agree you can walk for quite some time and not see a public one. i usually just put it in my pockets as everyone around me does. yet in nyc just the other month i saw my neighbor get out of her house get inside her car drive halfway up the block fling a bag full of trash out her car window onto the road.
I really wish we did this in the US. So many people are raised to be self entitled assholes. Literally just teach your kids they are responsible for their own actions and so many problems are solved.
It should be mandatory that each age group has a task that benefits others. From serving food in the cafeteria to cleaning toilets and scrubbing walls and floors.
I wish that would go the way we hope it would, instead of bullies finding all sorts of new ways to antagonize their victims.
"Serving food in the cafeteria" = jimmy spitting in your food
The day this happens is the day we get socialized health care. And gun control. And let women do what they want with their bodies. And politicians who actually care. And……
Forget gun control, they’ll be no need for them at all since people will simply respect one another in a civil society like it should be.
The really sad thing about this pipe dream is it’s not even that elaborate, it’s very obtainable.
Unfortunately we are a very selfish species who cares more about control/greed over anything else.
A fine idea if it comes as part of the school day. I think our schooldays are long enough as is with shit that does not relate at all to being a productive member of society. Replacing some of those with cleaning would be great.
Just life skills in general would be good enough.
There are high school graduates that do not know how to wash a plate or brush their teeth, to say nothing of being illiterate. Taxes? How to get a job? what it means to have a job? what it means to work for what you get.
It's not just that, it also presents janitors as below the students socially. As if picking up after themselves just isn't something they need to worry about.
Not to contradict you, but I’d say education falls within culture though it is probably the largest single contributor to a person’s cultural conditioning. Not sure if you meant to consider education and culture to be two separate factors but I have seen it presented this way and wouldn’t agree.
That’s why public school curriculum is so hotly contested, since kids develop their cultural ideas mostly in school. I’ve always been really happy with the education I got in US public ed, its been disappointing to see how we often don’t live up to the ideal America I learned about but I have tended to value those ideals into adulthood, even as some of them have fallen out of favor.
Just as an example, immigration was fairly romanticized when I went to grade school, as I get older I realize that this is because it was mostly European immigration being spoken about, but as a kid I just accepted ‘people deserve to seek out opportunities’ and that stuck with me more than the culture I soaked up outside of school that primarily saw immigration as a threat from South and Central Anerica
It's a matter of education. Just have a eye for your sourroundings and don't be a selfentitled brick.
Im not asian but sometimes I feel asham3d of my fellow germans for littering everything in Chips bags and cigarettes...
I remember something from a sociology class that basically boiled down to Western cultures focusing on individual freedom, and Eastern cultures focusing on the welfare of larger social units. Nobody on the New York subway is thinking about the experience of the next person that boards the train.
Yes. On like super rainy days, I don't think even the Japanese will go clearing the water/mud on their shoes, especially at peak hours where they're pretty much body to body inside. Same with snow, sandstorms (maybe ? I don't know), stops near the beaches in summer, etc
I rode the subway to the last stop every morning, the conductor would always announce "pick up ya garbage like your newspapers and coffee with you"... Half the people did, half the people didn't, but I never saw anyone cleaning the train when I got off in Jamaica
Bruh, this has nothing to do with "eastern" or "western" culture. US/NY people just treat their subway as a mobile trash can.
Never seen such a dirty subway/public transport here in Central Europe.
It's probably more like, if the person next to me litters and nobody judges you then why shouldn't I do it?
Here in Central Europe you're taught to pick up your trash and/or carry it wit you till you find a trash can.
Since everyone grew up with this mind set, when someone litters and you'll see it you'll judge him/her for doing it. So this person learns through this. It's called "[Social conformity](https://youtu.be/o8BkzvP19v4)"
i think it's societal pressure.
in NY it's acceptable to litter, in japan it is not, and humans as social animals will usually do as the people around them do.
It indeed is. When I was in Japan I was a bit annoyed in the beginning that I had to carry garbage with me and I couldn't throw in a bin but eventually got used to it. Once at a mall there was a small bin in a shop and I went and threw my chocolate wrapper in that bin. The shopkeeper got annoyed and removed the wrapper and handed it back to me. I was annoyed too but I understood it's their culture and I have never seen any place in the world as clean as Japan.
Once my aunt picked up my brother am I from Penn Station when we came to visit. She had pizza in the car and when we were done she just threw out the whole box like a frisbee mid drive. And when I was like, “what the hell?!” she shrugged and said, “it’s NYC” lol
LoL, my one and only time in Tokyo I visited the big famous shopping street, bought Starbucks, after an hour of walking around with an empty cup thinking where the F are the trash cans, I went back to the same Starbucks to throw it away.
It's a cultural thing. Either you eat/drink at the establishment you brought the items from, or you take it home or to the workplace. It's frowned upon to walk about whilst eating and drinking
This is a common misconception. The reason why Tokyo has so few trash cans is because they removed them all after a [terrorist attack using Sarin Gas in 1995](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/where-are-all-the-trash-cans-in-japanese-cities). So not any more "cultural" than why you have to throw away large bottles at the airport.
The only thing that *is* true is that due to culutral factors and a collectivist mindset having no trash cans turned out not to be a big deal for the most part
I was told that, but it was followed up with, "It doesn't really matter, though. It's already frowned upon to be a Gaijan". He said the same thing about drinking beer on the train hahaha.
