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It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

_tik_ 5y ago
from my experience this is quite normal in Taiwan and Singapore too. I saw few leave their iPhone or Laptop on the food court table.
openplatypus 5y ago
Meanwhile, anecdotally, I once found someone driving licence on the street, in small Bavarian town. When I returned the driving license at the Police Station I met with bewilderment. Like never ever returned these before. I hope this was just an isolated case. German youth is also tought morality but not sure it always sticks.
nnoitra 5y ago
- axiolite 5y ago
  Japan has a strong culture of pacifism too. What happened 80 years ago doesn't change the facts on the ground, today.
  - cute_boi 5y ago
    But, they still don't acknowledge the crime and are oblivious to the situation. I see this as hypocrisy. I remember the following punch line from one of Japan's anime :). "To protect the world, we must accept our sins and our accompanying ruin."
    - nnoitra 5y ago
      Are you really cute? x_x
    - antifa 5y ago
      Most countries with atrocities in their past under-acknowledge their atrocities while simultaneously over-acknowledge the atrocities of their competitors.
- diputsmonro 5y ago
  You mean an event that occurred nearly an entire generation ago, and for which almost none of those responsibile are still living? Kinda shitty to hold that legacy over the heads of an entire people. You're not really making a good case for your supposed moral superiority.
  - nnoitra 5y ago
    2 uber-dangerous super-violent nukes will turn even the Sardaukar to a peace-loving nation
    - StellarTabi 5y ago
      Posadas was right.
  - Morgawr 5y ago
    > nearly an entire generation ago A generation on average is around 25 years. I'm pretty sure the Nanking massacre happened a bit longer than that.
    - sonicggg 5y ago
      To be fair, they don't regret a thing. They still have shrines to honour war criminals, and continuously downplay what they did.
      - whelming_wave 5y ago
        to be fair, the US still has statues to honor slavers, people continuously downplay what they did, etc. people aren’t a monoculture, though Japan definitely still has its own issues with their past
- axiomsEnd 5y ago
  Japan : the one and only country in history with violent and brutal chapter in it's history. It's about losing wallets...
- abeppu 5y ago
  This is being down voted b/c the Nanking massacre is both old, and not unique. But ... it is worth examining the assumed strong culture of morality. Is it morality? Is it just norm-compliance or rule following? Is it shame or fear of shame? Is there really a basis for calling whole societies more or less moral? Or does morality just get expressed in different ways in different social contexts? Without invoking war crimes, one could ask about gender inequality, LGBT rights, or the status of racial minorites in Japan. Are these reflective of a particularly "strong culture of morality"?
_dh54 5y ago
> Japan’s strong culture of morality. Do sociologists yet understand why some cultures are strong in morality yet some aren’t? Surely if we understood the forces that drive macro behavior we could duplicate desirable attributes like high morality in other cultures. I would really like it if we had this high level of morality in America.
- lovemenot 5y ago
  I am not a sociologist, but I would think morality of Japanese, such as returning lost items, is just a particular case of their general propensity to follow rules. It helps explain why we in Japan can have nice things.
  - _dh54 5y ago
    > is just a particular case of their general propensity to follow rules. Fair enough but this just kicks the can down the road. Why does Japanese culture have a propensity to follow rules? How can we duplicate that in America?
    - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
      For better or for worse, it doesn't seem difficult to attribute them treating everyone like family to the fact that they are essentially a homogeneous population.
      - astrange 5y ago
        They aren't really. 98% of them are Japanese citizens but that doesn't mean they're "Japanese people" - the government doesn't track that. Also, the concept of "Japanese people" was invented in the Meiji era as part of their approach to resisting Western colonization by pretending to already be a Western nation-state. And of course, some of them are Ainu or Ryukyuan.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Shadonototra 5y ago
- bombcar 5y ago
  - abeppu 5y ago
    I feel like Japan is not the country that will invade Taiwan next. But ... maybe some Japanese propagandist/marketer wants there to be a crowd ready when the border reopens to tourists.
    - lovemenot 5y ago
      Pre-covid, the majority of tourists were from China and East Asia in general. Given their need to isolate upon re-entry, not many of these will be returning very soon.
      - abeppu 5y ago
        All the more reason to invest in English language material, right?
    - Shadonototra 5y ago
      japan only exist so nato can push a western presence in SEA, just like south korea, hence why they are being 'westernized' USA prepare its pawns for china, the pacific will be remembered as a radioactive bloodbath in future history books there, my theory as to why we get lot of propaganda lately
- PawBer 5y ago
  The first post about something usually sets a chain reaction because people suddenly remember interesting things about the object of the first post. Other than that Japanese envy is just a common thing in the west.
- deleted 5y ago
rgovostes 5y ago
