11 ms·

If you haven't been to Japan, it's worth lingering over these pictures and noticing a few things: - The complete absence of vandalism - How generally clean ev

• testfoobar 2y ago
  What is it that makes this possible in Japan? And why doesn't it happen in the US?
  • cruano 2y ago
    American individualism
    • astrange 2y ago
      Japanese are more individualist than Americans. They just don't apply this to graffiti. They do sometimes litter, throw up in the sidewalk after drinking, and don't wash their hands after using the train station bathrooms. I mean, Tokyo isn't even that clean. I was just there and saw a rat on the sidewalk every night. They're like NYC and just leave commercial trash bags on the sidewalk instead of using trash bins. (Also frequently saw aggressive "no dumping" signs on the pile of trash bags. Not very high trust!)
      • sho_hn 2y ago
        I think by individualism what people usually mean is the general "me, I got mine" attitude & the idealization of not giving a care to what other people think, i.e. "do your thing". I lot of what happens in the East Asian countries from peer pressure/accountability is to be actively defied in the West, and particularly in America. Keeping things clean because otherwise you might get judged by someone else is almost an incentive to litter.
      • inkyoto 2y ago
        > They're like NYC and just leave commercial trash bags on the sidewalk instead of using trash bins. You might have mistaken it with the organised rubbish collection. It is common in New Zealand where business owners pack up rubbish at the close of business in dedicated, pre-paid rubbish bags that they leave in the front of the shop. A garbage truck comes by later and quickly collects rubbish. The cost of the service is included in the price of the rubbish bag, and the garbage truck won't collect a random or unrecognised bag but people do not do that. It also seems cleaner as rubbish bins require cleaning on a regular basis, and the bags do not.
        • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
          This is for certain what the GP saw.
    • SuperNinKenDo 2y ago
      I don't believe Individualism is the issue, unless you mean by that a specifically American variety if Individualism. Individualism also comes with the idea of individual responsibility, and many relatively individualistic countries are close to, or in certain ways exceed, Japan (e.g., in Japan people tend to leave trash in public spaces to a degree that would be inconceivable in many Western countries).
  • walrus01 2y ago
    At the risk of stereotyping an entire nationality, Japanese culture puts a high degree of emphasis on conformity, obeying rules, obeying social hierarchies and keeping things in a generally orderly fashion. For instance, many Japanese primary public schools have no janitor. This is normal. The children scrub the floors, bathrooms and do all the other cleaning tasks in a defined schedule. some random reference examples: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=japanese+schools+children+clean https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=japanese+...
    • astrange 2y ago
      Of course they have janitors. The students sweep the classroom, but they aren't expected to fix a blocked toilet or refill the soap.
      • hinkley 2y ago
        Nah you have a supernintendo or maintenance for that.
    • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
      Not sure why you are downvoted. Japanese schools do a good job of promoting prosocial behaviour. A relatively low income inequality may also be a big factor. Also, much less societal tolerance for drugs?
      • userbinator 2y ago
        Also, much less societal tolerance for drugs? As in, none. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_Japan#Medical_and_recreational_drugs_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_Japan#Medic...
      • astrange 2y ago
        There's certainly a lot of tolerance for smoking, that's just not a drug that makes you commit crimes. (Except littering.) But they're only into mild stimulants because of memories of pervitin abuse. The main difference I can think of is we think it's cool if a celebrity does drugs, but they get insta-canceled so hard they disappear from society entirely.
  • tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Why would I make something worse if I’m ever going to see, touch, feel, think about?
  • galacticaactual 2y ago
    Incredible a site supposedly full of smart people cannot piece this together.
    • black6 2y ago
      [flagged]
      • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
        Singapore is pretty diverse, but comparable to Japan in terms of being clean and tidy and high trust. Maybe there's more to it than that.
        • mc32 2y ago
          True, but one difference, is they allowed the culture and population to mature as they transformed from a fishing village to international port and commerce center. And, while they do bring in foreigners, they tend to be domestic maids or medium to high earning foreigners with a decent education and culture.
          • Muromec 2y ago
            It's worth adding, that Singapore being clean is not a magical culture thing, but a deliberate government policy. Lee Kuan Yew writes in his memories that is took a lot of effort to make Chinese drivers stop spitting out of the cars for example and make the river not smell of shit.