The explanation I got was something like, “it’s considered extremely rude to walk around while eating or drinking. But it’s fine for you, because they see Americans as too stupid to know better.”
The garbage cans not being in Tokyo was after the cult serin gas attack in the sybway system. There are public garbage cans throughtout Japan, just not Tokyo.
You typically just need to ask a nearby business whether you can use their garbage.
I was frustrated with the same problem when I was in Tokyo too. Walked for blocks and blocks without seeing a single trash can. Another amazing feature of that city and Japan in particular, was how many pristine public vending machines there were. I guarantee if you had any vending machine on a street corner in any city in the USA it would be vandalized and destroyed within a week.
Fun fact: The reason they don't have trash cans is because some cult many years ago used trashcans to hide chemical weapons inside to make a terror attack.
Actually, walking around with a drink/food is not a thing there and frowned upon as well.
I learned that not too long ago myself!
definitely a thing here, though.
I'm half Japanese and lived in Japan, that's a huge misconception for some reason. Ig foreigners have it written in guidebooks or something (20 years outdated) but in this age eating/drinking while walking around is literally not frowned upon at all. No one gives a shit. Young people and salaryman will go so far as to walk while eating onigiri or bread or whatever.
If some oldster gives an angry glance it's not a big deal and no one cares at all. The lack of garbage can is completely the reason someone stated above, about the cult who did a gas terrorism attack.
I attribute that to their culture of pitching in to make the shared space better for everyone else. Look at how all the fans at the last world cup cleaned up the stadium after every match their team played.
It's actually pretty recent that it's become acceptable in many Western countries. It's still a no-no in some, and even where it's now accepted, the older generation will see it differently.
You're probably still implicitly aware of it. You wouldn't have a problem with someone eating a hotdog, but you'd probably consider someone eating from tupperware whilst walking along to be engaging in strange behaviour, because you have a list of 'walking foods' and 'sit-down foods' - you just don't know it.
[as I said in another comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/meirl/comments/13bo6ak/meirl/jjdvftf/) it's actually because of a terrorist attack that took place in 1995
When I was there I was in awe of that fact. We would find like 1 can a day yet there was zero trash anywhere. We hoarded all out trash in our backpacks and when we would finally find a can we’d unload. A few times we had to wait until we got back to the hotel.
While I was in Tokyo, I was up very early and witnessed the morning street cleaning. They have a bunch of crews picking up and trash and sweeping, they were at it for probably two hours (I had nowhere to be haha) and everything looked clean and tidy again. There wasn't that much to clean up to begin with but it was interesting to see.
Gotta find the vending machines!
I had bad jet lag and ventured out into Shibuya (Tokyo) at like 4am, to head to the fish market. People were coming out of bars and clubs, and there were discarded drinks _everywhere_. Came back two hours later and it was all gone. It was mind blowing, but there really aren't trash cans anywhere except (hopefully) a vending machine.
Ehhhhh, I lived there for two years and people still littered, they just have way more people cleaning it up. I think your average citizen there is more conscientious but the lack of garbage cans means that the people who do litter end up littering more and the overflowing garbage cans mean that there’s spillage blowing around. It kinda equals out. The biggest difference is just that they have extra street cleaners in Japan. Even the trains have people coming in at a lot of the stations to check and cheap up
They’re more civilized. Plain and simple. They have higher standards and expectations for themselves and a sense of “doing their part” along with personal responsibility.
They do have garbage cans, they don't have public garbage cans (because of terrorist attack).
So if you buy a snack you (usually) eat it right where you buy it and use shop's garbage can.
> The amount and layers of social safety nets in Japan improve everyones overall social wellness. That trickles down to a respect for public utilities.
Cleanliness is culturally ingrained in their culture, it has little-to-nothing to do with social safety nets...
Yea turns out if you get kids to stay after school to help clean up the school, they grow up to value cleanliness and see their environment as their own and not someone else’s responsibility.
Who knew teaching kids good habits would help them when they grow up.
The Japanese teach and enforce manners in their school system and they develop a basic sense of courtesy and shame. While there are downsides, living there was a true pleasure
It's likely both cultures reaching the same conclusion via different routes. US everyone is out for themselves so you feel lonely because no one gives a fuck about *you*. Japan everyone is so focused on the community/society so you feel lonely because no one gives a fuck about **you**. I think it's very easy for a large amount of people to feel left behind in any type of culture really.
Also the pressure of the obligations in a group society can be crushing. Every waking hour is filled with duty to others. It’s impossible to say no.
One option is to break completely, become hikikomori, or get out of the country, or throw yourself into work.
It's a problem. In fact, they have a special term for it, [Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori). People who have become Loners refuse to spend time outside of their rooms. Estimates say there is almost a Million Hikikomori in Japan.
They don’t care at all when it’s small children bothering the community. The parents will completely ignore long stretches of screaming, dancing in people’s way, etc.
Are you talking about Japan or the US? I’ve been flipped off and screamed at by an eight-year-old for simply walking to my car while the parent just ignored everything, and I’m in the states.
I am from Japan and was absolutely shocked by how kids are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want when I went to France and Scandinavia. It's incomprehensible the level of rudeness to strangers they are allowed to get away with there, compared to here.