Outside many establishments in Japan you will find an umbrella rack full of nearly identical translucent white umbrellas (the style sold for a few hundred yen at any convenience store). Many of these have been inadvertently left behind, the rain having stopped while the owner was inside. Once I found myself in the reverse situation, sitting in a friend's bar when a downpour started. I asked him if I could take one of the abandoned umbrellas to get home, but he refused, saying they belong to his customers. He agreed that no one would ever come back to claim one, laughing at the absurdity of it, but he couldn't risk being discovered as the bartender who abetted the theft of a misplaced umbrella.
- wirthjason 5y ago
  Speak the truth! If you have a white handle umbrella it’s a “give a penny, take a penny” situation. Countless times I’ve had a newish one taken and the only one left is some crappy junk that’s rusted out as half the spokes broke. I get it though. They are all similar (even though they are not, some still have the plastic wrap or price tag on the handle). Mistakes are mistakes. What really pisses me off is when you take a nicer one (those clear ones are crap) and it’s totally different from all the other umbrellas and it goes missing. No excusing “sorry I mixed up my clear umbrella with the white handle for your clear umbrella with the white handle”. I hope there’s a social place in hell for those people.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    All my white umbrellas get a blue-red tag stuck to their handle. It serves the double purpose of making them easy to identify for me, and so ‘different’ to other people they wouldn’t want to use it over a plain white one.
- kenneth 5y ago
  In Hong Kong it's common for bars to always have extra leftover umbrellas that were left behind. As a regular they'd always just give me one if I got caught out in the rain. I've also left umbrellas out countless times. It's all an inadvertent pay it forward scheme
patio11 5y ago
Not a particularly good article so some things that y'all might find interesting: "Honor" and "a sense of responsibility" explains very little and good, widely distributed Schelling points (koban and, to a lesser extent, commercial/transit centers information/etc desks) that both do the right thing for lost/found items and are widely believed to do the right thing explains most of it. You are legally entitled to a reward of up to 25% of the lost property's value in Japan. Almost everyone waives it; you'll be asked about it when filling out the paperwork. In my limited experience (five times?) they do try to avoid influencing you either way with the wording, and don't say "Everyone waives this." This does come up occasionally with regards to cash hordes. Foreigners interacting with this system are, unfortunately, frequently seen as a burden by the cops ("Can't even fill out their own forms grumblegrumble") and brushed off unless someone in the koban decides either to be a go-getter or that this particular foreigner is likely socially established. In some cases the form of the brushoff takes the form of an impromptu Japanese test ("What do you want me to do with that?") where knowing that the magic words ("I would like to file a lost property report." / "紛失物届けを提出したいです”) is treated as being suddenly worthy of prompt service. This can be heavily YMMV based on the individual cop, the station/koban, and (regrettably) "How likely people who look like you are to be a frequent source of aggravation for cops in this neighborhood?"
- twofornone 5y ago
  >Honor" and "a sense of responsibility" explains very little and good, widely distributed Schelling points (koban and, to a lesser extent, commercial/transit centers information/etc desks) I feel like you're bending over backwards to dismiss that this really does come down to culture. At the very least you need a sizable population willing to forgo the easy, untracable reward of free cash/property. Especially when you go on to state that in almost all cases the reward is waived, only further suggesting a culture where honor is more important than spending money. As someone who has lived in Asia, this different culture exists in some other countries (like korea, possibly to a lesser extent) but is rather absent from China, no doubt influenced by the psychological horrors of china's particularly brutal bout with full marxism.
  - antifa 5y ago
haraldooo 5y ago
Can confirm. I once lost my three week Japan Rail Pass (green car) somewhere in Tokyo station which has > 3 million passengers per day and is just huge. This was my first day in Japan with rides planned through the whole country. These rides would have cost a fortune to replace as you cannot buy a JRP in Japan. It took less then an hour to get it back. I assume nowhere else in the world this would have played out the same way. I was very thankful that day to say the least.
- blamazon 5y ago
  I inadvertently left my water bottle at a ticket machine somewhere in the Tokyo rail apparatus and then traveled 4-6 stations away and reported it to an info booth there. An attendant brought it to me on the next train less than ten minutes later. Mind blown. It was a heavily insulated water bottle and keeping ice in it made a world of difference as I was traveling at the hottest time of the year. A small object can be insignificant when it is anonymous but significant to an individual. It's nice when other humans "have our back" at scale.
- astrange 5y ago
  Btw, you can buy a rail pass after you get to Japan now. I mean… they won't let you into the country, but besides that.
wirthjason 5y ago
