Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#241

Post by monkeycantype » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:58 AM UTC

irrational wrote: post #107

Reedx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article hits on this, suggesting that they are viewed as communal property since they're so abundant, cheap and frequently forgotten. Umbrellas are also an on demand item, so can see how this could evolve as a sort of community solution to the rain problem.

What is the rain problem? I live in the Pacific Northwest where it rains for 9 months out of the year. Our solution is to not use umbrellas at all. Everyone has a waterproof rain jacket.

the problem? this:

So I was getting my hair cut at this cheap place, no appointments, no conversation, you sit on the bench, wait your turn, each time a chair frees up they pop the next person off the queue. ( _alright deque_ ) It's raining and cold, and it's Melbourne so bunches of black wet puffer jackets are dripping off the two coat racks.

person in : black puffer on the hook, person out : black puffer off the hook.

Then one guy starts screaming, 'who stole my jacket? it's a north face, it's a north face.'

He's flipping through the jackets throwing people's clothes on the floor, including mine so I'm a bit unhappy with him and I walk up get him to calm down.

we manage to pair each jacket with it's owner, and we've got one left - a black superdry jacket, with some nice bluetooth headphones in the pocket.

I'd seen the owner come and leave, I suggested he would realise and come back. He could leave his number. He's not happy with this, so I sugest he take the superdry jacket to stay warm and dry, leave his number, and if the guy comes back they can arrange to swap back.

At this point the screamer starts screaming that superdryguy obviously stole his jacket because north face is better, and he's going to take the superdry jacket and the headphones as 'compensation'.

Screams some random abuse about the absent guy as he launches back out into the street (no number left).

Two minutes later the superdryguy is back - wearing a north face jacket, the scene basically repeats with a new idiot screaming, this time that he is going to sue and something about rare headphones.

I don't think this happens in Japan. Must be the umbrellas.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#242

Post by bamboozled » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

bschwindHN wrote: post #226

bamboozled wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s because almost everyone uses the same umbrellas (cheap from a convenience store). Ive never had any other type taken. It’s hard to tell which one is yours and it basically becomes an umbrella share pool. No big deal. I’ve also had cases where I was caught in the rain and people tried to give me their umbrella.

The hack here is to put distinctive stickers or something on them so anyone picking it up knows it's definitely not theirs. I've had the same umbrella in Japan for 4 years.

I really can't believe you've had a Konbini store umbrella for 4 years. They're really not that well made?

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#243

Post by MagnumOpus » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:28 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #106

shadofx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan and South Korea were both bloody, autocratic military regimes. Many nations have walked the bridge to hell and back, but the cultural revolution meant that China burned the bridge after crossing it.

One of your examples further proves my point - nobody can categorize Taiwan as a high-cohesion, high-trust society, despite not having a 1966 moment. The other's not a very close parallel. Korea was under Japanese occupation in that same time period, which was no picnic, but it at least had a functional, centralized government, and at least, was not an active warzone through most of it. (It is more similar to post-wa…

> nobody can categorize Taiwan as a high-cohesion, high-trust society

Having done business in both, it is an order of magnitude better than mainland China, both in terms of civil society (helping out strangers, littering, tax dodging etc) and in terms of larger-scale trust issues (prevalence of fraud). Same goes for Korea. (As for Korea not being an active war zone and having a functional centralized government in WW2... the Korean War put paid to that pretty quickly.)

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#244

Post by jotm » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 10:30 AM UTC

progman32 wrote: post #189

jotm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I was living in the UK. A kid on a skateboard dropped his phone, didn't notice. Less than a minute later, a guy (gardener or construction worker by the looks of it) picks it off the ground and gets in his van. Bye bye phone. Another time, found a wallet and returned it, the woman said it's unbelievable, no one else would do that. Gave me 10 pounds, too, heh (there was way more in the wallet, plus cards and ID, i…

What would a better response be to a dropped phone? From the story as told the guy may well have tried to find the phone's owner when he got a free minute.

Catch up to the kids and return it? They were down the street within view. Tbf, I'm not one to judge, I just watched, so...

