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I experienced this while visiting Japan. While doing a transfer on the Shinkansen in Hiroshima, I left my camera bag at a noodle kiosk on the platform (around

• harikb 7y ago
  Is it possible the social support structure, education, etc are creating a society where unfortunate people don't have to steal/pawn to make a living?
  • peterhadlaw 7y ago
    I think the point is that it's a cultural thing, regardless of how fortunate or unfortunate someone is.
  • 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    I'm sure it plays a role, but there are countries with similar wealth and support systems, but so many things (like the lost property example) are unique to Japan.
    • rsmckinney 7y ago
      It’s more to do with the purity of their culture resulting from low immigration which fosters a high level of mutual trust. Invariably immigration corrupts the hosting nation’s culture with trust absorbing the initial impact.
      • spats1990 7y ago
        "purity" is an odd word choice there when "homogeneity" or perhaps more neutrally "uniformity" are equally accurate. more broadly, when i see/hear this line deployed by westerners in regard to certain east asian countries, I always wonder if such westerners think such statements are generalisable to other nations, or if they have considered whether other specific cultural factors than uniformity are in play and causing/contributing heavily to the supposed higher level of mutual trust. It's my view that, other factors disregarded, having fewer cultural/ethnic outgroups does not magically result in higher levels of mutual trust in a society. After more than 4 years in Korea I am tired of westerners using Korean society as a shining beacon-like example of cultural/ethnic uniformity in order to air their beefs with immigration in their home countries (and no, that isn't how I interpreted the parent comment; just pursuing a line of thought). Another interesting thing to consider: the prevalence of general corporate and political malfeasance in Korea and Japan relative to their status as highly developed nations. Certainly no culture-driven concern for the wellbeing of countrymen there. edit: Ahh just looked at the parent poster's post history and am now happy to issue a big fat Never Mind. At least I got the thought out.
        • banmeagaindan2 7y ago
          > It's my view that, other factors disregarded, having fewer cultural/ethnic outgroups does not magically result in higher levels of mutual trust in a society. This is a classic scissor statement to use SlateStarCodex lingo.
          • spats1990 7y ago
            Late reply but thanks for that, I'm a casual reader of SSC and its satellite blogs but hadn't come across the Scissor one before.
  • livueta 7y ago
    I'm a little skeptical. Many Japanese live in a pretty grinding form of underemployment poverty - "freeter" will get you lots of hits in Western media. Moreover, some truly deprived groups like the urban homeless are almost notorious for generally _not_ engaging in the sort of petty property crime we're talking about that's common in similar demographics in the West. Those make me lean towards cultural factors.
  • Reedx 7y ago
    We tend to underestimate the effect culture can have. It's also why the Japanese don't litter their cities, despite few garbage bins. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/why-japanese-dont-litter/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/why-japanese-dont-lit...
    • johnchristopher 7y ago
      Yeah, well. Maybe, maybe not. Quoted from a previous discussion: > I was cycling in Japan for about 2 weeks, just a few weeks ago. I was also impressed in most places by how clean it was, not only in the cities, but more generally speaking about everywhere. > At some point though, I was cycling along the coast of Mie then Wakayama prefectures, and although the scenery and roads were clean, I had a glance just behind the ramp walk, and realized that behind the trees, in the bush next to the road were hundreds of garbage bags, litter of all sort, really anything, just lying below. There was such a contrast from what my eyes were seeing until, I was shocked. > In another town several kilometres after (I forgot which place exactly, must have been while cycling up towards Wakayama city), I passed next to a big commercial area on my right. On my left there was a small patch of forest then the sea and again, that forest contained many many plastic bags, full but neatly tied up, every couple of meters or so, for several hundreds of meters. > I originally thought the first thrashes I saw along the road in the country side where "mistakes", like things flying off the window or pushed by the wind from another place (although there was a lot of garbage anyway). But when I saw these tied up plastic bags, they weren't there by chance, really people throw these bags away on the forest right here. That made me a bit sad, especially since it broke the original image I got. > (And I haven't spoke about the beaches and seafront all along that peninsula; I wouldn't walk bare foot there). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21240083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21240083
      • Nition 7y ago
        When I was in Japan in 2009, every pedestrian in the cities waited patiently at each crossing until the light turned green, even if there were no cars around at all. However, when the streets were mostly empty, I saw one Japanese man come to an empty crossing, glance around, and cross on red. Can't generalize much off a single example, but it did make me think peer pressure is probably a factor.