This article is obviously not talking about bicycles. :) Is there some kind of HN Japanese article trend recently? In any case I appreciate the culture of getting lost stuff returned in Japan much more than “magical” conbinis. The article mentions money so I’ll add my anecdote. Many years ago as a student we had a going away party for some friends who were returning to the US. Someone had a “genius” plan to beat the jet lag. Since their flight was early in the morning we planned an all nighter so they would catch one of the first planes to the airport, board the plane and sleep the entire flight, waking up back in the US “refreshed”. About half though the night and after way too many drinks I got sick. It was well past last train so my friends hailed me a cab back to my host family’s house about an hour away in suburban Kokobunji. The next thing I know I’m passed out in the back seat of the taxi and my parents wake me up, pay the $100 cab fare and help me into the house. I wake up the next morning with a stiff hangover to find so much stuff missing, but most importantly my wallet. It had all the important stuff: a couple hundred in yen, my train pass, my ID cards, and most importantly, my residence card. My stomach sank thinking how I’d get it back. Later that day as I was recovering the taxi driver came by the house and returned my wallet —- everything intact. I offered all the cash I had but he refused to take it. I cannot imagine he would make such a trip back out that far to return some stupid gaijin’s stuff. It left a permanent memory of people’s generosity. On the flip side, a Japanese friend of mine and I would practice English. He was always interested in US slang, particularly swear words, which he never quite got right. I’ll always remember the day he nailed it. He got $500 from his grandparents as a present for graduating high school and entering Waseda University. He called me up and says “I lost my wallet, I got the wallet back but fuuuck man, they took the money.”
- ehnto 5y ago
  Here's my anecdote: I lost my phone in Japan once, in Tokyo. I was steaming after a night of karaoke and somewhere between the bar, taxi and my hotel, I'd lost my phone. I wandered down to the street at 3am, retracing my steps, and a police officer noticed me and asked what I was looking for. He pointed me back to the hotel reception where where we got on the phone to the taxi company, and then directly onto the driver, who said he hadn't found anything. What was odd, was that I didn't know the taxi company at all, the receptionist had just remembered what I pulled up in. Accepting that I had lost my phone in a foreign country, I went back upstairs and found it immediately upon walking back into the room. I'd just dropped it under my bag. I went back down and apologized for wasting the receptionists time, but they wouldn't accept it. The morale of the story being that there was no shortage of help, and that I was a big dummy.
cko 5y ago
I loved Tokyo when I visited especially because of the safety. A coworker happened to be there with me at the same time and we even joked about moving there. I understand they have a tough immigration system. Short of getting a job there, how can a US citizen live there?
- skhr0680 5y ago
  > I understand they have a tough immigration system. It's a joke (in a good way) compared to other developed nations, the whole process costs $50 or so. > Short of getting a job there, how can a US citizen live there? Be in the military, get posted to the Japanese office of your company, get married to a Japanese, or have a stack of cash
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    Yeah, getting refugee status is impossible, but it’s really easy to immigrate as long as you can get someone to hire you.
- astrange 5y ago
  It's much, much easier to immigrate to Japan than the US; you just need a 4-year college degree and someone to sponsor your work visa. The main issue for Americans is that wages are lower, might not be able to pay student loans or save up for that house.
Galanwe 5y ago
Japan is often taken as an example for this kind of things, but I think the overall thing can span to most of Asia, though with varying degrees. Singapore would be an even greater extreme. I remember a friend telling me he was seated at a restaurant table, and two girls on the table next to him go out to smoke outside. The waiter came back to give back the credit card to the girls and found their table empty. The waiter then proceeded to give the credit card to my friend and told him to hand it back to the girls when they come back from smoking. The waiter apparently considered absurd the possibility of my friend keeping the card for himself and leaving.
- emteycz 5y ago
  Wouldn't stealing that card get you flogging or something like it? Who would steal in these conditions...
ehnto 5y ago
I think a lot of what makes Japan work in some of these more beneficial ways is organization and process, and I think that's a hard pill for some to swallow. Certainly was for me, because I hate bureaucracy and rigid process, but love efficiency and pragmatism. You see things getting achieved in ridiculous accuracy and efficiency over there, and it's usually backed by a lot of process, checks and balances. Cleaning the train stations in Tokyo is handled by a special forces level of planning, regiment and and execution. There's also a lot of human labor involved, locker boxes in big cities are checked daily, maintained daily to weekly, fixed on the spot or marked for maintenance that gets done very quickly. That's all process and regiment, preventative maintenance and pro-active checking rather than waiting for things to fail and get reported. As always, Japan is huge, and diverse, it's not all like that, but certainly a lot of it is.
