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Tokyo’s trash-collecting samurai takes a fun approach to cleanup
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago> The two men glide through Tokyo’s bustling Ikebukuro district in full-length samurai outfits, while wielding objects that look like swords. I didn't know samurai wore denim coats, leather boots and fedora hats!
- rideontime 3y agoThey do now.
- Malic 3y agoI'd watch that anime.
- probably_wrong 3y agoHave you seen Samurai Champloo?
- GOATS- 3y agoGenuinely recommend seeing it if you haven't already. Such a great show!
- SapporoChris 3y agoSamurai were abolished in the 1870's during the Meiji era. It was a gradual process. The Samurai were converted to a new social class called Shizoku which loosely translates to 'Warrior families' I know it's disappointing, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
- scintill76 3y agoAs a consolation, maybe "there was a 22 year window in which a samurai could have sent a fax to Abraham Lincoln" https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2154725-a-samurai-could-have-faxed-abraham-lincoln--2 https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2154725-a-samurai-could-have...
- twic 3y agoRelated to how Dracula could drink Coke and play Nintendo: https://twitter.com/lunasorcery/status/1271537553842323463 https://twitter.com/lunasorcery/status/1271537553842323463
- cwkoss 3y agodid abraham lincoln have a fax machine? google is clogged fully of reposts of the tweet, but I suspect not. At minimum the samurai would probably have to cross the ocean and send the fax from mainland US, right?
- bombcar 3y ago> The Gatling gun is a rapid-firing multiple-barrel firearm invented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling. So we have a short window for a very accurate historical novel …
- sidewndr46 3y agoIt wasn't that smooth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctsu_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%8Ctsu_incident
- SapporoChris 3y agoInteresting article, but non sequitur I think. While Tsuda Sanzō was born into a Samurai family, he was not Samurai. I do completely agree that it was not a smooth time period by any means.
- sidewndr46 3y agoIt was him witnessing the Samurai rebellion being crushed that motivated him to this act. Just to put in context how weird this is: a Russian royal got attacked and left with a permanent scar because of the domestic policy of Japan.
- SapporoChris 3y agoAh yes. Well, very slow fuse. He participated in suppressing the samurai uprising in 1877. Ōtsu incident was in 1891. I'm sure there were many other contributing factors. Thanks for explaining.
- nashashmi 3y agoSo United States Commodore Matthew C. Perry came to Japan in 1853, with a show of might, to open Japan to outside trade. This led to Japan phasing away Samurai culture in favor of Western law. And the Imperial Military seeking military advances. This led to more political prowess at the Versailles Treat. And gave Japanese Empire a taste of neo-imperialism called colonization. That led to WW2 and finally the atomic bomb. I see a trend.
- melony 3y agoI have seen fedora hat samurais at Comic con
- pjc50 3y agoI love those outfits. They're a great bit of cultural fusion. Denim has always been popular for workwear, and it's interesting to see it in a kimono cut.
- flyinglizard 3y agoI've been in Tokyo just now and there are barely any trash cans. It's annoying to no end. There's simply nowhere to throw your trash.
- RajT88 3y agoYou put it in your pocket and throw it away at home. IIRC, part of the reason for no trash cans is that eating in public is sort of taboo - you do it at a resto or at home. Food wrappers are quite a lot of trash people need to throw away. From my last trip to Tokyo I recall vending machines having both garbage and recycling bins. So just keep an eye out for vending machines.
- sithadmin 3y agoEating/drinking in public isn't a taboo, it's moreso that actively walking while eating or drinking or creating a mess in public is frowned on. Nobody really cares if you're having a drink or snack while stationary standing somewhere that doesn't impede pedestrian right-of-way if you're being tidy.
- enqk 3y agoit's frowned upon at the very least
- matsemann 3y ago> Food wrappers are quite a lot of trash people need to throw away. Agreed, but ironically Japan is the country I've visited that was the worst for this. Everything is wrapped, inside something wrapped, inside something wrapped. Each individual piece of candy is wrapped. Then 5 pieces are wrapped together. Then you have multiple of those again in a bag, etc. etc.
- enqk 3y agohumidity
- 3y ago
- mitko 3y agoI am reminded of one of Matt Mochary’s teaching: when you have to do a task, which takes away your energy, and cannot be delegated to someone else, them make it “exquisite”. Next time I have to “pick up trash”, I will try to think “what would these samurai do?”