  • TheTruth321 7y ago
    Shame.
  • kstenerud 7y ago
    No, it's a cultural thing. Home burglaries and thefts from cars and shops are fairly common, but you don't take unattended bags and such that are left in the open.
• jyounker 7y ago
  On the other hand, the Japanese are inveterate umbrella thieves. So much so that you will find locking umbrella racks in many buildings. The pressure has to go somewhere.
  • tareqak 7y ago
    Why umbrellas specifically? I read the article and I enjoyed it, but the question of why umbrellas are not treated the same in terms of being returned was mentioned but not answered. Near the end of the article, there is this sentence > “Communal property is virtually unheard of except for that many people seem to regard umbrellas as up for grabs if not properly secured.”
    • kstenerud 7y ago
      Because when the rain comes down, it COMES DOWN HARD, and you NEED an umbrella NOW. I started doing the same after living there a few years. Same thing with stealing crappy bikes with flat tires from the nearest bike rack to get home when you're drunk as a skunk at 3 am.
    • novok 7y ago
      You can buy them everywhere for 300-1000 yen, those models are the ones that everyone uses so it isn't much of a sacrifice for everyone to buy another umbrella a few times a year.
      • rtpg 7y ago
        an even more basic answer is that these super cheap umbrellas that everyone buys all look kinda the same, so it's hard to track your own umbrella unless you put some sort of sticker on it. So it's not even necessarily a concious system, just the end result of easily being confused between umbrellas.
        • numpad0 7y ago
          Yeah, everyone has a moment when they notice a wrong umbrella in their hand. Could happen immediately upon pickup or could happen later. From there your view branches into the direction of either communal property idea or an internal shame/rage/regrets. So far I consider mine a personal property.
• Zarel 7y ago
  I'd always heard about this, but the one time I left my backpack in a Yamanote Line train, it was returned with around $2000 worth of cash (in multiple different countries' currencies) missing from my wallet. My wallet was really deep inside a bag inside a bag, too, so someone clearly went digging into my backpack.
• hourislate 7y ago
  I lost my passport (didn't know at the time) at NRT. I had left it on a counter at a coffee shop. About 15 minutes later while sitting at the gate an airport employee ran up to me and handed it back. Just amazing.
  • mmhsieh 7y ago
    I got lost when going out to hike Mt. Nokogiri. I was walking wrong-way down some road when the employee at the visitor center some 1.5km away comes running after me to inform me that I am going the wrong way. I don't know how he deduced this after I walked out of that center. He escorted me to the correct trailhead which I missed by about 500m. Welcome to Japan.
    • SenHeng 7y ago
      It's possible they had someone monitoring the paths or someone saw you from higher up. I've hiked Nokogiri before and along some of the sketchier areas, the stairs were literally giving way under my step. It was pure luck that I hadn't fallen to my death multiple times over.
• cookingrobot 7y ago
  I once found a wallet on the sidewalk outside a mall in Japan. I tried to drop it at the mall's lost and found, but the security guard there took me with him to a police box. The policeman there took me to the local police station, and we spent the next hour filling out a report. They were all very friendly and appreciative that I turned it in, but it was really quite an ordeal. If I were to find something valuable again, I might just leave it alone to avoid the hassle.
  • mjevans 7y ago
    I think this might have more to do with you not being one of the locals. A good 'hack' to this might be to pick a set of 2-3 local looking people and loudly point out the item in question so that someone else can deal with it.
    • 4ntonius8lock 7y ago
      This works. And I do it. Too many unhinged people out there. Here in the US, I've found things in restaurants a couple of times and pointed it to the staff. It clears the liability for all involved, since no one can claim that the staff or a fellow patron 'took it'. It was pointed out by a customer and removed with witnesses. I generally mention it to more than one staff. I try to baseline assume that the person I'm dealing with in public is not fully there (which would include the property owner). It makes it easier to deal with when it is actually the case.
