5 ms·

The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special. Durning the major 2011 earthquake everything shutd

The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special. Durning the major 2011 earthquake everything shutdown and you had to walk home. When you went into the “Konbini” (7/11, FamilyMart, Lawsons) in Tokyo there was always a bottle of water left. Why? Because culturally no Japanese would ever buy the last bottle.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special Social disapproval over time, including that expressed through government policy, has effect on culture. So, while it may not result particularly from the government doing something immediate to cause the cleanliness, I would be hesitant to assert it is independent of government action merely because it is cultural.
- myrandomcomment 5y ago
  Government policy reflects the culture. I have spent 30% of the last 20 years of my life in Japan, on and off again. One of the highest compliments paid to me by a group of Japanese friends was, “you must not do X again, you are Japanese and know better now.” I.E. as a foreigner I would get a pass, but my understanding of the culture reached a point where they expected better. I was both very highly embarrassed and also quite flattered. It is an amazingly nuanced civilization, sometimes unfortunately to the detriment of progress and equality. It is not clear to me that shame as a function of policy works in the USA.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Government policy reflects the culture In general, sure. It also is one of many things that influences it. Culture doesn't just arrive ex nihilo with no influence from concrete experience.
    - mc32 5y ago
      What would it take and how long would it take to turn NYC into a Tokyo with respect to cleanliness via governmental decree? A counterpoint is Singapore and birthrates. For decades, decades, the government has tried incentivizing the native population to produce more children, and no matter what they do, they still aren't having results. Sometimes the government can only do so much and the rest is up to the people themselves.
      - Clewza313 5y ago
        The government in Singapore very effectively incentivises cleanliness by littering fines, Corrective Work Orders for repeat offenders (put on orange vest, go pick up trash for a day), and a small army of laborers cleaning up at night. Birth incentives don't work quite as well, because a $500 voucher doesn't go very far in a country where a public housing flat can sell for $1,000,000 and the schooling system is a pressure cooker mandating extensive paid tuition.
        nopzor 5y ago
        the singapore government has birth incentives well beyond a $500 voucher. plus, there are decent HDB flats available for $500k.
  - jimmaswell 5y ago
    Jaywalking as a negative concept was pushed in newspapers by the auto industry and it worked.
    - nkrisc 5y ago
      I don’t think it was universally successful on the cultural front (in the US). There are many places where no one will give a shit if you jaywalk or think any less of you, though maybe the effect has waned over the years. Legislatively, yes it was pretty universally successful.
      - tbihl 5y ago
        Jaywalking is a bizarre example. The criminalization of normal human movement through automotive lobbies and a derogatory slur is hardly a thing we should aspire to. A more worthwhile thing to discuss is the prevalence of people ducking their heads or rushing across streets when cars approach, with a level of embarrassment that would better accompany being caught defecating in the street (well, maybe not in SF.) Our culture has so utterly failed around mobility that people are ashamed to be caught walking.
        jimmaswell 5y ago
        There's nothing unreasonable in the concept that people should stay out of high traffic roads where it's not safe.
        danielheath 5y ago
        Their disagreement is presumably with the assumption that "high traffic roads where it's not safe" are a net good that should have been created.
        tbihl 5y ago
        If you have high-traffic, high-speed roads where people are crossing by foot, your design has failed. The two places where you encounter unwanted crossings in volume in the US are 1. Streets (for commerce, not travel) that were built too wide, either to accommodate too much vehicle traffic or to accommodate a despotic authority that forces wide streets(probably your local fire department or your state DOT); or 2. Stroads that do nothing well, at great expense. If it has a 45mph speed limit and stop lights, it's probably this.
  - snambi 5y ago
    Why is this has anything to do with Equality?
    - myrandomcomment 5y ago
      The concept of equality of the sexes it not normal in Japan because of the culture which is focused on tradition and not growth of the culture. The roles assigned and expected behaviors have helped caused the birth rate issue, where a large number of the population never marry and procreate.
  - danans 5y ago
    > It is not clear to me that shame as a function of policy works in the USA. It works, but it works against you, as Mitt Romney discovered with his "makers and takers" gaffe and Hilary Clinton discovered with her "deplorables" gaffe.