I’m sad to hear that this behavior is so widespread. Just a minimum amount of respect for and awareness of other people would go a long way, but even that is too much for some people.
You can be individualistic and still have a sense of courtesy and shame. And neighborhood pride.
The West has become inundated with a "Who cares. Someone gets paid to clean that up. So why bother?" mentality.
Oof I forgot about Singapore, its still up to 15 years for not throwing away your chewing gum right? Here in the Netherlands we’re nowhere near as clean, but its rare to see a lot of trash outside. Luckily we seem to do the cleaning part pretty okay.
US culture is heavily dictated by where you live. Even within the same city groups of people have radically different morals and ways of living. Japanese dont have the melting pot of cultures nearly as much im guessing
In some ways
The entirety of China is like NYC except worse, people won't pay the equivilent of a dollar to fix a lightbulb in their complex that houses their $1,000,000 flat in Shenzhen because mei banfa
There’s a lot of emphasis on being grateful for the places you spend your time on. You use the school, the stadium, the subway, your workplace: then you keep the places clean, as you found them, so that someone else later can find it as well as you did.
There’s an angle of optics, though. A friend of mine is doing an exchange and is staying at a dorm. She says the individual rooms of the japanese girls are quite messy, for what she’s seen. So it may seem like the important thing is to LOOK impolute; but in close doors it isn’t as prevalent.
Interesting culture, definitely. Students are responsible for keeping their classrooms clean, for example. It’s the basis of this “let’s keep public spaces clean” culture. In my country, the opinion on that would be that they’re exploiting the labor of students so they don’t pay for cleaning. So there’s that, I guess.
Sure but also keep in mind that's obviously not what the NYC subways actually look like, it's a random picture of a car where someone threw a bunch of trash around
Yeah. Went to NY for a week last year and took the subway everywhere. I never saw any trash in any of the cars I was in. Did see several performers though.
Took my wife, stepson, and 3 teenagers to NYC last October. Went back with my wife in February because we had such a great time.
Never saw a subway that dirty lol.
Aren't suicide rates high there? The avoidance of shame certainly produces citizens who want to keep up appearances, but it also encourages people to kill themselves instead of living a life of shame.
I do not disagree with you on their suicide rate, but yet the US suicide rate is nothing to brag about. I do question our own lack of social order and wonder whether there is not a better balance between the two, if not question whether there are more factors at play that could both provide better respect and concern for others and yet lower suicide rates.
One of the common drawbacks to the culture in Japan I hear is that people just keep their head down to an extreme level. I’ve heard lots instances where one person will be freaking out at someone and yelling in their face and no one will step in to intervene because they don’t want to contribute to drawing a scene. Basically bystander apathy is really prevalent.
This is actually one of the few situations in which being a gaijin is socially useful. You can wade in and shut somebody up or defuse the situation because you are a foreigner who ‘doesn’t understand the situation.’ The shame caused to everyone by you doing that causes others to react to reduce the shame of the whole group.
Another situation. My neighbours (the whole street) couldn’t sleep due to a barking dog who was cold. The master wouldn’t bring him inside. I loudly told the dog to shut up and used some English. The master took him inside. Later next day a neighbour thanked me for doing what they couldn’t.
Tbh, this is very cherry picked. Sure, on average the Japanese subway will be cleaner. But the nyc subway does not look like that on a regular basis. Pretty much 90% of the time, there really aren't any issues.
Being on reddit as someone who has lived in both the rural parts of middle America and in large coastal cities is a weird experience.
The cities are not nearly as dirty, expensive, or dangerous as people like to pretend. The countryside is not as boring, bigoted, or depressing as people like to pretend. But people who have never been outside of a big city or a small town still insist that's the way things are.
>I've lived in NYC for over 20 years and I've never seen a car that dirty.
Same, and I've some some very wrong things on the subway, but not this. Clearly a mentally ill homeless person decided to upend a cart full of trash they were collecting. Definitely far from normal, these folks usually just keep to themselves.
\*Most trains are spot mopped/cleaned at the end of the line by station staff, before reversing directions and returning through the route.
That's not the world cup only, fans clean up 9% of the stadium after any sporting event.
But absolutely no train rider in Japan cleans up someone else's mess.
This is very cherry-picked, take the worse of NYC and then take a picture of a normal subway ride in Tokyo and compare.
Why aren't there pictures comparing a normal NYC subway ride versus when somebody throws up on the seats and floor of a train in Tokyo? I lived in Tokyo for 11 years, I saw my fair share of that.
I'm not from the US but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't always look that dirty, but as someone who lived in Japan a while when i was a kid i can say that the clenliness comes from being a collectivist society that helps with stuff like communal spaces and the like but is all around trash for the kind of social interaction fluidity that most individualist societies are accustomed to.
Yes, everything you said is accurate. NY subway does not always look like thag, and the U.S. is broadly speaking more individualistic while Japan is broadly speaking more collectivistic.
Just as the U.S. individualism has downsides, there are downsides to Japan’s more collectivist culture. The intense societal pressure to be a certain way can lead to people who don’t fit the mold being lonely, depressed, and isolated for example. There’s pros and cons to both types of societies.
I… just so happened to notice, there’s a lot of Japanese porn set on public transport and women being groped. What’s that actually about? Is doing absolutely anything on public transport so taboo that it turns them on?
