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You mean an event that occurred nearly an entire generation ago, and for which almost none of those responsibile are still living? Kinda shitty to hold that legacy over the heads of an entire people. You're not really making a good case for your supposed moral superiority.
A generation on average is around 25 years. I'm pretty sure the Nanking massacre happened a bit longer than that.
Is there some kind of HN Japanese article trend recently?
In any case I appreciate the culture of getting lost stuff returned in Japan much more than “magical” conbinis.
The article mentions money so I’ll add my anecdote. Many years ago as a student we had a going away party for some friends who were returning to the US. Someone had a “genius” plan to beat the jet lag. Since their flight was early in the morning we planned an all nighter so they would catch one of the first planes to the airport, board the plane and sleep the entire flight, waking up back in the US “refreshed”.
About half though the night and after way too many drinks I got sick. It was well past last train so my friends hailed me a cab back to my host family’s house about an hour away in suburban Kokobunji. The next thing I know I’m passed out in the back seat of the taxi and my parents wake me up, pay the $100 cab fare and help me into the house.
I wake up the next morning with a stiff hangover to find so much stuff missing, but most importantly my wallet. It had all the important stuff: a couple hundred in yen, my train pass, my ID cards, and most importantly, my residence card. My stomach sank thinking how I’d get it back.
Later that day as I was recovering the taxi driver came by the house and returned my wallet —- everything intact. I offered all the cash I had but he refused to take it. I cannot imagine he would make such a trip back out that far to return some stupid gaijin’s stuff. It left a permanent memory of people’s generosity.
On the flip side, a Japanese friend of mine and I would practice English. He was always interested in US slang, particularly swear words, which he never quite got right. I’ll always remember the day he nailed it.
He got $500 from his grandparents as a present for graduating high school and entering Waseda University. He called me up and says “I lost my wallet, I got the wallet back but fuuuck man, they took the money.”
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It's about losing wallets...
I understand they have a tough immigration system.
Short of getting a job there, how can a US citizen live there?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean an event that occurred nearly an entire generation ago, and for which almost none of those responsibile are still living? Kinda shitty to hold that legacy over the heads of an entire people. You're not really making a good case for your supposed moral superiority.
> nearly an entire generation ago A generation on average is around 25 years. I'm pretty sure the Nanking massacre happened a bit longer than that.
> Japan’s strong culture of morality. Do sociologists yet understand why some cultures are strong in morality yet some aren’t? Surely if we understood the forces that drive macro behavior we could duplicate desirable attributes like high morality in other cultures. I would really like it if we had this high level of morality in America.
It helps explain why we in Japan can have nice things.
Outside many establishments in Japan you will find an umbrella rack full of nearly identical translucent white umbrellas (the style sold for a few hundred yen at any convenience store). Many of these have been inadvertently left behind, the rain having stopped while the owner was inside. Once I found myself in the reverse situation, sitting in a friend's bar when a downpour started. I asked him if I could take one of…
I get it though. They are all similar (even though they are not, some still have the plastic wrap or price tag on the handle). Mistakes are mistakes.
What really pisses me off is when you take a nicer one (those clear ones are crap) and it’s totally different from all the other umbrellas and it goes missing. No excusing “sorry I mixed up my clear umbrella with the white handle for your clear umbrella with the white handle”. I hope there’s a social place in hell for those people.
Interesting to read that > In Japan, citizens are required to take lost property to the Koban (police station). From there, it is either returned or stored at the Tokyo hub until claimed. A few years ago, I found a wallet on the ground and I took it to the police station. (The experience itself was a bit bizarre, they evidently had a "triage" system where you have to use a computer to select why you're there and get…
I noticed a purse left unattended at the bus stop. I saw a bus in the distance, and assumed the owner of the purse was on it.
I called the main number for the nearest police station (at least, the one listed in Google Maps). Around 15 minutes later, an officer arrived, checked the purse, and found a wallet. After getting information from me (any idea whose it was, did I touch it, etc.), the officer took it to the station’s lost-and-found.
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My nephew is a police officer in the US. The vast majority of his day is dealing with drunks, overdoses, domestic violence, traffic violations and broken down vehicles.
Police basically have to deal with people at their worst. Most confrontational. Most violent. Most emotional. I don't think I could do the job, not in a big city, without becoming jaded fast.
Not a particularly good article so some things that y'all might find interesting: "Honor" and "a sense of responsibility" explains very little and good, widely distributed Schelling points (koban and, to a lesser extent, commercial/transit centers information/etc desks) that both do the right thing for lost/found items and are widely believed to do the right thing explains most of it. You are legally entitled to a re…
These aren't "schelling points". The nearest appropriate location of whatever kind (koban if it's outdoors or somewhere small, information desk in a mall or station) is likely obvious to both the loser and finder given the context and is no more a schelling point than, eg, the local hospital if someone got hit by a car.
A real Schelling point is more like, eg, the statue of hachiko in Shibuya which is so famous a landmark and prominent in everyone's shared cultural understanding that if you told two strangers to meet in Shibuya with no other information it's actually pretty likely they'd both just go there by default.
> both do the right thing for lost/found items and are widely believed to do the right thing explains most of it
Yeah, but what you're missing is the expectation that the finder will do the right thing too - which is absolutely cultural.