    • tidenly 7y ago
      Even if you're a local this is the procedure. If the building doesn't have a lost and found (besides the train systems not all places do) then the police box will make you give over your contact information and a bunch of other stuff. It doesn't take an hou (maybe ten minutes if you speak Japanese), but it can be a pain if you just expected to throw it in without any questions.
    • numpad0 7y ago
      I happened to study the process few days ago. Officer pulled out an elaborate form, asked the guy if he wants his copy, wants rights to the item if owner didn’t show up, to which he said no and no, and then he was asked to sign the blank and was told him they take care of the rest. Took 5-10 mins max. Technically no one should ever sign a blank sheet, ever, but that could be done, I guess.
• yibg 7y ago
  I’ve done something similar. Dropped my hotspot in a cab and didn’t realize until after dinner a couple of hours later. Had the restaurant call the cab company and they tracked down which cab it was, confirmed it was there and had the same cab drop it off for us again at the restaurant. I don’t think this would’ve happened anywhere else.
• sjwright 7y ago
  Though don’t get a false sense of complacency; the crime rate is low but not zero. My friends had a couple of snowboards stolen from a hotel luggage concierge.
• wisty 7y ago
  If you steal even a few dollars of merchandise from a corner store, the police can hold you for a number of days without trial. And most people won't feel sorry because that's what happens to thieves, so you should have known not to do it. A society decides what's acceptable, and how far they're willing to go to uphold these expectations.
  • dreamcompiler 7y ago
    Likewise DUI in Japan. Japan is much more strict than the US. One beer before driving and you become a guest of the state for 3 years. Just don't do it.
    • quickthrowman 7y ago
      It’s easier to sleep it off in Japan, just lay down on the sidewalk and come morning, you’ll be unharmed, and may possibly have gained a blanket overnight. Source: many internet photos of salarymen sleeping one off in every conceivable public place I’m sure public transit helps too.
    • magduf 7y ago
      In Japanese cities, you don't need to drive if you're drunk, and you don't even need a car at all. Just get on the train/subway, or hail a taxi, or even walk. Drunk driving is a problem in the US because you can't get home without a car except for a handful of dense cities (Manhattan, etc.). The rise of Uber/Lyft is helping this, though.
      • dreamcompiler 7y ago
        Completely agree if you're in the cities. I spent a lot of time in Okinawa and other remote areas of Japan last month, and a car is very necessary there. (NB driving in Japan is like driving in England except the turn signal is on the right side of the steering column, so I was constantly engaging my wipers when I wanted to turn. The locals call this "the Okinawa wave".)
      • P_I_Staker 7y ago
• m4rtink 7y ago
  LOL, we went by that on platform noodle shop (I think they specialize in Soba) a couple times this summer, but never had the time to eat there in the end. :) Was their food good ? :-D
• washadjeffmad 7y ago
  On the first day of our last trip taking my grandmother back to her home village outside of Kyoto, some of her luggage was left behind on the train, and while Lost and Found managed to pull it off at a later stop, it had gotten a pretty far distance from where we were heading. I navigated to the small station on the lower platform where the attendants held her luggage and gave them her name. The younger one asked where my grandmother was and then gave me a regretful look when I said she was disabled and wouldn't be able to travel this far, because they could only release the bag to its owner. An older attendant pulled him aside then stepped up and asked me what my name was. "I'm her grandson, Washadjeffmad. I reported the missing luggage.", I explained and held out my passport. Without looking at it, he sighed and stepped off again. When he reappeared, he asked me again where she was, and I told him- on her way to Kyoto. He closed his eyes, said something I didn't catch, and then asked "Are you sure she's not here?" Clearly she wasn't. It'd been a decade, but was my Japanese really so bad? Another man emerged from the back to observe his two obviously frustrated coworkers, then pulled them back to talk. When they reappeared this time, the older man asked, "Are you Washadjeffmad's grandmother?" And it finally clicked. "Yes. That's me." And they immediately handed over my bag. Japan is a funny place.
• mikorym 7y ago
  It's funny, but in South Africa crime and especially theft is very common, and at the same time, personal property sometimes find their way back to you. This especially tends to happen if for example you were robbed and your wallet was left behind or let's say the police were harassing you and threw your driver's license over a fence or something (true story). I think the reason for this is that the serial criminals are really <1% of the population and probably >50% are really just normal and usually decent people.