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It's certainly possible to build and even buy a very robust umbrella. I suspect the reason most people don't is that they know they're going to be lost or stole
by dreamcompiler 5y ago
It's certainly possible to build and even buy a very robust umbrella. I suspect the reason most people don't is that they know they're going to be lost or stolen.*
It's why Amsterdam bicyclists don't ride $5000 bikes.
*Especially in Tokyo. If you drop a wallet full of cash on the street in Tokyo, someone will chase you down to return it. But if you turn your back on your umbrella in Tokyo, kiss it goodbye. Then you have to steal another one.
- thinkingemote 5y agoI have a confession. A first time visitor from a small European town to a Japanese city last millennium, it was raining and a department store had buckets with mostly white or transparent umbrellas by the door. How civilized, I thought, that a company would provide free umbrellas to shoppers when it rains, and so I took one. Turns out that's where you out your umbrella when entering the store...
- dreamcompiler 5y agoThat's what everybody there does. I don't think the story is "everybody in Japan is honest except about umbrellas" but rather that the Japanese simply consider umbrellas to be community property.