srvmshr 5y ago
I forgot my laptop backpack on the benches in Shibuya station on a drunk Friday night. The station staff retrieved and kept it for me. I thought it was a goner and I was few months old to Japan then. The honesty system works on mutual trust
vagrantJin 5y ago
I must say, the US seems to have a fetish for Japan as Japan has a fetish for the US. It's cute.
dr_dshiv 5y ago
I left my bag on a train the first day I arrived in Japan. I had fallen asleep and woke up to a conductor shouting at me. I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of the train. But, as soon as the doors shut, I realized my other bag was inside. I went to the train authority and registered the lost item and everyone assured me that it would be found, no problem. I called back several times over the next 10 days but it never showed up. The train person told me “it must have been a Korean.” I was like, whaaa? My bag is lost and you are going to comfort me with racism? Ah well, that was literally my only negative experience in the country.
- brabel 5y ago
  > “it must have been a Korean.” Everybody here is basically making the point that Japanese are extremely unlikely to keep items they find, which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff", except that in this particular case, the person singled out a particular nationality instead of generalizing - I find generalizing the whole rest of the world even worse than doing that.
  - hohoemi8 5y ago
    >which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff" You can call it racist if you want but it's absolutely true.
    - brabel 5y ago
      That's the thing with racism: you can't just pick and choose what you believe is ok or not. Is it ok to say japanese people are less intelligent? If not, why is it ok to say they are more intelligent?
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    Not really. It's one thing to point out that Japan has a unique culture, which is very obvious. It's an entirely other thing to blame foreigners once that culture doesn't work as expected. In particular because Koreans have very strong lost and found systems and high trust as well. Blaming Koreans is a reflex given the strong anti-Korean sentiment in Japan.
hbarka 5y ago
Here in San Francisco, what are the chances that these Norwegian tourists can even hope to be reunited with their possessions? https://twitter.com/powellmason415/status/1502291443196461058 https://twitter.com/powellmason415/status/150229144319646105...
LatteLazy 5y ago
I lost my passport, my copy of lonely planet, my rail pass and about 400usd in yen. For less than an hour. I left it at a station. Boarded the train, realised I didn't have it when I got to the other end (and couldn't find the pass to exit). The station staff offered to give me some cash to help me get to my destination and it was no problem I didn't have the pass because I was "obviously respectable". Then they came back to tell me my things had been found. I asked if I could take the train back to pick it up. No need! The driver is bringing it to me on the next train, he'll be 30minutes. Please enjoy some free coffee in this cafe and wait. What a country.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
  Huh.. my jaw drops.. Even though this is an anecdote, I don't think this could ever happen in America.
euroderf 5y ago
Centralization of Lost & Found is a Good Thing (TM). The city of Helsinki, on the other hand, has completely screwed up. Splintering of lost & found combined with outsourcing/privatization. Bah humbug.
anuraaga 5y ago
These articles seem to always leave out that if you turn in an item you are legally entitled to a finder's fee from the owner based on the value of the lost item. Security cameras are also plentiful and we'll staffed. It feels good to call this a matter of morals but incentivizing return and fear of being caught by a camera are not quite morals, but on the bright side would be more easy to reproduce in other countries given interest.
version_five 5y ago
Interesting to read that > In Japan, citizens are required to take lost property to the Koban (police station). From there, it is either returned or stored at the Tokyo hub until claimed. A few years ago, I found a wallet on the ground and I took it to the police station. (The experience itself was a bit bizarre, they evidently had a "triage" system where you have to use a computer to select why you're there and get a ticket number, then sit in a waiting room until you're called - mostly with people picking up their kids from the drunk tank - this was a sunday morning). Anyway, the police officer that eventually received me told me that they don't accept lost wallets, and that basically I was on my own if I wanted to figure out how to return it. (There was stuff with the person's name but no address in the wallet).
- noasaservice 5y ago
  - jcims 5y ago
    My nephew is a police officer in the US. The vast majority of his day is dealing with drunks, overdoses, domestic violence, traffic violations and broken down vehicles.
    - b112 5y ago
      Yeah. Police should never get a pass for inappropriate actions or behaviour, but at the same time, I wonder how I would view the world if dealing with this stuff all the time. Police basically have to deal with people at their worst. Most confrontational. Most violent. Most emotional. I don't think I could do the job, not in a big city, without becoming jaded fast.
      - jcims 5y ago
        You also become a bit of a social pariah, especially if people in your friend group dabble in things less than legal.
    - 5y ago

