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It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

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Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#31

Post by _cs2017_ »

patio11 wrote: post #13

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…

In my experience, in major American cities, anything valuable left in plain view in a car is stolen within 30 minutes (and that requires breaking the car window or picking the lock). But you're saying that things dropped on the ground will not be stolen, and instead returned to the nearest police station if only there was one not too far?

Could you provide any arguments or evidence to support your claim?

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#32

Post by abeppu »

bombcar wrote: post #14
Shadonototra wrote: post #11

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

I feel like Japan is not the country that will invade Taiwan next.

But ... maybe some Japanese propagandist/marketer wants there to be a crowd ready when the border reopens to tourists.

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#33

Post by ehnto »

wirthjason wrote: post #22

This article is obviously not talking about bicycles. :) 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…

Here's my anecdote: I lost my phone in Japan once, in Tokyo. I was steaming after a night of karaoke and somewhere between the bar, taxi and my hotel, I'd lost my phone. I wandered down to the street at 3am, retracing my steps, and a police officer noticed me and asked what I was looking for. He pointed me back to the hotel reception where where we got on the phone to the taxi company, and then directly onto the driver, who said he hadn't found anything. What was odd, was that I didn't know the taxi company at all, the receptionist had just remembered what I pulled up in.

Accepting that I had lost my phone in a foreign country, I went back upstairs and found it immediately upon walking back into the room. I'd just dropped it under my bag. I went back down and apologized for wasting the receptionists time, but they wouldn't accept it.

The morale of the story being that there was no shortage of help, and that I was a big dummy.

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#34

Post by lovemenot »

abeppu wrote: post #32
bombcar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I feel like Japan is not the country that will invade Taiwan next. But ... maybe some Japanese propagandist/marketer wants there to be a crowd ready when the border reopens to tourists.

Pre-covid, the majority of tourists were from China and East Asia in general. Given their need to isolate upon re-entry, not many of these will be returning very soon.

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#35

Post by Galanwe »

Japan is often taken as an example for this kind of things, but I think the overall thing can span to most of Asia, though with varying degrees.

Singapore would be an even greater extreme. I remember a friend telling me he was seated at a restaurant table, and two girls on the table next to him go out to smoke outside. The waiter came back to give back the credit card to the girls and found their table empty. The waiter then proceeded to give the credit card to my friend and told him to hand it back to the girls when they come back from smoking. The waiter apparently considered absurd the possibility of my friend keeping the card for himself and leaving.

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#36

Post by whelming_wave »

sonicggg wrote: post #25
Morgawr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To be fair, they don't regret a thing. They still have shrines to honour war criminals, and continuously downplay what they did.

to be fair, the US still has statues to honor slavers, people continuously downplay what they did, etc. people aren’t a monoculture, though Japan definitely still has its own issues with their past

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#37

Post by abeppu »

nnoitra wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

This is being down voted b/c the Nanking massacre is both old, and not unique. But ... it is worth examining the assumed strong culture of morality. Is it morality? Is it just norm-compliance or rule following? Is it shame or fear of shame? Is there really a basis for calling whole societies more or less moral? Or does morality just get expressed in different ways in different social contexts?

Without invoking war crimes, one could ask about gender inequality, LGBT rights, or the status of racial minorites in Japan. Are these reflective of a particularly "strong culture of morality"?

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#38

Post by ehnto »

I think a lot of what makes Japan work in some of these more beneficial ways is organization and process, and I think that's a hard pill for some to swallow. Certainly was for me, because I hate bureaucracy and rigid process, but love efficiency and pragmatism.

You see things getting achieved in ridiculous accuracy and efficiency over there, and it's usually backed by a lot of process, checks and balances. Cleaning the train stations in Tokyo is handled by a special forces level of planning, regiment and and execution.

There's also a lot of human labor involved, locker boxes in big cities are checked daily, maintained daily to weekly, fixed on the spot or marked for maintenance that gets done very quickly. That's all process and regiment, preventative maintenance and pro-active checking rather than waiting for things to fail and get reported.

As always, Japan is huge, and diverse, it's not all like that, but certainly a lot of it is.

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#39

Post by cute_boi »

axiolite wrote: post #5
nnoitra wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

Japan has a strong culture of pacifism too. What happened 80 years ago doesn't change the facts on the ground, today.

But, they still don't acknowledge the crime and are oblivious to the situation. I see this as hypocrisy.

I remember the following punch line from one of Japan's anime :).

"To protect the world, we must accept our sins and our accompanying ruin."

Re: It’s almost impossible to lose anything in Japan

#40

Post by ehnto »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #31
patio11 wrote: post #13

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…

In my experience, in major American cities, anything valuable left in plain view in a car is stolen within 30 minutes (and that requires breaking the car window or picking the lock). But you're saying that things dropped on the ground will not be stolen, and instead returned to the nearest police station if only there was one not too far? Could you provide any arguments or evidence to support your claim?

Even that's going to depend on the city you're in, and where you're at in the city.
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