            • mc32 2y ago
              This is true, but given 60 years it now has become part of the culture there. Maybe if you go out to the poorer places with SEA laborers, you can find betelnut chewers --but those are imported manual labor immigrants and not natives --though maybe you see them in the small islands.
            • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  • mc32 2y ago
    Culture and mentality. They don't have the same urge to vandalize or graffiti. Same as Singapore. They are much more united and much less diverse in various ways. While they have many subcultures, they mostly adhere to a greater social cohesion. To make up for that a bit, they do allow people to get plastered and spray vomitus publicly, including public transit and no one bats an eye. That said, you don't get the public defecation that we get. Even their bums tend to take care of themselves as best they can. They try to maintain a certain decorum despite their dire circumstances. Americans, in a sense, lost quite a bit of their sense of shame.
  • sangnoir 2y ago
    Strong vs weak sense of obligation to the collective (the people around you).
    • phs318u 2y ago
      This. There is a fundamental cultural difference which is also reflected in the priorities of municipal governments. Yes, this is a generalisation and yes, it is slowly changing over time. Nevertheless, it’s probably the single biggest driver of this phenomenon.
  • kennysoona 2y ago
    Way more of a hive mind mentality and indoctrination. Expression individualism and going your own way is actively discouraged.
    • astrange 2y ago
      They're actually very good at individual expression. https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Invention-Japans-Culture-Conquered/dp/1984826697 https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Invention-Japans-Culture-Conquer...
      • kennysoona 2y ago
        Given the extent to which it's discouraged, it can' be true as a general rule, regardless of the nations inventions. Although most of those examples in the blurb of the book you linked refer to corporate inventions, not individual inventions.
    • presentation 2y ago
      You state that very confidently despite having no idea what you’re talking about.
      • kennysoona 2y ago
        Just because you disagree doesn't mean I have no idea what I'm talking about. Japanese culture's suppression of the individual in favor of the community is well documented.
        • presentation 2y ago
          My honest opinion of "Japanese society works great because the whole society is formed by a unique strain of humans who lack any sense of individualism" is a pretty shallow take in my opinion, where most of the corroboration are other clueless people repeating the same basic stereotype. The other commenter mentions the huge impact of Japanese pop culture and technical innovation, which somehow isn't legitimate proof of individual expression, but if you need academic citations then here's some from even back in the '90s arguing that Japan is not less individualistic than the West, and even arguably is less collectivistic depending on how you measure that. [1][2] Here's an example purely from a Japanese stereotype that shows a type of individuality that people could generally understand (just in a form what westerners tend to look down on)—the concept of an otaku [3], or in other words, someone who follows some interest much further than anyone thinks is socially "normal" or "reasonable." And yet these people are generally accepted by Japanese society, if not empowered in the form of a respected "craft" culture, in a way that would just make you a total loser in most of the West. My personal experience actually living in Japan for 7 years now, matches a different common trope in Japanese culture, wherein what people outwardly say to people they don't trust is completely different than what they actually believe and say to people they do trust (honne/tatemae [4]). And unfortunately for the Westerners parroting these stereotypes, they firmly fall into only hearing the tatemae. To the original thread, there are plenty of rational, direct reasons for why Japanese cities can be clean and orderly, that aren't that "Everyone in Japan is some kind of brainless drone," but unfortunately people who justify things based on that excuse will never learn what those things are, doomed to make the same mistakes... very drone-like, in my view. [1] https://sci-hub.ru/10.1111/1467-839X.00043 https://sci-hub.ru/10.1111/1467-839X.00043 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-839X.00043 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-839X.00043) [2] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=dc22e75341a98d89de387bc892da8d604f0ae https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d... e5f [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae
  • donw 2y ago
    Simply put: because it's full of Japanese people. Everybody speaks the same language and has the same cultural norms, which are the foundations for any high-trust society. Japanese culture has an exceedingly high focus on the appearance of cleanliness and politeness. The inside of someone's home might be a hoarder's dream, but the outside will be clean. Someone might be an absolute jerk, but to act on that in most social spaces would have very real consequences. Rude behavior, like dancing and playing loud music on a train, will get you arrested here. Misbehavior in Japan is dealt with, and quickly. On that note: Japanese police don't play games. You do not have a right to a speedy trial, there is no jury of your peers, and they can hold you as long as they'd like. The phrase "police brutality" does not translate into Japanese. Do not break the law in Japan. There is a de-facto truce between the Yakuza and the police, as the Yakuza deal with foreign gangs and other problems that would be... difficult to solve with normal police work. Japanese gangs are fiercely nationalistic. If the police don't handle you, the Yakuza will, and although I don't have any data to back this up, I'd wager that the police are the better option. Additionally, Japanese neighborhoods have social responsibilities. Every couple of months, I am responsible for cleaning our trash area for two weeks, and there's usually some kind of repair or cleanup event twice per year. In Japan, many people have lived in the same place for multiple generations, and can trace their ancestry within Japan back for thousands of years. Japan is, quite literally, their ancestral home, and they act like it.