from my experience this is quite normal in Taiwan and Singapore too. I saw few leave their iPhone or Laptop on the food court table.

openplatypus 5y ago

Meanwhile, anecdotally, I once found someone driving licence on the street, in small Bavarian town. When I returned the driving license at the Police Station I met with bewilderment. Like never ever returned these before. I hope this was just an isolated case. German youth is also tought morality but not sure it always sticks.

nnoitra 5y ago

axiolite 5y ago
Japan has a strong culture of pacifism too. What happened 80 years ago doesn't change the facts on the ground, today.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  But, they still don't acknowledge the crime and are oblivious to the situation. I see this as hypocrisy. I remember the following punch line from one of Japan's anime :). "To protect the world, we must accept our sins and our accompanying ruin."
  - nnoitra 5y ago
    Are you really cute? x_x
  - antifa 5y ago
    Most countries with atrocities in their past under-acknowledge their atrocities while simultaneously over-acknowledge the atrocities of their competitors.
diputsmonro 5y ago
You mean an event that occurred nearly an entire generation ago, and for which almost none of those responsibile are still living? Kinda shitty to hold that legacy over the heads of an entire people. You're not really making a good case for your supposed moral superiority.
- nnoitra 5y ago
  2 uber-dangerous super-violent nukes will turn even the Sardaukar to a peace-loving nation
  - StellarTabi 5y ago
    Posadas was right.
- Morgawr 5y ago
  > nearly an entire generation ago A generation on average is around 25 years. I'm pretty sure the Nanking massacre happened a bit longer than that.
  - sonicggg 5y ago
    To be fair, they don't regret a thing. They still have shrines to honour war criminals, and continuously downplay what they did.
    - whelming_wave 5y ago
      to be fair, the US still has statues to honor slavers, people continuously downplay what they did, etc. people aren’t a monoculture, though Japan definitely still has its own issues with their past
axiomsEnd 5y ago
Japan : the one and only country in history with violent and brutal chapter in it's history. It's about losing wallets...
abeppu 5y ago
This is being down voted b/c the Nanking massacre is both old, and not unique. But ... it is worth examining the assumed strong culture of morality. Is it morality? Is it just norm-compliance or rule following? Is it shame or fear of shame? Is there really a basis for calling whole societies more or less moral? Or does morality just get expressed in different ways in different social contexts? Without invoking war crimes, one could ask about gender inequality, LGBT rights, or the status of racial minorites in Japan. Are these reflective of a particularly "strong culture of morality"?

_dh54 5y ago

> Japan’s strong culture of morality. Do sociologists yet understand why some cultures are strong in morality yet some aren’t? Surely if we understood the forces that drive macro behavior we could duplicate desirable attributes like high morality in other cultures. I would really like it if we had this high level of morality in America.

lovemenot 5y ago
I am not a sociologist, but I would think morality of Japanese, such as returning lost items, is just a particular case of their general propensity to follow rules. It helps explain why we in Japan can have nice things.
- _dh54 5y ago
  > is just a particular case of their general propensity to follow rules. Fair enough but this just kicks the can down the road. Why does Japanese culture have a propensity to follow rules? How can we duplicate that in America?
  - aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
    For better or for worse, it doesn't seem difficult to attribute them treating everyone like family to the fact that they are essentially a homogeneous population.
    - astrange 5y ago
      They aren't really. 98% of them are Japanese citizens but that doesn't mean they're "Japanese people" - the government doesn't track that. Also, the concept of "Japanese people" was invented in the Meiji era as part of their approach to resisting Western colonization by pretending to already be a Western nation-state. And of course, some of them are Ainu or Ryukyuan.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Shadonototra 5y ago

bombcar 5y ago
- abeppu 5y ago
  I feel like Japan is not the country that will invade Taiwan next. But ... maybe some Japanese propagandist/marketer wants there to be a crowd ready when the border reopens to tourists.
  - lovemenot 5y ago
    Pre-covid, the majority of tourists were from China and East Asia in general. Given their need to isolate upon re-entry, not many of these will be returning very soon.
    - abeppu 5y ago
      All the more reason to invest in English language material, right?
  - Shadonototra 5y ago
    japan only exist so nato can push a western presence in SEA, just like south korea, hence why they are being 'westernized' USA prepare its pawns for china, the pacific will be remembered as a radioactive bloodbath in future history books there, my theory as to why we get lot of propaganda lately
PawBer 5y ago
The first post about something usually sets a chain reaction because people suddenly remember interesting things about the object of the first post. Other than that Japanese envy is just a common thing in the west.
deleted 5y ago

rgovostes 5y ago

Outside many establishments in Japan you will find an umbrella rack full of nearly identical translucent white umbrellas (the style sold for a few hundred yen at any convenience store). Many of these have been inadvertently left behind, the rain having stopped while the owner was inside. Once I found myself in the reverse situation, sitting in a friend's bar when a downpour started. I asked him if I could take one of the abandoned umbrellas to get home, but he refused, saying they belong to his customers. He agreed that no one would ever come back to claim one, laughing at the absurdity of it, but he couldn't risk being discovered as the bartender who abetted the theft of a misplaced umbrella.