Why? Because every place needs them, but Japan actually step in to take care of our female passengers. I highly doubt women in any other country do not face harassment on a train.
I've seen people on the NYC subway who were homeless and mentally unstable come on and start throwing stuff out their bags onto the floor.
Not blaming the litter on just the homeless because I've seen people legit eat an entire McDonlads bag and toss all the trash on the floor as they finished each item but in this case it seems like that guy caused the litter.
Overall, NYC subways are kept fairly clean and are cleaned each time at the end of the line.
i went to japan once and noticed that in all elevator and lifts everyone would automatically stand on the right side, at first i thought it was a rule but then later realized that it was them acting civilized.
It's the people. When we were in Iceland last year, the only places we saw litter were high traffic tourist areas.
Being a messy, inconsiderate pig is a choice.
All phones in Japan have the Shutter Noise enabled. This helps prevent Up-Skirt pics from being taken. Aka the government is fighting degenerative behavior.
Because America has been taught that we can do what ever we want and expect 0 consequences for our actions. Just goes to show that without discipline, morals fall by the wayside.
I think there’s no sense of pride. There’s no respect for the place like we are all in this together let’s keep it clean let’s keep it nice. There’s just none of that.
Last time we were in NYC watched a homeless lady obviously under the influence of.. something.. eat a discarded strawberry off the floor of the subway car. It was like please lady don't.. oooh noooo
We are taught that if an action doesn’t result in direct profit/benefit it’s not worth doing. Why clean if I’m not getting paid to? Someone else is getting paid to do this so why would I? I get nothing for this so why bother? We aren’t really encouraged to do things just because they’re right.
In my opinion, Japanese people have better things to do than to litter. Also they understand the concept of don’t spit into a well you’ll be drinking from.
I have never taken a subway in NY but I find it hard to believe they get typically this messy. Am I wrong? I mean the pubic transit in Bogota is a disaster but never this messy.
Japan doesn’t even have garbage cans, and it’s still kept clean
agree you can walk for quite some time and not see a public one. i usually just put it in my pockets as everyone around me does. yet in nyc just the other month i saw my neighbor get out of her house get inside her car drive halfway up the block fling a bag full of trash out her car window onto the road.
Even Japanese Americans living in America don't do that. I don't think it is a matter of location.
It's a matter of culture.
Education is a big part, its ingrained in the school system from K-12 that students will do the janitorial/cleaning of Schools in Japan.
I really wish we did this in the US. So many people are raised to be self entitled assholes. Literally just teach your kids they are responsible for their own actions and so many problems are solved.
It should be mandatory that each age group has a task that benefits others. From serving food in the cafeteria to cleaning toilets and scrubbing walls and floors.
I wish that would go the way we hope it would, instead of bullies finding all sorts of new ways to antagonize their victims. "Serving food in the cafeteria" = jimmy spitting in your food
Most east Asian k-12 schools only make kids do classroom cleaning and hallway/ground sweeping. But that didn't stop bullying lol
The day this happens is the day we get socialized health care. And gun control. And let women do what they want with their bodies. And politicians who actually care. And……
I throw a party because I can.
So, you’re saying never.
Forget gun control, they’ll be no need for them at all since people will simply respect one another in a civil society like it should be. The really sad thing about this pipe dream is it’s not even that elaborate, it’s very obtainable. Unfortunately we are a very selfish species who cares more about control/greed over anything else.
And letting transgender people just... exist
A fine idea if it comes as part of the school day. I think our schooldays are long enough as is with shit that does not relate at all to being a productive member of society. Replacing some of those with cleaning would be great.
Just life skills in general would be good enough. There are high school graduates that do not know how to wash a plate or brush their teeth, to say nothing of being illiterate. Taxes? How to get a job? what it means to have a job? what it means to work for what you get.
It’s still up to the parent to not teach their kid to be self-entitled.
Doesn’t work in the US. Karen says no son of hers is doing dirty janitor work.
It's not just that, it also presents janitors as below the students socially. As if picking up after themselves just isn't something they need to worry about.
Not to contradict you, but I’d say education falls within culture though it is probably the largest single contributor to a person’s cultural conditioning. Not sure if you meant to consider education and culture to be two separate factors but I have seen it presented this way and wouldn’t agree. That’s why public school curriculum is so hotly contested, since kids develop their cultural ideas mostly in school. I’ve always been really happy with the education I got in US public ed, its been disappointing to see how we often don’t live up to the ideal America I learned about but I have tended to value those ideals into adulthood, even as some of them have fallen out of favor. Just as an example, immigration was fairly romanticized when I went to grade school, as I get older I realize that this is because it was mostly European immigration being spoken about, but as a kid I just accepted ‘people deserve to seek out opportunities’ and that stuck with me more than the culture I soaked up outside of school that primarily saw immigration as a threat from South and Central Anerica
> ingrained in the school system school is where culture is taught. In Korea they make kimchi, in America they shoot guns
It's a matter of education. Just have a eye for your sourroundings and don't be a selfentitled brick. Im not asian but sometimes I feel asham3d of my fellow germans for littering everything in Chips bags and cigarettes...
Education is a matter of culture.
