Why no looting in Japan?

This was the first thing I thought about when it all kicked off. I watched a video on one of the news reports and when the earthquake hit, staff in the stores instead of hiding tried steadying shelves to stop things falling off.

We honestly have a long way to go.

A guy in my class parked a shiny bike not locked for a month. After a month when he came back it was still there. The chances of this happening in Amsterdam are very slim. Even if you only lock your bike to something with a big chain somebody with a metal cutter will come and get it if the bike is shiny. And better lock both of your wheels and the frame through the chain or else you end up with a bike without wheels. Unfortunately the steering wheel and saddle are not so easily locked.

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 to get them home after the trains had shut down for the night.

They have different social norms there.

Japan certainly has social mores that discourage petty crime.

There are also practical considerations at play. The damage is so severe that there's not much left to loot, and there's and nowhere for looters to keep what they steal.

The article makes comparisons with Haiti and Katrina, but the damage in Japan is more total than either of these. In many towns there is literally nothing left.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366395/Japan-tsunam...

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 bath, sopping wet and completely nude. She turns to him and with equal composure says, "Ohayo, gozai masu ," and puts the tray down for us.

Pais looks at me and says, "God, are we uncivilized!"

We realized that in America if the maid was delivering breakfast and the guy's standing there, stark naked, there would be little screams and a big fuss. But in Japan they were completely used to it, and we felt that they were much more advanced and civilized about those things than we were.