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Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

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Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#91

Post by washadjeffmad »

dilap wrote: post #66
dmoy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another fascinating thing is how escalators have two lanes, one for walking and one for standing. Why doesn't everyone so this?! It's so perfect! Turns out, strangely, that it actually reduces throughput compared to just having everyone stand. So not exactly perfect I guess. But yea I agree in the general matter. When my MIL (a master organizer) visited Japan she thought that was great.

> Turns out, strangely, that it actually reduces throughput compared to just having everyone stand Wait, what? How can this be true? Imagine an escalator w/ both lanes filled with people just standing. Now imagine the left lane starts walking: clearly, higher throughput. Now, maybe you're imagining a scenario where people don't want to walk. Now everyone stands on the right, and the left lane is completely empty. OK,…

The volume of the escalator is reduced by greater than half, and the departure rate is a function of density, so reserving half of the escalator for people who want to depart slightly faster than others (in single file, with space) apparently doesn't overtake what a single, densely packed transit could carry.

The problem is that people who want to walk are limited in reality by how quickly the slowest person ahead of them is traveling as well as conventions that make it unlikely that people would get within 1 full step of the person in front of them, reducing the lane's volume to 1/3 (the step you're on plus the step you're taking + space) of the possible occupancy of the standing lane.

So I could definitely see that assertion being true.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#92

Post by Ftuuky »

jaynetics wrote: post #26

The cleanliness is impressive, but what impressed me even more was the efficiency. One morning in Tokyo, I saw construction workers starting to dig up a street. It was a large operation, they were exposing some massive pipes, and there were a few policemen, politely pointing pedestrians to a way around the site. In the evening I went the same way again, to see how far they had gotten with the digging. However, there…

In Portugal it would have taken at least 2 months and the end result would be worse than before.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#93

Post by seanmcdirmid »

munmaek wrote: post #70
goranmoomin wrote: post #60

Well, as a Korean, I think that this is due to the difference of importance of how other people think me. I've heard that the western world is very individualistic, and people in general don't care much about how other people acts. In Korea (and AFAIK Japan too), people very care of what other people think about them. They consider the consequences of every action carefully. One of the results is that people generall…

Having lived in 세종시, and Seoul, I strongly disagree with your statement. Sejong is a brand new city, made in 2014, yet there was litter everywhere, especially right near bus stops. I distinctly recall seeing empty coffee cups tossed in the planters/hedges nearby. There were almost zero trash cans so what do you expect. The bathrooms didn’t have tissue or anything either, you had to go to one of the nearby stores or c…

Japan has a lack of trash cans also. The idea is to get people to think about their waste and carry it home. It goes hand in hand with their hyper recycling culture, which I could never really figure out what bin to put stuff in on my last visit.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#95

Post by franciscop »

aikinai wrote: post #38
franciscop wrote: post #12

Except Shibuya, we walked there yesterday after the typhoon and had to avoid the big rats that normally live in the big trash piles, probably they were looking for food since yday there was no trash. I've seen similar situation with crows. This is a mostly invisible issue for tourists since trash collection happens in the morning and people take the trash out the night before, so the piles of trash and animals are vi…

I don’t think putting trash out at night and picking it up early in the morning is an exception to cleanliness. What else would they do? No one’s trying to say Japan produces no trash.

But I'm taking about having big trash bags piled on the street for 12+ h practically everyday. For instance, an easy solution would be to put them only 2-3h before the trash trucks come (I've seen them before the last train at ~11pm, the truck comes at 9am). A cultural-change would be to have big metal containers to put the trash away so that animals don't have an easy way in.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#96

Post by joeberon »

tlear wrote: post #74
fiblye wrote: post #5

Undiluted orientalism. I was in Osaka this weekend and litter is everywhere. By far one of the dirtiest major cities I’ve seen in East Asia. In the city I live in in Japan, the rice fields are full of coffee cans, plastic bottles, and bento packaging thrown out from cars. Streets are covered in cigarette butts and somehow I see natto containers in the middle of nowhere. Going hiking, I see tea bottles and plastic bag…

I live in Japan as well. Hiking.. have you actually hiked anywhere in else in the world? Most places you can fill a garbage bag in an hour just walking on a trail. Took my climbing friends from Canada on a long Hike in Kita Alps, they brought a garbage bag as they always do to gather other peoples trash. We managed to find 2 empty water bottles in 3 days having covered close to 50km. See the campsites near huts after…

Just want to say I’ve hiked significantly across the UK and there is extremely little litter

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#97

Post by danans »

nitrogen wrote: post #78
Symbiote wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would find the same in Central London, but not somewhere suburban. It's more a function of the size of the city, at least in rich countries with a functioning public service.

San Francisco streets seem to take years to be repaired.

Potholes yes, those take forever. But just this week I just saw a pipeline/conduit repair under the street in SF (like the GP described happening in Japan) that took 1 day. I suspect the job was prioritized somehow, or that it was just not too complicated.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#98

Post by jgtrosh »

88840-8855 wrote: post #57
netsharc wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Tokyo and Osaka these last weeks, and China before Tokyo. Landing in Tokyo after China was magical. People didn't shout in public or have their phones blaring. They let people disembark trains instead of just barging in as soon as the train doors open, and they queue neatly for those doors. And yes everything was clean and tidy. But the touristy area of Osaka was back to being dreadful. People cutting you of…

Some cultures are quieter than others. Chinese (25+ rural) are already as loud as a jetliner, only can be topped by Spanish tourist girls. If you survive that encounter, you have heard it all!

Real noise is a large Spanish restaurant room towards the end of lunch when every single person is adding to the sonic barrage

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#99

Post by viking1992 »

goranmoomin wrote: post #60

Well, as a Korean, I think that this is due to the difference of importance of how other people think me. I've heard that the western world is very individualistic, and people in general don't care much about how other people acts. In Korea (and AFAIK Japan too), people very care of what other people think about them. They consider the consequences of every action carefully. One of the results is that people generall…

My experience visiting small town Japan (1990s) is that there were several improvised garbage dumps, so Japanese are indeed pigs when nobody is watching.

Re: Most first-time visitors to Japan are struck by how clean the country is

#100

Post by pcr910303 »

munmaek wrote: post #70
goranmoomin wrote: post #60

Well, as a Korean, I think that this is due to the difference of importance of how other people think me. I've heard that the western world is very individualistic, and people in general don't care much about how other people acts. In Korea (and AFAIK Japan too), people very care of what other people think about them. They consider the consequences of every action carefully. One of the results is that people generall…

Having lived in 세종시, and Seoul, I strongly disagree with your statement. Sejong is a brand new city, made in 2014, yet there was litter everywhere, especially right near bus stops. I distinctly recall seeing empty coffee cups tossed in the planters/hedges nearby. There were almost zero trash cans so what do you expect. The bathrooms didn’t have tissue or anything either, you had to go to one of the nearby stores or c…

> Sejong is a brand new city, made in 2014, yet there was litter everywhere, especially right near bus stops.

Mostly due to people who wait at the bus stops alone; I've never seen people littering at the bus stops at the rush hour, but I've definitely seen people leaving their empty coffee cups on the benches when (they think) nobody's looking.

> There were almost zero trash cans so what do you expect.

That's mostly because of the stupid decision of that trash cans 'look' dirty, which causes the broken window effect... but IMO that was a stupid decision.

> The bathrooms didn’t have tissue or anything either, you had to go to one of the nearby stores or cafes and get some.

Hmm, that's not what I experienced, I've rarely seen public bathrooms without any tissue.

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