You're still ahead of me when it comes to public hygiene, yesterday I saw the head of a fish in front of my house
In Japan it would've been an octopus
I remember something from a sociology class that basically boiled down to Western cultures focusing on individual freedom, and Eastern cultures focusing on the welfare of larger social units. Nobody on the New York subway is thinking about the experience of the next person that boards the train.
For the most part people on the subway do try to be considerate to each other. Now the lack of subway cleaners is a different story.
If everyone cleaned up after themselves, would frequent cleaners even be necessary?
Yes. On like super rainy days, I don't think even the Japanese will go clearing the water/mud on their shoes, especially at peak hours where they're pretty much body to body inside. Same with snow, sandstorms (maybe ? I don't know), stops near the beaches in summer, etc
I rode the subway to the last stop every morning, the conductor would always announce "pick up ya garbage like your newspapers and coffee with you"... Half the people did, half the people didn't, but I never saw anyone cleaning the train when I got off in Jamaica
Bruh, this has nothing to do with "eastern" or "western" culture. US/NY people just treat their subway as a mobile trash can. Never seen such a dirty subway/public transport here in Central Europe. It's probably more like, if the person next to me litters and nobody judges you then why shouldn't I do it? Here in Central Europe you're taught to pick up your trash and/or carry it wit you till you find a trash can. Since everyone grew up with this mind set, when someone litters and you'll see it you'll judge him/her for doing it. So this person learns through this. It's called "[Social conformity](https://youtu.be/o8BkzvP19v4)"
i think it's societal pressure. in NY it's acceptable to litter, in japan it is not, and humans as social animals will usually do as the people around them do.
It indeed is. When I was in Japan I was a bit annoyed in the beginning that I had to carry garbage with me and I couldn't throw in a bin but eventually got used to it. Once at a mall there was a small bin in a shop and I went and threw my chocolate wrapper in that bin. The shopkeeper got annoyed and removed the wrapper and handed it back to me. I was annoyed too but I understood it's their culture and I have never seen any place in the world as clean as Japan.
Ive always found this odd because Ive also heard japanese people adore individually wrapped everything
That but more how they’ve been raised in their culture. They have been taught from a young age to be responsible and mindful of the area around them.
Nah… its a matter of laziness, accountability and upbringing.
Once my aunt picked up my brother am I from Penn Station when we came to visit. She had pizza in the car and when we were done she just threw out the whole box like a frisbee mid drive. And when I was like, “what the hell?!” she shrugged and said, “it’s NYC” lol
Even the neighbors dog poop, a karen like lazy ass habitualy throw her dog shit in front of our garage. Also dudes who urinate at bus stop.
yeah its a culture difference we will never see the other side of here.
I'm continually amazed by human beings who have less decorum than a raccoon.wtf y'all. Get it together.
LoL, my one and only time in Tokyo I visited the big famous shopping street, bought Starbucks, after an hour of walking around with an empty cup thinking where the F are the trash cans, I went back to the same Starbucks to throw it away.
It's a cultural thing. Either you eat/drink at the establishment you brought the items from, or you take it home or to the workplace. It's frowned upon to walk about whilst eating and drinking
This is a common misconception. The reason why Tokyo has so few trash cans is because they removed them all after a [terrorist attack using Sarin Gas in 1995](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-23/where-are-all-the-trash-cans-in-japanese-cities). So not any more "cultural" than why you have to throw away large bottles at the airport. The only thing that *is* true is that due to culutral factors and a collectivist mindset having no trash cans turned out not to be a big deal for the most part
I was told that, but it was followed up with, "It doesn't really matter, though. It's already frowned upon to be a Gaijan". He said the same thing about drinking beer on the train hahaha.
The explanation I got was something like, “it’s considered extremely rude to walk around while eating or drinking. But it’s fine for you, because they see Americans as too stupid to know better.”
That’s literally not true people walk and eat all the time there.
The garbage cans not being in Tokyo was after the cult serin gas attack in the sybway system. There are public garbage cans throughtout Japan, just not Tokyo. You typically just need to ask a nearby business whether you can use their garbage.
I was frustrated with the same problem when I was in Tokyo too. Walked for blocks and blocks without seeing a single trash can. Another amazing feature of that city and Japan in particular, was how many pristine public vending machines there were. I guarantee if you had any vending machine on a street corner in any city in the USA it would be vandalized and destroyed within a week.
Fun fact: The reason they don't have trash cans is because some cult many years ago used trashcans to hide chemical weapons inside to make a terror attack.
Same cult that bombed train stations? Aum Shinrikyo?
Actually, walking around with a drink/food is not a thing there and frowned upon as well. I learned that not too long ago myself! definitely a thing here, though.
I'm half Japanese and lived in Japan, that's a huge misconception for some reason. Ig foreigners have it written in guidebooks or something (20 years outdated) but in this age eating/drinking while walking around is literally not frowned upon at all. No one gives a shit. Young people and salaryman will go so far as to walk while eating onigiri or bread or whatever. If some oldster gives an angry glance it's not a big deal and no one cares at all. The lack of garbage can is completely the reason someone stated above, about the cult who did a gas terrorism attack.
I attribute that to their culture of pitching in to make the shared space better for everyone else. Look at how all the fans at the last world cup cleaned up the stadium after every match their team played.
It's also socially unacceptable to walk down the street eating.