wirthjason 5y ago
Speak the truth! If you have a white handle umbrella it’s a “give a penny, take a penny” situation. Countless times I’ve had a newish one taken and the only one left is some crappy junk that’s rusted out as half the spokes broke. I get it though. They are all similar (even though they are not, some still have the plastic wrap or price tag on the handle). Mistakes are mistakes. What really pisses me off is when you take a nicer one (those clear ones are crap) and it’s totally different from all the other umbrellas and it goes missing. No excusing “sorry I mixed up my clear umbrella with the white handle for your clear umbrella with the white handle”. I hope there’s a social place in hell for those people.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  All my white umbrellas get a blue-red tag stuck to their handle. It serves the double purpose of making them easy to identify for me, and so ‘different’ to other people they wouldn’t want to use it over a plain white one.
kenneth 5y ago
In Hong Kong it's common for bars to always have extra leftover umbrellas that were left behind. As a regular they'd always just give me one if I got caught out in the rain. I've also left umbrellas out countless times. It's all an inadvertent pay it forward scheme

patio11 5y ago

Not a particularly good article so some things that y'all might find interesting: "Honor" and "a sense of responsibility" explains very little and good, widely distributed Schelling points (koban and, to a lesser extent, commercial/transit centers information/etc desks) that both do the right thing for lost/found items and are widely believed to do the right thing explains most of it. You are legally entitled to a reward of up to 25% of the lost property's value in Japan. Almost everyone waives it; you'll be asked about it when filling out the paperwork. In my limited experience (five times?) they do try to avoid influencing you either way with the wording, and don't say "Everyone waives this." This does come up occasionally with regards to cash hordes. Foreigners interacting with this system are, unfortunately, frequently seen as a burden by the cops ("Can't even fill out their own forms grumblegrumble") and brushed off unless someone in the koban decides either to be a go-getter or that this particular foreigner is likely socially established. In some cases the form of the brushoff takes the form of an impromptu Japanese test ("What do you want me to do with that?") where knowing that the magic words ("I would like to file a lost property report." / "紛失物届けを提出したいです”) is treated as being suddenly worthy of prompt service. This can be heavily YMMV based on the individual cop, the station/koban, and (regrettably) "How likely people who look like you are to be a frequent source of aggravation for cops in this neighborhood?"

twofornone 5y ago
>Honor" and "a sense of responsibility" explains very little and good, widely distributed Schelling points (koban and, to a lesser extent, commercial/transit centers information/etc desks) I feel like you're bending over backwards to dismiss that this really does come down to culture. At the very least you need a sizable population willing to forgo the easy, untracable reward of free cash/property. Especially when you go on to state that in almost all cases the reward is waived, only further suggesting a culture where honor is more important than spending money. As someone who has lived in Asia, this different culture exists in some other countries (like korea, possibly to a lesser extent) but is rather absent from China, no doubt influenced by the psychological horrors of china's particularly brutal bout with full marxism.
- antifa 5y ago

haraldooo 5y ago

Can confirm. I once lost my three week Japan Rail Pass (green car) somewhere in Tokyo station which has > 3 million passengers per day and is just huge. This was my first day in Japan with rides planned through the whole country. These rides would have cost a fortune to replace as you cannot buy a JRP in Japan. It took less then an hour to get it back. I assume nowhere else in the world this would have played out the same way. I was very thankful that day to say the least.

blamazon 5y ago
I inadvertently left my water bottle at a ticket machine somewhere in the Tokyo rail apparatus and then traveled 4-6 stations away and reported it to an info booth there. An attendant brought it to me on the next train less than ten minutes later. Mind blown. It was a heavily insulated water bottle and keeping ice in it made a world of difference as I was traveling at the hottest time of the year. A small object can be insignificant when it is anonymous but significant to an individual. It's nice when other humans "have our back" at scale.
astrange 5y ago
Btw, you can buy a rail pass after you get to Japan now. I mean… they won't let you into the country, but besides that.