    • lolinder 2y ago
      > Everybody speaks the same language and has the same cultural norms, which are the foundations for any high-trust society. This is rarely talked about but is so important, and any comparisons between countries that fail to take this into account are severely missing the mark. The US is 59% white but even that racial category is largely a human construct that doesn't reflect the truly bewildering variety of national origins that lumps together. Norway, meanwhile, is 75% ethnically Norwegian. Finland is 88% Finnish. Japan is 98% ethically Japanese. Many things—from healthcare to crime prevention to sanitation to education to democracy—become substantially easier the smaller the range of genetic profiles and cultural backgrounds you have to account for.
      • 2y ago
  • rtpg 2y ago
    There's a sign in Otsuka (northern Tokyo suburb) like "Otsuka has half the crime rate of 10 years ago!" Things are the way they are, up until the moment that they change. Things can change if people will it into existence. My 2-bit belief is basically simplified "broken window theory", where stuff being broken leads to more stuff being broken, trash leads to more trash... so dealing with cleaning stuff up quickly is good. Generating an environment where people have some pride in what's around them and are also benefiting from the thing themselves, on top of the thing not being busted probably helps a lot. There's a lot of anti-littering campaigns and the like. I feel like the gov'ts as a whole are pretty responsive to new kinds of crime and try to build a public consciousness against it as soon as they realize what's up. Plenty of hooliganism in Japan all over, and plenty of raging, but at the end of the day if there's a nice bench that someone is allowed to sit on in a chill way, people probably tend to not take their rage out on it. Maybe everyone in Tokyo is just ground down from having to work all the time and is just subservient to authority. Who knows!
  • thinkyfish 2y ago
    Lingering colonial attitudes. America, for the longest time was the "exploited space" for Europe and much like India, carries this beaten in attitude that "this is not the nice place". You can find nice places like this but you have to go to the richest enclaves to find it. Japan is its own "nice place".
  • rawgabbit 2y ago
    It is part of Japanese culture. Even in elementary school the children clean their own classrooms. https://youtu.be/jv4oNvxCY5k https://youtu.be/jv4oNvxCY5k
    • dpc050505 2y ago
      We cleaned our own classrooms in Canada too and it doesn't keep people from littering.
  • rufus_foreman 2y ago
    You can have a diverse low-trust society or you can have a homogeneous high-trust society, but you can't have a diverse high-trust society. People will trust someone more the more they think the other person is similar to them. Japan has made choices that make it relatively homogeneous, the US has made choices that make it relatively diverse.
    • famahar 2y ago
      While not as diverse as the US, Singapore is a melting pot of cultures and religions and is arguably safer and cleaner than Japan. Singling it out to diversity simplifies the issue. It's a million other choices and policies that made the US what it is today.
      • rufus_foreman 2y ago
        Black population of Singapore is what? Hispanic population of Singapore is what? Zero? Not much of a melting pot.
        • phs318u 2y ago
          Seriously? Dude, you’re parading your ignorance. Singapore has a mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian people (with plenty of ethnic Europeans thrown in for good measure). They’re a mix of Buddhist, Christian, Islamic and Hindu religions. All that in a space smaller than many American cities. If that doesn’t qualify as a melting pot, I don’t know what does.
          • rufus_foreman 2y ago
            >> Singapore has a mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian people A mix of Asians, Asians, and Asians. The US ain't that.
            • phs318u 2y ago
              Wow. Doubling down eh? At this point I have to assume you’re trolling because I struggle to believe anyone could be this obviously racist and/or stupid.
• michpoch 2y ago
  Looks pretty similar to what I'd expect to a regular European town. What are you comparing it to that you see such a drastic difference?
  • lukan 2y ago
    Having travelled quite a bit in europe, I disagree. There are european towns with train stations that look similar clean. But not at all everywhere. Eastern europe in general less. Norther europe more. Western and southern europe is mixed. Graffiti I have seen quite a bit, but broken glass or other types of vandalism are sadly common, too.
