One thing I often see in Japan is how Japanese society is very big on cleanliness after a sporting event, after a party, the thought of cleaning up was almost a collective effort and it’s something that makes me happy to see.
I noticed in heavily tourist locations that people who are traveling from other countries who are unable to find garbage cans, they just leave their empty cups or bottles right on the sidewalk. I noticed it at sporting events, where the thought of non-Japanese was to leave their garbage for the workers to clean up.
I think this is a often a thought by some at a movie theater to sporting events is that if one pays quite a bit of money to attend an event that the cleaning is best left to staff.
While in Japan, it’s an inconvenience for one to leave their own garbage. At a sporting event, people work together to throw away their garbage or pass your garbage to a person sitting next to you who gives it to custodial staff as they walk the stairs with a bag. And at a party, at the end, everyone joins together to clean things up.
And before I go on, I don’t want to make a generalization that all Japanese are like this. There is litter that can be found at parks (a lot of homeless sleep at the parks at nights and sometimes, you’ll find their litter laying about) and also find a lot of cigarette butts that smokers drop on the ground.
The are bad offenders of people leaving trash, may they be Japanese or not.
But there are many more people in Japan who don’t like seeing garbage around their city, their parks, their business area and neighborhood.
For public areas and sporting events, the people ensure that things are clean and to show there is a collective group wanting their country to be clean.
But in Japan, there are more volunteer cleaning organizations throughout Japan, they go as far as collecting the smallest pieces of paper and cigarette butts. Even the cleaning crew on Shinkansen are very hardcore in making sure that the compartments are clean from garbage and they really do a thorough job at cleaning.
And also for athletes, coaches are very strict on athletes on cleaning, from scrubbing toilets to cleaning sporting equipment, business owners are often seen cleaning the front of the sidewalk. People are taught to clean.
Heck, when I was in grade school, the school would get all students to go out and clean the school grounds up. Granted, this is unlike Japan, where students must clean the floors, the chalkboards and such. Because schools make the kids clean daily/weekly. In America, when we did it in our school, it was a once in a year type of thing. Like it was a yearly event. And as for classroom cleaning, it was always left to custodians. Students were not responsible for cleaning.
But we can learn from the Japanese, maybe not as a collective but for each of us to practice it on our own and be conscious that if you have garbage, do the right thing and throw it away yourself. Not leave it on the ground.
Sure, there are times in Japan, where finding a garbage can is difficult. But instead of throwing it on the ground, put it in your bag and if you see a garbage can while you are walking, then trash it.
For those traveling to Japan, especially for Halloween, a parade or planning to visit tourist heavy places, please throw your garbage in a garbage can and not leaving it laying it around, hoping for staff, volunteer organizations or police officers to clean it.
And let’s hope for Halloween 2019… It doesn’t get this bad again… (photos below are from 2ch):