wirthjason 5y ago

This article is obviously not talking about bicycles. :) Is there some kind of HN Japanese article trend recently? In any case I appreciate the culture of getting lost stuff returned in Japan much more than “magical” conbinis. The article mentions money so I’ll add my anecdote. Many years ago as a student we had a going away party for some friends who were returning to the US. Someone had a “genius” plan to beat the jet lag. Since their flight was early in the morning we planned an all nighter so they would catch one of the first planes to the airport, board the plane and sleep the entire flight, waking up back in the US “refreshed”. About half though the night and after way too many drinks I got sick. It was well past last train so my friends hailed me a cab back to my host family’s house about an hour away in suburban Kokobunji. The next thing I know I’m passed out in the back seat of the taxi and my parents wake me up, pay the $100 cab fare and help me into the house. I wake up the next morning with a stiff hangover to find so much stuff missing, but most importantly my wallet. It had all the important stuff: a couple hundred in yen, my train pass, my ID cards, and most importantly, my residence card. My stomach sank thinking how I’d get it back. Later that day as I was recovering the taxi driver came by the house and returned my wallet —- everything intact. I offered all the cash I had but he refused to take it. I cannot imagine he would make such a trip back out that far to return some stupid gaijin’s stuff. It left a permanent memory of people’s generosity. On the flip side, a Japanese friend of mine and I would practice English. He was always interested in US slang, particularly swear words, which he never quite got right. I’ll always remember the day he nailed it. He got $500 from his grandparents as a present for graduating high school and entering Waseda University. He called me up and says “I lost my wallet, I got the wallet back but fuuuck man, they took the money.”

ehnto 5y ago
Here's my anecdote: I lost my phone in Japan once, in Tokyo. I was steaming after a night of karaoke and somewhere between the bar, taxi and my hotel, I'd lost my phone. I wandered down to the street at 3am, retracing my steps, and a police officer noticed me and asked what I was looking for. He pointed me back to the hotel reception where where we got on the phone to the taxi company, and then directly onto the driver, who said he hadn't found anything. What was odd, was that I didn't know the taxi company at all, the receptionist had just remembered what I pulled up in. Accepting that I had lost my phone in a foreign country, I went back upstairs and found it immediately upon walking back into the room. I'd just dropped it under my bag. I went back down and apologized for wasting the receptionists time, but they wouldn't accept it. The morale of the story being that there was no shortage of help, and that I was a big dummy.

cko 5y ago

I loved Tokyo when I visited especially because of the safety. A coworker happened to be there with me at the same time and we even joked about moving there. I understand they have a tough immigration system. Short of getting a job there, how can a US citizen live there?

skhr0680 5y ago
> I understand they have a tough immigration system. It's a joke (in a good way) compared to other developed nations, the whole process costs $50 or so. > Short of getting a job there, how can a US citizen live there? Be in the military, get posted to the Japanese office of your company, get married to a Japanese, or have a stack of cash
- Aeolun 5y ago
  Yeah, getting refugee status is impossible, but it’s really easy to immigrate as long as you can get someone to hire you.
astrange 5y ago
It's much, much easier to immigrate to Japan than the US; you just need a 4-year college degree and someone to sponsor your work visa. The main issue for Americans is that wages are lower, might not be able to pay student loans or save up for that house.

Galanwe 5y ago

Japan is often taken as an example for this kind of things, but I think the overall thing can span to most of Asia, though with varying degrees. Singapore would be an even greater extreme. I remember a friend telling me he was seated at a restaurant table, and two girls on the table next to him go out to smoke outside. The waiter came back to give back the credit card to the girls and found their table empty. The waiter then proceeded to give the credit card to my friend and told him to hand it back to the girls when they come back from smoking. The waiter apparently considered absurd the possibility of my friend keeping the card for himself and leaving.

emteycz 5y ago
Wouldn't stealing that card get you flogging or something like it? Who would steal in these conditions...

ehnto 5y ago

I think a lot of what makes Japan work in some of these more beneficial ways is organization and process, and I think that's a hard pill for some to swallow. Certainly was for me, because I hate bureaucracy and rigid process, but love efficiency and pragmatism. You see things getting achieved in ridiculous accuracy and efficiency over there, and it's usually backed by a lot of process, checks and balances. Cleaning the train stations in Tokyo is handled by a special forces level of planning, regiment and and execution. There's also a lot of human labor involved, locker boxes in big cities are checked daily, maintained daily to weekly, fixed on the spot or marked for maintenance that gets done very quickly. That's all process and regiment, preventative maintenance and pro-active checking rather than waiting for things to fail and get reported. As always, Japan is huge, and diverse, it's not all like that, but certainly a lot of it is.