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#245

Post by atom-morgan » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 12:47 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #167

atom-morgan wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting because when I visited I went to an onsen and my umbrella didn't fit the lock system. Then I thought, "What do I have to worry about? I'm in Japan. Nobody will steal it." 3 hours later and it was still there waiting for me.

Probably because it was not raining?

I only had mine with me because it was raining.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#246

Post by bschwindHN » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #242

bschwindHN wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hack here is to put distinctive stickers or something on them so anyone picking it up knows it's definitely not theirs. I've had the same umbrella in Japan for 4 years.

I really can't believe you've had a Konbini store umbrella for 4 years. They're really not that well made?

Yeah it's not holding up too well but it still keeps the rain off me!

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#247

Post by CydeWeys » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #173

CydeWeys wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Syncretic Shintoism/Buddhism is pervasive in Japan. It's absolutely not true that only 3-4% believe in it. The real figure is way higher. The issue is it's not a religion that you believe in in the same sense as, say, Christianity; there's a lot of disparate practices that most people adhere to at least some of. Just walking around in Japanese cities, you see shrines everywhere. Way more than you see churches in US c…

BTW, the japanese Shinto shrines and Budhist temples just seem so much more alive and part of the community, than western churches, which often seem like almost foreign and disconnected from actual current society.

Yeah, and there's evidence everywhere that these shrines are active. They're taken care of, there's always offerings, old cemeteries centuries old are littered with recent wooden arches, ribbons, flowers, and other recent stuff, and bigger shrines with attendants have long lines to get red book stamps.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#248

Post by magduf » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 4:11 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #132

irrational wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the rain problem? I live in the Pacific Northwest where it rains for 9 months out of the year. Our solution is to not use umbrellas at all. Everyone has a waterproof rain jacket.

In Seattle where it rains frequently but lightly, you really don't need an umbrella. But in places where it rains hard , umbrellas become a lot more desirable. A waterproof rain jacket won't help much in a torrential downpour. Maybe with a waterproof wide-brimmed hat as well, but chances are you'll still get drenched without an umbrella. To put some numbers on it for perspective: Seattle is infamous for rain, but onl…

>To put some numbers on it for perspective: Seattle is infamous for rain, but only averages 38 inches of rain per year.

I wonder if it has to do with duration vs. intensity. Long periods of drizzle might not be nearly as much total rainfall as short periods of downpour. From what I've seen of the PNW on my few trips there, it seems to drizzle a lot.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#249

Post by magduf » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #146

ghaff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adhering to crossing lights is a very cultural thing. There was a thread that came up about this a week or two ago. Even within the US, perhaps especially within large northeastern cities like Boston and New York, people will cross if there's no traffic (or even if a driver has hesitated for a moment). Whereas on the West Coast people mostly obey the lights.

It depends on the situation with traffic and enforcement. At my college town the police were obsessive with writing jay walking tickets. Even if no one is around at all. They really took pride in fining broke college kids $300 for crossing the road. In LA, there is no jaywalking enforcement, or any petty crime enforcement for that matter. The LAPD is a disproportionately tiny police force that has far bigger fish to…

>At my college town the police were obsessive with writing jay walking tickets. Even if no one is around at all. They really took pride in fining broke college kids $300 for crossing the road.

And police in America wonder why people hate them so much.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#250

Post by magduf » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 4:20 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #195

wisty wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you steal even a few dollars of merchandise from a corner store, the police can hold you for a number of days without trial. And most people won't feel sorry because that's what happens to thieves, so you should have known not to do it. A society decides what's acceptable, and how far they're willing to go to uphold these expectations.

Likewise DUI in Japan. Japan is much more strict than the US. One beer before driving and you become a guest of the state for 3 years. Just don't do it.

In Japanese cities, you don't need to drive if you're drunk, and you don't even need a car at all. Just get on the train/subway, or hail a taxi, or even walk.

Drunk driving is a problem in the US because you can't get home without a car except for a handful of dense cities (Manhattan, etc.). The rise of Uber/Lyft is helping this, though.