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Visiting for the first time recently from North America felt kind of like the fabled Gorbachev-sees-an-American-supermarket moment for me. Not only do the train

Visiting for the first time recently from North America felt kind of like the fabled Gorbachev-sees-an-American-supermarket moment for me. Not only do the trains go everywhere, frequently, and reliably, but the condition of everything was astounding. The cleanliness was a big part of it, but also just how non-abused everything was. I was there for a week and didn't once see a tag carved into the seats or walls of a train car or smell urine on a platform. I don't think I even saw a single piece of litter on a train. The respect with which people treat public property was genuinely eye-opening. I wish there were some kind of transferable lesson that we could apply here where dingy and defaced public infrastructure is just accepted as "the way things are in a big city," when it's demonstrably not inevitable.

throwaway2037 3y ago
I do think the cleanliness of Tokyo is (at least) two factor: People are more clean in public (less graffiti, less littering, less spitting, less gum, less urine) and the maintenance spend for public infrastructure (roads, trains, etc.) is higher. That combination is the magic. Restaurants feel similar as well. Many are freakishly clean by any US/CAN/EU/AUS/NZ standards. Again, I would say the key is a combination of neat(er) customers and fastidious cleaning by the restaurant staff. Of course, there are still dirty places, but they are rare. When you go hiking in the countryside, it is common to see people carrying a small plastic bag to pickup any garbage along the trails. Again, compared to other hiking destinations, the trails here are freakishly clean all the time.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  not a lot of public trashcans in these places. you carry a bag for your trash because that's the only way you're getting rid of it, and littering fines can be non-trivial.
nayuki 3y ago
There's a good 12-minute documentary on how Japanese trains are cleaned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU
djtango 3y ago
I currently live in Singapore and when I went back to the UK after almost a year, one of the things that was most jarring was all the graffiti everywhere. You become blind to it when you live there but when you suddenly realise places _dont_ have to be tagged when they shutter for the night. (If they even shutter at all)

throwaway2037 3y ago

I do think the cleanliness of Tokyo is (at least) two factor: People are more clean in public (less graffiti, less littering, less spitting, less gum, less urine) and the maintenance spend for public infrastructure (roads, trains, etc.) is higher. That combination is the magic. Restaurants feel similar as well. Many are freakishly clean by any US/CAN/EU/AUS/NZ standards. Again, I would say the key is a combination of neat(er) customers and fastidious cleaning by the restaurant staff. Of course, there are still dirty places, but they are rare. When you go hiking in the countryside, it is common to see people carrying a small plastic bag to pickup any garbage along the trails. Again, compared to other hiking destinations, the trails here are freakishly clean all the time.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
not a lot of public trashcans in these places. you carry a bag for your trash because that's the only way you're getting rid of it, and littering fines can be non-trivial.

nayuki 3y ago

There's a good 12-minute documentary on how Japanese trains are cleaned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU

djtango 3y ago

I currently live in Singapore and when I went back to the UK after almost a year, one of the things that was most jarring was all the graffiti everywhere. You become blind to it when you live there but when you suddenly realise places _dont_ have to be tagged when they shutter for the night. (If they even shutter at all)