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I have never been to Japan, but I have always heard about how clean it is. Do you think that it is getting worse? If so, why?
Have you (or anyone else reading this) ever been to South Korea? I was there last year and was amazed at how clean Seoul (and the rest of the country) was. I honestly do not recall seeing a single scrap of litter on the ground. For those who have been to both South Korea and Japan, how would you say they compare in terms of cleanliness?
Been to both Japan and South Korea. Japan is cleaner. There is a strong culture of aspiring for neatness and order in Japan. I suspect even the food are cooked and presented in a way that shows this. For others not used to it, can almost be OCD-like. Just recently, this Japanese worker was fined for always taking lunch breaks few minutes earlier: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/w...nch-early.html And as the article says, Japanese train stations are notorious for apologizing late trains. I remember riding a train from Osaka to Kyoto, which normally took 57 minutes, was 3 minutes late arriving Osaka, and they were apologizing to us at the platform and also when we boarded the train!
I also remember in school when we were all required to use the same laptop model. It was a fingerprint magnet and dust tended to get caught between the keys of that model. I vacuum the keyboard quickly once a week, but still looked dirty. I didn't mind, but when I saw my Japanese classmate's laptop, it looked like new and still very clean, even when the computer was more than a year old. I asked how she took care of her computer, and she said she actually took out all the keys and wiped every single key of the keyboard every week! Until that time, I didn't even know you could detach each key from that model.
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Posted by bus man
I have never been to Japan, but I have always heard about how clean it is. Do you think that it is getting worse? If so, why?
In Japan, there are very few dust bins put in public places and cleaning staffs are hired only for stations, municipal offices, office buildings, and so on. They are hired by the local authorities such as cities and so on or by the owner of the building. I sometimes see employees of nearby companies or volunteers clean streets but in principle Japanese municipalities does not hire cleaning staffs.
By the way, "homegoroshi" means killing by paising, spoiling by excessive complimants.
I mean cleaning staffs for stations are hired by railway company, for municipal offices by the municipal authority, and for office buildings are hired by building owners (private companies).
No one hires cleaning staff for shopping streets though cleaning staffs for shopping malls are hired by the mall owner.
I think part of the reason that Japan is so clean is because most of the people that live there are native born Japanese. They have a different mindset than many Americans. Here in America we have people from all over the world and some of the countries they come from might not be into the same concept of cleanliness.
Just driving down my street you can see the difference in how people keep up their houses and yards. Plus a lot of Americans have a sense of entitlement so they figure if they throw trash out the window somebody else will pick it up. These are just my opinions.
I was in a McDonald's here in Hokkaido yesterday and part of the floor show was watching the counter clerk rush out to the parking lot between customers to pick up what little trash there was in the parking lot with a pair of tongs and then rush back in when a customer showed up. One thing that perplexes me though is there seems to be a small litterbug subculture here in Japan which only tosses trash on lonely, sharp curves in the countryside with limited visibility and little traffic. I don't see littering anywhere else. The litter can really pile up in these special litterbug zones though.
I think part of the reason that Japan is so clean is because most of the people that live there are native born Japanese. They have a different mindset than many Americans. Here in America we have people from all over the world and some of the countries they come from might not be into the same concept of cleanliness.
That doesn't accurately explain it. There are plenty of other native born homogeneous countries out there not nearly as clean or advanced as Japan. Look no further than all the homogeneous countries in Africa.
As I pointed out before, Japan is a successful "shame society."
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In a shame society, the means of control is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism. The shame-honor worldview seeks an "honor balance" and can lead to revenge dynamics.[citation needed] A person in this type of culture may ask, "Shall I look ashamed if I do X?" or "How people will look at me if I do Y?" Shame cultures are typically based on the concepts of pride and honour,[3] and appearances are what counts.
Been to both Japan and South Korea. Japan is cleaner. There is a strong culture of aspiring for neatness and order in Japan. I suspect even the food are cooked and presented in a way that shows this. For others not used to it, can almost be OCD-like. Just recently, this Japanese worker
Agreed, I've been to both and Japan is cleaner than South Korea but that's not to takeaway from SK who is also up there
Japan has the greatest work ethic I've ever witnessed when I lived there for 3 years. For example, even dry cleaning was not given back to you on a coat hanger. Someone would take the time to fold it into a perfect square to prevent wrinkles then wrap it in plastic. It's like they go above and beyond with excellence in everything. When I was moving my 50" TV screen, a japanese mover using nothing but paper, was able to somehow wrap is securely. No box. no tape. Just paper.
The only bad thing is that Japan society is racist towards "gaijin" but the good thing is they don't show it, normally.
Another reason why Tokyo and Seoul are cleaner than Taipei or Hong Kong is because Tokyo and Seoul had to literally rebuild entirely from scratch after being bombed to the ground in World War II and the Korean War, respectively. Taipei nor Hong Kong was ever quite destroyed in the same fashion. When an entire city is destroyed, they rebuild the city (with massive help from the Americans) with great priority to modernization, urban planning, and sanitation. Just look at Frankfurt, Germany, a city just as clean and organized as Tokyo.
Don't forget, too, that Tokyo and Seoul have far smaller industrial sectors than Hong Kong. Hong Kong's port far outstrips the shipping done in Yokohama and Incheon combined. And the heavy industries in Tokyo and Seoul are mostly confined to adjacent cities like Kawasaki, Yokohama for Tokyo, and Incheon in the case of Seoul. By contrast, Hong Kong still has tons of heavy industry right next to the city center. Less industries in your city means cleaner air, less grit, less urban eyesore, and less low-income neighborhoods filled with factory workers.
Don't underestimate the power of simply jogging the civic mindset.
Until 1986, Texas was by far the most conspicuously littered state. Someone coined the slogan "Don't mess with Texas" and it quickly became a matter if civic pride to enforce it.
Maybe it's because some nationalities, like the Japanese, are an inherently cleaner people.
Japan also has an extremely low crime rate compared to most countries. Genetics has nothing to do with this?
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