  - deltasixeight 5y ago
    > Government policy reflects the culture. The rest of the paragraph doesn't support your main point. How do your Japanese friends scolding you on the cultural nuances of japan prove or help support your point of government policy reflecting culture?
    - myrandomcomment 5y ago
      I was not trying to support the argument about government but hopefully trying to support to the idea that I might understand enough about the country to argue that behavior is about the culture and not about government policy influence. I apologize if that was not clear. To be honest I have not read many published papers on Japanese government policy and its effect on the behavior of the public so I could be completely wrong. I will say the removal of the trash cans change nothing as far as the need to maintain cleanliness. There a huge number of examples about the influence of commercial advertising on the effect of the behavior of the Japanese consumer. Just spend sometime asking why the Japanese order KFC for Christmas or why beer is poured with a head targeted at 70/30. I think that in some cases an outsider looking in that learns the culture might see things that the people on the inside miss as they where not born into the group think of the culture. I know my Japanese friends have at times asked my questions about the American cultural where I did a bit of a double take, forcing me to see things I just sort of went with in the past. For anyone that has interest in seeing how Japan got where it is this book is really good...but 800+ pages and you better like history and details. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009912 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009912
- asiachick 5y ago
  I'm pretty confident government disapproval has little to no affect in western culture or at least in modern American culture. In fact i'd argue disrespecting authority is part of the west's culture. Break the rules, be my "partner in crime", etc... Those are much less part of Japanese culture.
hinoki 5y ago
This has limits. During coronavirus, people have absolutely no problem buying the last package of masks.
- myrandomcomment 5y ago
  So I have not seen that, but I am not there right now. I know my friends view on the government failures in rolling out the vaccines are … Shikata ga nai (仕方がない), no matter how privately they rage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai As a westerner I am not sure I could have stood by and put up with the hosting of the Olympics.
- greggman3 5y ago
  or food https://photos.app.goo.gl/nBcrVedkokBM2d1F8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/nBcrVedkokBM2d1F8
dillondoyle 5y ago
It's also crazy considering - at least when I visited - there were no public trashcans. Maybe that just attracts mess rather encourage cleanliness.
- mc32 5y ago
  They took those down after the Sarin gas attacks, but despite that cleanliness prevailed.
- hunterb123 5y ago
  Its not there's no trash, go there at night, especially on the weekends, trash, cig buds, bottles piled on the streets, alleys, etc. It's deep cleaned early in the morning.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Considering its population density, even at its worst Tokyo measures up pretty well.
    - hunterb123 5y ago
      My point was they do trash the streets, somewhat on purpose, during the day you don't, but at night it's okay to pile the trash near the other piles of trash. It's only clean because they clean it thoroughly. Any other city could have that same staff and keep a city clean like that. It's not culture specifically, it's city management.
gweinberg 5y ago
If no one will buy the last bottle, doesn't that effectively mean the next to last bottle is the last bottle?
- nkrisc 5y ago
  Yes, but the difference is if you buy the next-to-last bottle there is still one left on the shelf for someone else, ostensibly.
Anjin 5y ago
Enryo no katamari
- myrandomcomment 5y ago
  Yes! 遠慮の塊 Literally "hold back / show reserve" and "mass" English maybe "refrain from taking the last piece".
  - bjowen 5y ago
    I love this most characteristic of phrases, it’s something English lacks. That last morsel of the shared slice of cake, the semi-sip of wine left in the bottle… the remnant of politeness?
gumby 5y ago
I have never considered Tokyo especially clean, except right after a typhoon (first time I saw this I was astonished, amd it reminded me of how grimy the city is)
- tdeck 5y ago
  It's got dirt, but there's notably little trash lying around compared to other large cities I've lived in and visited.
namelosw 5y ago
> The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special. Not at all. It was once a mess. In "High and Low" from Akira Kurosawa, you could see the river was filled with garbage. The government did many campaigns especially around the Olympics in the 60s.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special Social disapproval over time, including that expressed through government policy, has effect on culture. So, while it may not result particularly from the government doing something immediate to cause the cleanliness, I would be hesitant to assert it is independent of government action merely because it is cultural.

