcase (as I had done when flying to Tokyo). I feared the worst for my belove scissors. In Zurich they would have ended up in the trash can in an instant. Not so in Japan. The officer apologized and told me how sorry he was, but I couldn’t bring it on board. Of course, I knew that and I apologized for my mistake. He took the scissors, placed them in an envelope, sealed it, and handed me a receipt. Perfect. Everybody is happy. Many could learn a great deal from the Japanese…