srvmshr 5y ago

I forgot my laptop backpack on the benches in Shibuya station on a drunk Friday night. The station staff retrieved and kept it for me. I thought it was a goner and I was few months old to Japan then. The honesty system works on mutual trust

vagrantJin 5y ago

I must say, the US seems to have a fetish for Japan as Japan has a fetish for the US. It's cute.

dr_dshiv 5y ago

I left my bag on a train the first day I arrived in Japan. I had fallen asleep and woke up to a conductor shouting at me. I grabbed my backpack and hurried out of the train. But, as soon as the doors shut, I realized my other bag was inside. I went to the train authority and registered the lost item and everyone assured me that it would be found, no problem. I called back several times over the next 10 days but it never showed up. The train person told me “it must have been a Korean.” I was like, whaaa? My bag is lost and you are going to comfort me with racism? Ah well, that was literally my only negative experience in the country.

brabel 5y ago
> “it must have been a Korean.” Everybody here is basically making the point that Japanese are extremely unlikely to keep items they find, which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff", except that in this particular case, the person singled out a particular nationality instead of generalizing - I find generalizing the whole rest of the world even worse than doing that.
- hohoemi8 5y ago
  >which is basically as racist as saying "other nationalities are more likely to keep stuff" You can call it racist if you want but it's absolutely true.
  - brabel 5y ago
    That's the thing with racism: you can't just pick and choose what you believe is ok or not. Is it ok to say japanese people are less intelligent? If not, why is it ok to say they are more intelligent?
- Barrin92 5y ago
  Not really. It's one thing to point out that Japan has a unique culture, which is very obvious. It's an entirely other thing to blame foreigners once that culture doesn't work as expected. In particular because Koreans have very strong lost and found systems and high trust as well. Blaming Koreans is a reflex given the strong anti-Korean sentiment in Japan.

hbarka 5y ago

Here in San Francisco, what are the chances that these Norwegian tourists can even hope to be reunited with their possessions? https://twitter.com/powellmason415/status/1502291443196461058 https://twitter.com/powellmason415/status/150229144319646105...

LatteLazy 5y ago

I lost my passport, my copy of lonely planet, my rail pass and about 400usd in yen. For less than an hour. I left it at a station. Boarded the train, realised I didn't have it when I got to the other end (and couldn't find the pass to exit). The station staff offered to give me some cash to help me get to my destination and it was no problem I didn't have the pass because I was "obviously respectable". Then they came back to tell me my things had been found. I asked if I could take the train back to pick it up. No need! The driver is bringing it to me on the next train, he'll be 30minutes. Please enjoy some free coffee in this cafe and wait. What a country.

ilrwbwrkhv 5y ago
Huh.. my jaw drops.. Even though this is an anecdote, I don't think this could ever happen in America.

euroderf 5y ago

Centralization of Lost & Found is a Good Thing (TM). The city of Helsinki, on the other hand, has completely screwed up. Splintering of lost & found combined with outsourcing/privatization. Bah humbug.

anuraaga 5y ago

These articles seem to always leave out that if you turn in an item you are legally entitled to a finder's fee from the owner based on the value of the lost item. Security cameras are also plentiful and we'll staffed. It feels good to call this a matter of morals but incentivizing return and fear of being caught by a camera are not quite morals, but on the bright side would be more easy to reproduce in other countries given interest.

version_five 5y ago

Interesting to read that > In Japan, citizens are required to take lost property to the Koban (police station). From there, it is either returned or stored at the Tokyo hub until claimed. A few years ago, I found a wallet on the ground and I took it to the police station. (The experience itself was a bit bizarre, they evidently had a "triage" system where you have to use a computer to select why you're there and get a ticket number, then sit in a waiting room until you're called - mostly with people picking up their kids from the drunk tank - this was a sunday morning). Anyway, the police officer that eventually received me told me that they don't accept lost wallets, and that basically I was on my own if I wanted to figure out how to return it. (There was stuff with the person's name but no address in the wallet).

noasaservice 5y ago
- jcims 5y ago
  My nephew is a police officer in the US. The vast majority of his day is dealing with drunks, overdoses, domestic violence, traffic violations and broken down vehicles.
  - b112 5y ago
    Yeah. Police should never get a pass for inappropriate actions or behaviour, but at the same time, I wonder how I would view the world if dealing with this stuff all the time. Police basically have to deal with people at their worst. Most confrontational. Most violent. Most emotional. I don't think I could do the job, not in a big city, without becoming jaded fast.
    - jcims 5y ago
      You also become a bit of a social pariah, especially if people in your friend group dabble in things less than legal.
  - 5y ago