myrandomcomment 5y ago
Government policy reflects the culture. I have spent 30% of the last 20 years of my life in Japan, on and off again. One of the highest compliments paid to me by a group of Japanese friends was, “you must not do X again, you are Japanese and know better now.” I.E. as a foreigner I would get a pass, but my understanding of the culture reached a point where they expected better. I was both very highly embarrassed and also quite flattered. It is an amazingly nuanced civilization, sometimes unfortunately to the detriment of progress and equality. It is not clear to me that shame as a function of policy works in the USA.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Government policy reflects the culture In general, sure. It also is one of many things that influences it. Culture doesn't just arrive ex nihilo with no influence from concrete experience.
  - mc32 5y ago
    What would it take and how long would it take to turn NYC into a Tokyo with respect to cleanliness via governmental decree? A counterpoint is Singapore and birthrates. For decades, decades, the government has tried incentivizing the native population to produce more children, and no matter what they do, they still aren't having results. Sometimes the government can only do so much and the rest is up to the people themselves.
    - Clewza313 5y ago
      The government in Singapore very effectively incentivises cleanliness by littering fines, Corrective Work Orders for repeat offenders (put on orange vest, go pick up trash for a day), and a small army of laborers cleaning up at night. Birth incentives don't work quite as well, because a $500 voucher doesn't go very far in a country where a public housing flat can sell for $1,000,000 and the schooling system is a pressure cooker mandating extensive paid tuition.
      - nopzor 5y ago
        the singapore government has birth incentives well beyond a $500 voucher. plus, there are decent HDB flats available for $500k.
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  Jaywalking as a negative concept was pushed in newspapers by the auto industry and it worked.
  - nkrisc 5y ago
    I don’t think it was universally successful on the cultural front (in the US). There are many places where no one will give a shit if you jaywalk or think any less of you, though maybe the effect has waned over the years. Legislatively, yes it was pretty universally successful.
    - tbihl 5y ago
      Jaywalking is a bizarre example. The criminalization of normal human movement through automotive lobbies and a derogatory slur is hardly a thing we should aspire to. A more worthwhile thing to discuss is the prevalence of people ducking their heads or rushing across streets when cars approach, with a level of embarrassment that would better accompany being caught defecating in the street (well, maybe not in SF.) Our culture has so utterly failed around mobility that people are ashamed to be caught walking.
      - jimmaswell 5y ago
        There's nothing unreasonable in the concept that people should stay out of high traffic roads where it's not safe.
        danielheath 5y ago
        Their disagreement is presumably with the assumption that "high traffic roads where it's not safe" are a net good that should have been created.
        tbihl 5y ago
        If you have high-traffic, high-speed roads where people are crossing by foot, your design has failed. The two places where you encounter unwanted crossings in volume in the US are 1. Streets (for commerce, not travel) that were built too wide, either to accommodate too much vehicle traffic or to accommodate a despotic authority that forces wide streets(probably your local fire department or your state DOT); or 2. Stroads that do nothing well, at great expense. If it has a 45mph speed limit and stop lights, it's probably this.
- snambi 5y ago
  Why is this has anything to do with Equality?
  - myrandomcomment 5y ago
    The concept of equality of the sexes it not normal in Japan because of the culture which is focused on tradition and not growth of the culture. The roles assigned and expected behaviors have helped caused the birth rate issue, where a large number of the population never marry and procreate.
- danans 5y ago
  > It is not clear to me that shame as a function of policy works in the USA. It works, but it works against you, as Mitt Romney discovered with his "makers and takers" gaffe and Hilary Clinton discovered with her "deplorables" gaffe.
- deltasixeight 5y ago
  > Government policy reflects the culture. The rest of the paragraph doesn't support your main point. How do your Japanese friends scolding you on the cultural nuances of japan prove or help support your point of government policy reflecting culture?
  - myrandomcomment 5y ago
    I was not trying to support the argument about government but hopefully trying to support to the idea that I might understand enough about the country to argue that behavior is about the culture and not about government policy influence. I apologize if that was not clear. To be honest I have not read many published papers on Japanese government policy and its effect on the behavior of the public so I could be completely wrong. I will say the removal of the trash cans change nothing as far as the need to maintain cleanliness. There a huge number of examples about the influence of commercial advertising on the effect of the behavior of the Japanese consumer. Just spend sometime asking why the Japanese order KFC for Christmas or why beer is poured with a head targeted at 70/30. I think that in some cases an outsider looking in that learns the culture might see things that the people on the inside miss as they where not born into the group think of the culture. I know my Japanese friends have at times asked my questions about the American cultural where I did a bit of a double take, forcing me to see things I just sort of went with in the past. For anyone that has interest in seeing how Japan got where it is this book is really good...but 800+ pages and you better like history and details. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009912 https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674009912
asiachick 5y ago
I'm pretty confident government disapproval has little to no affect in western culture or at least in modern American culture. In fact i'd argue disrespecting authority is part of the west's culture. Break the rules, be my "partner in crime", etc... Those are much less part of Japanese culture.