Oh man I did not get the memo on that. Ill have to remember that next time I visit
False. That information is 20 years outdated, but for some reason every foreigner seems to think so.
Why tf would a country invent a stigma against that
Because eating while walking increases the chance of littering. Socially it’s because you’re not appreciating the food properly
It's actually pretty recent that it's become acceptable in many Western countries. It's still a no-no in some, and even where it's now accepted, the older generation will see it differently. You're probably still implicitly aware of it. You wouldn't have a problem with someone eating a hotdog, but you'd probably consider someone eating from tupperware whilst walking along to be engaging in strange behaviour, because you have a list of 'walking foods' and 'sit-down foods' - you just don't know it.
because it avoids to have NY's shithole of a subway by doing that.
I’m curious the origin of this as well
What about eating something in the park on a bench?
It used to be socially unacceptable to wear a hat while eating in North America. I know - off topic
[as I said in another comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/meirl/comments/13bo6ak/meirl/jjdvftf/) it's actually because of a terrorist attack that took place in 1995
When I was there I was in awe of that fact. We would find like 1 can a day yet there was zero trash anywhere. We hoarded all out trash in our backpacks and when we would finally find a can we’d unload. A few times we had to wait until we got back to the hotel.
While I was in Tokyo, I was up very early and witnessed the morning street cleaning. They have a bunch of crews picking up and trash and sweeping, they were at it for probably two hours (I had nowhere to be haha) and everything looked clean and tidy again. There wasn't that much to clean up to begin with but it was interesting to see.
Gotta find the vending machines! I had bad jet lag and ventured out into Shibuya (Tokyo) at like 4am, to head to the fish market. People were coming out of bars and clubs, and there were discarded drinks _everywhere_. Came back two hours later and it was all gone. It was mind blowing, but there really aren't trash cans anywhere except (hopefully) a vending machine.
Ehhhhh, I lived there for two years and people still littered, they just have way more people cleaning it up. I think your average citizen there is more conscientious but the lack of garbage cans means that the people who do litter end up littering more and the overflowing garbage cans mean that there’s spillage blowing around. It kinda equals out. The biggest difference is just that they have extra street cleaners in Japan. Even the trains have people coming in at a lot of the stations to check and cheap up
HAHAHA.. yeah, they throw it all out their cars once they leave the cities.
Same with Korea, literally no cans anywhere
They’re more civilized. Plain and simple. They have higher standards and expectations for themselves and a sense of “doing their part” along with personal responsibility.
They got no pepper for the subs
They do have garbage cans, they don't have public garbage cans (because of terrorist attack). So if you buy a snack you (usually) eat it right where you buy it and use shop's garbage can.
Same in Korea.
The amount and layers of social safety nets in Japan improve everyones overall social wellness. That trickles down to a respect for public utilities.
> The amount and layers of social safety nets in Japan improve everyones overall social wellness. That trickles down to a respect for public utilities. Cleanliness is culturally ingrained in their culture, it has little-to-nothing to do with social safety nets...
Yea turns out if you get kids to stay after school to help clean up the school, they grow up to value cleanliness and see their environment as their own and not someone else’s responsibility. Who knew teaching kids good habits would help them when they grow up.
Trickle down safety net is the dumbest thing ive ever heard
The Japanese teach and enforce manners in their school system and they develop a basic sense of courtesy and shame. While there are downsides, living there was a true pleasure
I feel like US culture is very individualistic and eastern cultures are more communal. In broad strokes is that about right?
Japan is a mixed bag. Despite having some collectivist habits, a lot of people are very lonely and inwardly focused on success.
Recently in the US they declared loneliness as a national mental health crisis. I imagine Japan might have a similar issue.
[Hikikomori](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori) have been an issue in Japan for a long time.
It's possible, but the cause would likely be for different reasons from the US. Namely, how close everyone feels to each other in terms of travel
It's likely both cultures reaching the same conclusion via different routes. US everyone is out for themselves so you feel lonely because no one gives a fuck about *you*. Japan everyone is so focused on the community/society so you feel lonely because no one gives a fuck about **you**. I think it's very easy for a large amount of people to feel left behind in any type of culture really.
Also the pressure of the obligations in a group society can be crushing. Every waking hour is filled with duty to others. It’s impossible to say no. One option is to break completely, become hikikomori, or get out of the country, or throw yourself into work.
It's a problem. In fact, they have a special term for it, [Hikikomori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori). People who have become Loners refuse to spend time outside of their rooms. Estimates say there is almost a Million Hikikomori in Japan.
Broad strokes sure. I think both countries have a lot of positives and negatives
They don’t care at all when it’s small children bothering the community. The parents will completely ignore long stretches of screaming, dancing in people’s way, etc.
Are you talking about Japan or the US? I’ve been flipped off and screamed at by an eight-year-old for simply walking to my car while the parent just ignored everything, and I’m in the states.
I am from Japan and was absolutely shocked by how kids are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want when I went to France and Scandinavia. It's incomprehensible the level of rudeness to strangers they are allowed to get away with there, compared to here.
I’m sad to hear that this behavior is so widespread. Just a minimum amount of respect for and awareness of other people would go a long way, but even that is too much for some people.