    • jwr 2y ago
      Central European here (Poland). The bizarre and amazing thing is the change that's been happening in the region over the last 20 years or so: the large cities have become very clean. So, what you wrote stands true for smaller places, but large cities are now very clean. Not quite Japan-level, but close, and certainly much cleaner than anything in western Europe.
      • lukan 2y ago
        Yeah, true. I know that phenomen. And it is true in eastern germany as well. Dresden for example has always working elevators and the stations are looked after regulary. The small towns? It can take weeks, before a broken elevator is fixed, or a public toilet reopened. (If there is one at all in the first place) Until then you have to step over pee and shit.
        • ido 2y ago
          Berlin is filthy and seems to have only gotten more so in recent decades.
      • lII1lIlI11ll 2y ago
        Have you been to Japan? I can't say that Krakow made an impression on me of being "close" to Tokyo in cleanliness TBH.
• rtpg 2y ago
  Japan is definitely high trust and has a lot of advantages downstream of that. Though I think lots of that list is more of a "vibrant Japanese city" vibe (go up to some dying onsen town and you'll see plenty of broken shit and TVs dropped on the side of the road). Cleanliness is... mostly downstream of storefronts and the like picking shit up _all the time_. There are pockets of land that don't end up people's direct responsibility and end up getting very dirty very quickly. Little micro-pockets of trash that pile up (very quickly!). But lots of places you tend to have someone going around and just picking something up. For like a year there was a guy consistently eating his cup noodles or lunch box near my building, and he would just drop it near the bike parking. But we had somebody come by the building twice a week to deal with trash and the like and he was picking it up (I'd throw it into a garbage bag if I saw it and had one in my hand). Still though, like if I'd go on a midnight walk I'd see it. Turns out that the way super crowded places can be clean is by cleaning constantly (see also restrooms, which need to be constantly cleaned). "Nothing is broken" also definitely feels downstream of people fixing stuff promptly. Low latency when trying to deal with issues might be key. And an aside for the public transit... while the transit feels clean, ask most any woman living in Tokyo how they feel about riding public transit. Many might still grade it above other ones but I have heard many nasty experiences that white guys just don't get exposed to at all. Groping, verbal harassment, the works. EDIT: I mention lots of this to get to a bigger point: good things are possible! There is no magic entirely localized in the Japanese Isles.
  • mc32 2y ago
    You know how there are pictures of certain immigrants to NYC and other places in the early part of the XX century and they would show those people sweeping their stoops and sidewalks and generally keeping their neighborhoods tidy? Well, in Japan, you still see that. Shop owners will go around their shop with a duster cleaning away any dust or cobwebs that might have sprung overnight. Awnings, signs, etc.
    • Spooky23 2y ago
      That was a political machine thing. In the days before social security, destitute old people with connections to the local ward leader would be handed a broom and a modest wage. In my small city (~120k people at the time) they had a few thousand people on the payroll doing stuff like this.
• Larrikin 2y ago
  If this is the station drunks end up at after passing out, then there is a high probability of seeing throw up or a passed out person on the weekends.
• astrange 2y ago
  > - Accessibility strip for blind people (bumpy yellow stripe in train stations and sidewalks) Have you tried to find an elevator? There's one in every station, but they don't tell you where it is. Also, they like making sidewalks out of the slipperiest substances you can find. It's a problem when it rains and can't be easy for anyone who walks unsteadily.
  • johngossman 2y ago
    I notice that too, just carrying luggage around. Same with pedestrian overpasses some places. Overall, I’d say Japan is noticeably less accessible than the US or western Europe.
    • thatguy0900 2y ago
      The US Americans with disabilities act really does a lot of work
      • TylerE 2y ago
        Yes, and as a disabled American is one reason I’m extremely scared right now.
    • jdlshore 2y ago
      The US is more accessible than any country I’ve been to (and I’ve been to a lot). Water fountains are another thing the US is good at.
  • goosejuice 2y ago
    It's hard to find anything in the large stations. Shinjuku station is mad. It's like a confluence of 12 rivers.
  • presentation 2y ago
    I have not had any such problems living here for 7 years… elevators always have signs all over the station telling you exactly where to go to get to them, with standardized coloring and symbols, and text saying what it’s about in Japanese and English. They tell you even while you’re on the train which car the elevator will be in front of. I would chalk up your experience to being generally overwhelmed and not used to it, mixed in with being illiterate in the local language (despite there being English and symbols to assist further).