hinoki 5y ago

This has limits. During coronavirus, people have absolutely no problem buying the last package of masks.

myrandomcomment 5y ago
So I have not seen that, but I am not there right now. I know my friends view on the government failures in rolling out the vaccines are … Shikata ga nai (仕方がない), no matter how privately they rage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikata_ga_nai As a westerner I am not sure I could have stood by and put up with the hosting of the Olympics.
greggman3 5y ago
or food https://photos.app.goo.gl/nBcrVedkokBM2d1F8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/nBcrVedkokBM2d1F8

dillondoyle 5y ago

It's also crazy considering - at least when I visited - there were no public trashcans. Maybe that just attracts mess rather encourage cleanliness.

mc32 5y ago
They took those down after the Sarin gas attacks, but despite that cleanliness prevailed.
hunterb123 5y ago
Its not there's no trash, go there at night, especially on the weekends, trash, cig buds, bottles piled on the streets, alleys, etc. It's deep cleaned early in the morning.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  Considering its population density, even at its worst Tokyo measures up pretty well.
  - hunterb123 5y ago
    My point was they do trash the streets, somewhat on purpose, during the day you don't, but at night it's okay to pile the trash near the other piles of trash. It's only clean because they clean it thoroughly. Any other city could have that same staff and keep a city clean like that. It's not culture specifically, it's city management.

gweinberg 5y ago

If no one will buy the last bottle, doesn't that effectively mean the next to last bottle is the last bottle?

nkrisc 5y ago
Yes, but the difference is if you buy the next-to-last bottle there is still one left on the shelf for someone else, ostensibly.

Anjin 5y ago

Enryo no katamari

myrandomcomment 5y ago
Yes! 遠慮の塊 Literally "hold back / show reserve" and "mass" English maybe "refrain from taking the last piece".
- bjowen 5y ago
  I love this most characteristic of phrases, it’s something English lacks. That last morsel of the shared slice of cake, the semi-sip of wine left in the bottle… the remnant of politeness?

gumby 5y ago

I have never considered Tokyo especially clean, except right after a typhoon (first time I saw this I was astonished, amd it reminded me of how grimy the city is)

tdeck 5y ago
It's got dirt, but there's notably little trash lying around compared to other large cities I've lived in and visited.

namelosw 5y ago

> The cleanliness of Tokyo is 100% because of cultural issues, not because the government did anything special. Not at all. It was once a mess. In "High and Low" from Akira Kurosawa, you could see the river was filled with garbage. The government did many campaigns especially around the Olympics in the 60s.