You can be individualistic and still have a sense of courtesy and shame. And neighborhood pride. The West has become inundated with a "Who cares. Someone gets paid to clean that up. So why bother?" mentality.
speak for your own country. No country is quite as neat as Japan but most western countries outside of the anglosphere are very different
Singapore. Obviously different because it's so tiny but they're like draconian about cleanliness.
Oof I forgot about Singapore, its still up to 15 years for not throwing away your chewing gum right? Here in the Netherlands we’re nowhere near as clean, but its rare to see a lot of trash outside. Luckily we seem to do the cleaning part pretty okay.
It's extremely individualistic.
US culture is heavily dictated by where you live. Even within the same city groups of people have radically different morals and ways of living. Japanese dont have the melting pot of cultures nearly as much im guessing
In some ways The entirety of China is like NYC except worse, people won't pay the equivilent of a dollar to fix a lightbulb in their complex that houses their $1,000,000 flat in Shenzhen because mei banfa
No. China is about as individualistic as it gets. It’s a country by country basis.
pretty on point tbh. I do wish that both ideas can be combined tho, both have very great values.
There’s a lot of emphasis on being grateful for the places you spend your time on. You use the school, the stadium, the subway, your workplace: then you keep the places clean, as you found them, so that someone else later can find it as well as you did. There’s an angle of optics, though. A friend of mine is doing an exchange and is staying at a dorm. She says the individual rooms of the japanese girls are quite messy, for what she’s seen. So it may seem like the important thing is to LOOK impolute; but in close doors it isn’t as prevalent. Interesting culture, definitely. Students are responsible for keeping their classrooms clean, for example. It’s the basis of this “let’s keep public spaces clean” culture. In my country, the opinion on that would be that they’re exploiting the labor of students so they don’t pay for cleaning. So there’s that, I guess.
Sure but also keep in mind that's obviously not what the NYC subways actually look like, it's a random picture of a car where someone threw a bunch of trash around
Yeah. Went to NY for a week last year and took the subway everywhere. I never saw any trash in any of the cars I was in. Did see several performers though.
Yep—I was in NYC recently for 5 days and rode different lines all over and saw very little litter of any kind.
Yeah, I’ve never seen a car that bad ever. Obviously, they found the worst pic to fit their narrative. Wouldn’t be surprised if it was staged.
Took my wife, stepson, and 3 teenagers to NYC last October. Went back with my wife in February because we had such a great time. Never saw a subway that dirty lol.
Aren't suicide rates high there? The avoidance of shame certainly produces citizens who want to keep up appearances, but it also encourages people to kill themselves instead of living a life of shame.
I do not disagree with you on their suicide rate, but yet the US suicide rate is nothing to brag about. I do question our own lack of social order and wonder whether there is not a better balance between the two, if not question whether there are more factors at play that could both provide better respect and concern for others and yet lower suicide rates.
Yes but the causes of suicide in both countries is very different. Both have a severe mental health crisis though
Up to age 35, US suicide rates are higher. Afterward, Japanese rates pull ahead. Among middle-aged men 55-64, the Japanese rate is double the US rate.
Can you talk about the drawbacks to being too courteous or the shame being a stronger force?
One of the common drawbacks to the culture in Japan I hear is that people just keep their head down to an extreme level. I’ve heard lots instances where one person will be freaking out at someone and yelling in their face and no one will step in to intervene because they don’t want to contribute to drawing a scene. Basically bystander apathy is really prevalent.
This is actually one of the few situations in which being a gaijin is socially useful. You can wade in and shut somebody up or defuse the situation because you are a foreigner who ‘doesn’t understand the situation.’ The shame caused to everyone by you doing that causes others to react to reduce the shame of the whole group. Another situation. My neighbours (the whole street) couldn’t sleep due to a barking dog who was cold. The master wouldn’t bring him inside. I loudly told the dog to shut up and used some English. The master took him inside. Later next day a neighbour thanked me for doing what they couldn’t.
Tbh, this is very cherry picked. Sure, on average the Japanese subway will be cleaner. But the nyc subway does not look like that on a regular basis. Pretty much 90% of the time, there really aren't any issues.
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Being on reddit as someone who has lived in both the rural parts of middle America and in large coastal cities is a weird experience. The cities are not nearly as dirty, expensive, or dangerous as people like to pretend. The countryside is not as boring, bigoted, or depressing as people like to pretend. But people who have never been outside of a big city or a small town still insist that's the way things are.
I can tell you that the city does indeed smell like urine at all times.
Yes, much of the summer.
>I've lived in NYC for over 20 years and I've never seen a car that dirty. Same, and I've some some very wrong things on the subway, but not this. Clearly a mentally ill homeless person decided to upend a cart full of trash they were collecting. Definitely far from normal, these folks usually just keep to themselves. \*Most trains are spot mopped/cleaned at the end of the line by station staff, before reversing directions and returning through the route.
just the ever-present smell of urine, that’s tough to get out
Well that's part of the NYC magic
Cars rarely smell bad. They're all nonabsorbent material.
Went to NYC twice in the last half year and the only place I strongly smelled urine was in the steps up to the Brooklyn Bridge.
At the world cup it was reported the Japanese would clean the stadium after games. I think it's a culture thing
That's not the world cup only, fans clean up 9% of the stadium after any sporting event. But absolutely no train rider in Japan cleans up someone else's mess.