- cm_silva 3y agohttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRuHr_O6RyQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sRuHr_O6RyQ
- notfried 3y agoVideo: Meet Japan’s Trash Collecting Samurai: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sRuHr_O6RyQ https://youtube.com/watch?v=sRuHr_O6RyQ
- poo-yie 3y agoI routinely go out and pick up trash along some of the nearby streets in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, my setup is not nearly as impressive. It's sad to see the amount of trash that people throw. Beer cans, drink cups, cigarette butts, plastic wrappers, beer bottles, etc. I pick up trash because I hate seeing it and the exercise is good for me.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoI'm also a trash picking up guy, got a bucket and a grabber stick I take on my dog walks. I do not find it sad but it does give me endless stuff to think about. One thing is that when people litter (or leave dog poop on the grass) they sort of think they're "getting away with it" because no one will catch them. I realized that's a childish perspective on morality, the reason not to litter is that it improves the quality of your community- not to avoid punishment! Another thing I think about is how we're all interconnected, and there are a million dimensions where you have to pull your weight or else someone else ends up with your extra burden. This is again especially apparent with children, who innocently leave messes or avoid chores, without realizing that what they're doing is assigning the chore to a parent. I think of all these people littering as not pulling their weight in the dimension of litter, but that makes me think that in other areas they might be pulling extra weight, like they're in a rush because their employer doesn't pay enough for them to outsource their tasks, or they're using alcohol as a coping mechanism and need to sneak their beers in the car and can't bring the cans in the house to throw them away. And the worst case is someone who is sort of burned out on the web of interconnectedness, and not pulling their weigh in any dimension, being a burden on everyone else. That's kind of sad but it doesn't make me hate those people because I've been that guy at times in my life, and now I can at least pay back the loans I've taken in some small way.
- jacquesm 3y agoSpot on, it's the whole attitude towards not caring what is right but what you can get away with. Endless frustration with that.
- snapcaster 3y ago
- henearkr 3y agoIf people believe they have fun picking trash, I'm afraid that wouldn't be very dissuasive against more littering... I often pick trash left by other people, and I always make a very annoyed face, not really because I'm annoyed but to signal that it is not OK.
- endisneigh 3y agoLittering can be solved easily. Put a 1% deposit on all consumables with a minimum of a dollar and you will never see trash on the street again. (for those unfamiliar, a deposit is a fee that you pay upon purchase that is refunded to you upon bringing back the packaging).
- neilv 3y agoI like the idea of (mostly) tying it to inflation. (US 5 cents beverage container deposit made more sense in the 1970s than in 2023.)
- lkbm 3y agoIf I rip my candy bar wrapper in half, it seems non-trivial to determine how much to give me for each half.
- endisneigh 3y agoin that scenario why should you get anything? rip it in a way that leaves it in one piece (albeit ripped) and return it. people will get with the program soon enough. after all the entire point of what I propose is to fix the behavior.
- nathancahill 3y agoCorrect. No one crushes empty soda cans in Michigan because you lose the deposit.
- lkbm 3y agoOkay, but who is checking your wrapper to make sure it's not ripped? If I bring in a bag of two hundred candy wrappers, does someone sit there and carefully check each one? This doesn't seem easily automatable. Is this a small candy bar wrapper, or half of a big candy bar wrapper? It's not an occasional wrapper. It's the block of cheese I finished off when cooking dinner yesterday, the container of mushrooms I emptied, the bag of tortillas. Most household trash just changed from "toss in the trash and it gets dumped somewhere" to "bring to someone to check each item for completeness"? I'm sure we'd end up with a lot less single-use packaging as a result, but we use single-use packaging for a reason and your proposal amounts to a near-ban. Let's not pretend this is a simple "just charge a deposit and littering stops". It's "charge a deposit, discover the deposit is non-viable, and single-use packaging as a whole stops".
- gverrilla 3y agoReminds me of the brazilian clown Lixolino [0] ("lixo" means trash) who spreads eco and citizenship conscience, mainly to children in vulnerable conditions, by playing with garbage. A work of love. 0: @lixolino at instagram
- aio2 3y agoI remember recently, one of my friends had to do community service, and picking up trash. They knew a few skills like these, but was yelled at by the manager not to do them. Suffice to say, he barely picked anything up.
- Prickle 3y agoA shame, it's usually like this for most community work. Always some requirement for "propriety". Wish more places would accept the concept of making work enjoyable.
- 11235813213455 3y agoit's not just about not littering (which is of course very good to do, else plastics gets in water/ground and in our food, then our cells), but also about not buying anything with plastics (or very rarely), because recycling is not very effective (only 2 iterations and changes of classes of materials)
- realjohng 3y agoVery cool. But I’m surprised they’re finding trash— Japan is very clean and orderly country
- LeoPanthera 3y agoAnd now you know why!
- weberer 3y agoYeah, but there are almost no public trash cans anywhere. Lots of bins for bottles and cans though.
- nagonago 3y agoCommon misconception. Japan can be very trashy, especially in big cities. It doesn't help that the government doesn't put public trash bins anywhere, supposedly because they're scared of terrorists putting bombs in them. Even in the suburbs and countryside, people illegally dump trash all the time because they don't want to pay to dispose of it properly. Anywhere you go, you will see signs imploring, "don't throw away your trash here!" under which are mounds of trash. It may be true that Japan is on average a bit cleaner than other countries, but not nearly so much as people seem to think.
- kderbyma 3y agoThis is great. I have started to pick up trash when I am out for walks when I think about it. I realised that the small act of picking up one piece of garbage means you get to protect the rest of the world from that one piece of garbage forever. It's O(1) to pickup but gets benefits for eternity and have infinite gains
- shortcake27 3y agoI do the same. I’ve also wondered if there’s a supplemental advantage in that people might be less likely to litter if they don’t see any litter.
- bombcar 3y agoThere is - it can take time, but you can turn an area around. Especially if they then install some trash cans (that actually get emptied).