• usefulcat 2y ago
  Having never been to Japan, I don’t dispute anything you say, and as an American I definitely agree those things sound great. However I do think it’s fair to point out the existence of women-only train cars in Japan, which I believe exist at least in part due to groping. Seems like YMMV depending on gender.
  • iszomer 2y ago
    One thing that occurred to me recently is that Japanese book stores will wrap your books in paper to protect one's privacy while reading on mass transit. There are still some bookstores in Taiwan that still preserve this tradition as well.
  • jrockway 2y ago
    I mean, groping on the subway is a problem in New York City too. We just close our eyes and plug our ears while singing "hire more cops". A women-only car would be most welcome.
  • goosejuice 2y ago
    There's quite a lot of interviews with western women on this subject on YouTube. Can't remember the channel. I felt so incredibly safe in Japan and I don't remember even seeing a cop. As an American, that felt crazy to me for how large those cities are. I had some expectation of that but it still surprised me, particularly in the touristy nightlife districts with the street drinking. Obviously seems like there might be some downsides to the culture that leads to this.
    • buzer 2y ago
      > I don't remember even seeing a cop. You probably didn't realize what to look for. There are quite a lot of kobans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dban), especially in busy locations. Seeing police patrolling around the area is rare sight from my experience though (disclaimer: Experience strictly as tourist).
  • deadbabe 2y ago
    In New York people push other people onto the tracks for fun and we do little about it.
• marxisttemp 2y ago
  I’m a frequent user of public transit in LA, NY, and my current smaller city and I’ve never felt unsafe or unwelcome. I mostly see these sorts of takes from Fox News shut-ins tbh
• vishkk 2y ago
  https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-clutter https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-c...
• the_svd_doctor 2y ago
  I went to Japan (first time) a few months ago, and I was blown away by almost everything (including what you mention). It's just so different from the US in almost every way, but so nice overall (people, cities, transit). I loved it and want to go back already.
• kopirgan 2y ago
  Japanese are obsessed with being clean. Like wiping the pen with tissue paper before handing it to you. On more than one occasion I have had a stranger passenger on long distance train clearing my cup of coffee as she goes to throw hers in the trash. May be she is signalling you can't trust these foreigners to clean up before they leave!
  • BirdieNZ 2y ago
    I don't know about clean, I saw hardly any (men) wash their hands after using the bathroom. Sometimes they'd wave their hands under the tap. Without turning it on. Seemed more like obsession with being tidy than hygeinic.
    • derr1 2y ago
      Lots of public bathrooms don't have hand dryers for some reason. So I assume they don't want wet hands? Although even in toilets with hand dryers, I've seen many Japanese not dry their hands after washing!
• lasc4r 2y ago
  -Random cones everywhere
• 65 2y ago
  Hey, at least the NYC trains run 24 hours, so this situation would never happen if you're in NYC.
• SapporoChris 2y ago
  "- The complete absence of vandalism" There are plenty of places in Japan that have graffiti. Additionally vandalism, name etching and such occasionally occurs at shrines. Vandals are primarily tourists but sometimes a drunk Japanese citizen https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+graffiti&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+graffiti&iax=images&ia=image... A better statement would be a general absence of vandalism. "- Accessibility strip for blind people (bumpy yellow stripe in train stations and sidewalks)" This is very well done in the major cities, however I've seen many incomplete implementations especially in parks where I suppose funding simply ran out. I do believe their situation is much better than the average.
• hinkley 2y ago
  In the 90’s I was walking down a back street in the Tokyo burbs at almost 3 am realizing something felt wrong and I couldn’t figure out what. There was woman half a block in front of me, by herself, not even worried there was a random white guy walking behind her. I am definitely not in Kansas anymore. The other weird late night encounter was a road crew working at O-dark thirty on Sunday night/Monday morning when it was a national holiday. I understand late night crews but on a three day weekend?
• itsthejb 2y ago
  Yes. However there are downsides to Japan’s intensely high trust (and high shame) culture as well. Death by overwork is the one that’s most known in the west, although there are plenty of others that outsiders would never usually learn about
• akimbostrawman 2y ago
  Too bad the west has lost similar conditions by being caught up in politics. Japan will probably also degrade in less than a decade thanks to the same imports.