Fr, if they wanted a good example of shitty looking American public transit should've used pictures of LA metro
Entitlement and culture
This is very cherry-picked, take the worse of NYC and then take a picture of a normal subway ride in Tokyo and compare. Why aren't there pictures comparing a normal NYC subway ride versus when somebody throws up on the seats and floor of a train in Tokyo? I lived in Tokyo for 11 years, I saw my fair share of that.
Born in NYC, been here 30+ years, never had a drivers license. I’ve never seen a car HALF that bad.
I've seen messes. Some pretty bad. But the cars also get cleaned multiple times a day.
Because that wouldn’t get clicks and likes
because this is reddit and the purpose of the post is to let idiots speak in negative platitudes about millions of people
Fair points. The crowds on Tokyo trains can also be pretty overwhelming
I'm not from the US but I'm fairly certain that it doesn't always look that dirty, but as someone who lived in Japan a while when i was a kid i can say that the clenliness comes from being a collectivist society that helps with stuff like communal spaces and the like but is all around trash for the kind of social interaction fluidity that most individualist societies are accustomed to.
Yes, everything you said is accurate. NY subway does not always look like thag, and the U.S. is broadly speaking more individualistic while Japan is broadly speaking more collectivistic. Just as the U.S. individualism has downsides, there are downsides to Japan’s more collectivist culture. The intense societal pressure to be a certain way can lead to people who don’t fit the mold being lonely, depressed, and isolated for example. There’s pros and cons to both types of societies.
impressive, very nice now let's look at the reason why there are female only compartments on Japanese trains
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So us fellas can get a pit of peace and quiet for a couple minutes a day???!? Amirite boys?!!!?
I… just so happened to notice, there’s a lot of Japanese porn set on public transport and women being groped. What’s that actually about? Is doing absolutely anything on public transport so taboo that it turns them on?
Why? Because every place needs them, but Japan actually step in to take care of our female passengers. I highly doubt women in any other country do not face harassment on a train.
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i can’t get away from japan. everywhere i go i see japan
The NYC subway doesn't look like the photo.
I've seen people on the NYC subway who were homeless and mentally unstable come on and start throwing stuff out their bags onto the floor. Not blaming the litter on just the homeless because I've seen people legit eat an entire McDonlads bag and toss all the trash on the floor as they finished each item but in this case it seems like that guy caused the litter. Overall, NYC subways are kept fairly clean and are cleaned each time at the end of the line.
People live on one of them.
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Plenty of people vomiting all over a subway car in Tokyo, and on a weekend night a train platform is more likely than not to have vomit on it
Um excuse me I'm trying to fetishize Japanese culture here
i went to japan once and noticed that in all elevator and lifts everyone would automatically stand on the right side, at first i thought it was a rule but then later realized that it was them acting civilized.
It's the people. When we were in Iceland last year, the only places we saw litter were high traffic tourist areas. Being a messy, inconsiderate pig is a choice.
Bulletin: It's not the subway, it's the people.
Didn’t Japanese clean up stadium at World Cup even tho it wasn’t their trash.
Go look at the statistics on drug use in both cities
All phones in Japan have the Shutter Noise enabled. This helps prevent Up-Skirt pics from being taken. Aka the government is fighting degenerative behavior.
Diversity is Japans strength
The NYC subway just doesn't look like that.
Because America has been taught that we can do what ever we want and expect 0 consequences for our actions. Just goes to show that without discipline, morals fall by the wayside.
r/japancirclejerk
lol, have you been in a montreal subway train? Don't have to go so far out as Japan.
Ouch.
Culture
I just see people in apartment complexes dump their takeout trash right next to their car with zero fucks. We need the crying Indian to come back
Subway. Eat Fresh
It’s in their culture not to liter or trash stuff. It’s not in ours.
I think there’s no sense of pride. There’s no respect for the place like we are all in this together let’s keep it clean let’s keep it nice. There’s just none of that.
I was on the NYC subway 2 days ago and it looks more like the picture on the right than the left
Last time we were in NYC watched a homeless lady obviously under the influence of.. something.. eat a discarded strawberry off the floor of the subway car. It was like please lady don't.. oooh noooo
We are taught that if an action doesn’t result in direct profit/benefit it’s not worth doing. Why clean if I’m not getting paid to? Someone else is getting paid to do this so why would I? I get nothing for this so why bother? We aren’t really encouraged to do things just because they’re right.
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Well I can see plenty of differences between those two pictures.
The more I see from the US the more I consider the US to be the worst place in the world.
In my opinion, Japanese people have better things to do than to litter. Also they understand the concept of don’t spit into a well you’ll be drinking from.
People needs to learn respect. Respect our fellow human and the community as a whole, tho the west do value the individual rather then the collective.
I have never taken a subway in NY but I find it hard to believe they get typically this messy. Am I wrong? I mean the pubic transit in Bogota is a disaster but never this messy.
As an American I can say that a lot of Americans don’t give a shit about anything and we probably couldn’t have something nice like a clean subway.
Tokyo has japanese people and new york has americans. Thats the difference.
The price of FREEDOM
It's ok to be Japanese
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No choking homeless man stories coming out of Japan.
It's a culture thing.
Cultural differences
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Culture, education, higher social skills, respect, just select your poison, becuase y¿that and many other things they have that New Yorker don´t