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Why no looting in Japan?

caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com

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Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#41

Post by nivertech »

kmfrk wrote: post #33
staunch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually happened. When we were living in Tokyo my wife lost her wallet. A day later she found that it was sitting in the basket of her bicycle outside our building. This was a busy street in a business district (Nihonbashi) with hundreds of people going past it and it was a large new coach wallet with at least a few hundred in cash. Not that someone wouldn't have eventually stolen it though.

>Not that someone wouldn't have eventually stolen it though. Japan is only nearly Utopian. Let's be careful with the orientalism. The suicide rate[1][2] is one thing that personally bothers me. Japan is fundamentally different from the West, and this has its advantages and disadvantages. [1]: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_count... [2]: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_OE…

Clear trends:

* Southern Europe/Mediterranean/Levantine countries - low suicide rates.

* English-speaking/Northern countries/former Communist block in Eastern Europe/Developed Asian countries - high suicide rates.

Seems to be related to amount of daylight, climate, stress and competition.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#42

Post by funthree »

olivercameron wrote: post #5
funthree wrote: post #3

How about because the Japanese have been living on that island for what, 30,000 years? I think they have a sense of longevity in their culture that we could all really learn from.

So have the people of England, what's your point?

I think Japan is a bit more unique geographically in this context. Sure there were people in England that long ago (and same for Greece too) but Japan has been isolated by more water, and their gene pool has remained more or less the same. They know their history and it's all their own. Citing 30,000 years as I did was just a bit in jest and probably an exaggeration.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#43

Post by est »

zspade wrote: post #11

NPR had a good piece about how the Chinese looked at the Japanese and wondered the same thing when hey had so much price gouging and looting themselves during their last major earthquake.

Ok, just to be clear, since when did Chinese start looting in earthquakes? I admit there are prices gouging in the 2008 earthquake, but looting?

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#44

Post by Pahalial »

So I read that, and the first thing that jumped out to me from the quotes: "The so-called civilized world can learn much from the stoic Japanese."

If you don't consider Japan part of the "civilized world" you have probably not updated your social mores since WW2 and should reconsider that before commenting further.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#46

Post by jerf »

StavrosK wrote: post #16
tc wrote: post #10

From Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! ; Feynman and a colleague are staying at a traditional Japanese hotel in Kyoto: The next morning the young woman taking care of our room fixes the bath, which was right in our room. Sometime later she returns with a tray to deliver breakfast. I'm partly dressed. She turns to me and says, politely, "Ohayo, gozai masu," which means, "Good morning." Pais is just coming out of the…

I came here to quote Feynman too, but a different part: This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by looking at it carefully or by taking the reports of a lot of people who looked at it carelessly is like this famous old problem: Nobody was permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the length of the Emperor of China’s nose? To find out, you go all over the country…

It strikes me as a theory with very poor explanatory power. We've seen many crises in the US as well, and Katrina was an exception. There have been a couple of others within my lifetime, but it's not politically correct to point out what similarities they may have. (I suppose I should point out this isn't a veiled reference to race, it's actually 100% cultural, but it's still not politically correct to discuss.) It is true in the US we always have to be at least a bit worried about looting, we can't quite completely write it off, but in general it doesn't happen, and we do have a very loose society by comparison to Japan's. Whatever the determining factor is, that is not it, at least not directly.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#47

Post by StavrosK »

jerf wrote: post #46
StavrosK wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to quote Feynman too, but a different part: This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by looking at it carefully or by taking the reports of a lot of people who looked at it carelessly is like this famous old problem: Nobody was permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the length of the Emperor of China’s nose? To find out, you go all over the country…

It strikes me as a theory with very poor explanatory power. We've seen many crises in the US as well, and Katrina was an exception . There have been a couple of others within my lifetime, but it's not politically correct to point out what similarities they may have. (I suppose I should point out this isn't a veiled reference to race , it's actually 100% cultural , but it's still not politically correct to discuss.) I…

I think these sorts of occurrences have very strong group effects. If a few people start looting, soon many others will follow, even if they wouldn't really start otherwise. It may be that, in the case of Katrina, there just happened to be those few people who would start the looting.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#48

Post by kstenerud »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #38
kstenerud wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3000 years of writing bad Chinese poetry. edit: It's a JOKE, people.

No, about 1,500 years of influence by Chinese poetry, and assimilation took a long time. I don't know enough about it to say if it really is bad, but I do know that Norman England produced some excellent poetry -- chiefly Chaucer, and that was only 300 years after William.

While it was in vogue, the nobles would all try their hand, no matter how bad they were at it, and no matter how little they actually knew of the language.

Think Janglish, but the Chinese version of it :P

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#49

Post by huhtenberg »

kmfrk wrote: post #28
kstenerud wrote: post #6

Same reason nobody vandalizes vending machines, even when they're quite literally in the middle of nowhere along the side of an unfrequented road in the countryside. Same reason it's unthinkable for a Japanese to take fruit or berries hanging outside of someone's yard, even when it's falling off the branch and rotting on the ground, and yet they'd hardly think twice in their downtown drunken stupor to steal a bicycle…

Japanese vending machines also have a safety lever (of sorts) that makes all the beverages free, in the event of a catastrophe. I don't know how it works specifically, but I'm sure there would be better ways than to vandalize the machines in order to obtain the contents.

I don't know if this is true, but this was making rounds today:

  If you need water, Suntory vending machines have emergency
  levers beneath a sticker on the upper-right corners. Pull
  the sticker off, pull the lever firmly and you’ll get free 
  drinks.

Re: Why no looting in Japan?

#50

Post by asdkl234890 »

tsuyoshi wrote: post #17

There was a major power outage in much of the northeastern North America, affecting tens of millions of people, and almost no looting (aside from isolated incidents in Ottawa and Brooklyn) there either. There was a major terrorist attack in New York in 2001 and no looting. There was a major earthquake in San Francisco in 1989 and no looting. This statement that "looting is something we see after almost every tragedy"…

Exactly! This Why are the Japanese so different! is just romanticising them for not being us. It may not quite rise to racism, but it certainly is silly.
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