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I just want to know from people who have been there. Is Tokyo as clean as people say it is? People always talk about how nice NYC and Paris are but I feel people are often surprised by how dirty they are and how these cities don't reach their expectations. Is it the same with Tokyo? I want to go one day and I want to know if I will experience this sense of disillusionment. I already experienced it with one city I visited.
Japanese have been unusual in the world having their own very high standards of etiquette , hygiene and work ethics.
You can see very few littering. You can see less spitting than other countries.
You can see a lot more people putting on masks in Japan than any other country.
You can also see people standing on the same spot while smoking instead of smoking while they are walking.
You can see people bowing.
You can hear a lot of please, apology and excuse me in their language.
You can see many people working and studying long hours, longer than many other countries.
They look down on foreigners with their own high standards of etiquette, hygiene and work ethics.
The parts of Tokyo that you'll see are clean. If you're on a train that gives you a view of the back of smaller businesses, sometimes you'll see some trash there. But the people are keeping it in their space and out of view from the main street.
When I was there (1997-2004), I'd often hear men hocking up phlegm and spitting on the station platforms. Hearing that and stepping around people's spit definitely subtracts from cleanliness points. On weekends, it wasn't uncommon to see vomit from drunk salarymen on the streets and station platforms. So they do have their proverbial warts, just like everybody else. They aren't transcendent. But overall, they do maintain a clean society.
When I was there (1997-2004), I'd often hear men hocking up phlegm and spitting on the station platforms. Hearing that and stepping around people's spit definitely subtracts from cleanliness points.
Were they Japanese? That sounds very Chinese and/or Korean, who I will assume were visiting/tourists.
That being said, I used to live in South Korea during those years you were in Japan, and spitting was endemic to Korea. Just non-stop spitting in all public buildings, elevators, everywhere. They had a massive public campaign in South Korea over it, and it seems to be dying out, at least among anyone who is under say age 50, in South Korea now.
I wonder if Japan had had it than, but it's now something quite firmly in the past. I was in Japan from 2008-2013, and while I wasn't in Tokyo (I was in Niigata & Osaka), I just don't recall seeing that. I recall the opposite, if I even thought of spitting, it seemed so inappropriate. That being said, when I was in the touristic parts of Osaka with many touring Chinese, you'd start seeing all of the inappropriate behavior.
I just want to know from people who have been there. Is Tokyo as clean as people say it is? People always talk about how nice NYC and Paris are but I feel people are often surprised by how dirty they are and how these cities don't reach their expectations. Is it the same with Tokyo? I want to go one day and I want to know if I will experience this sense of disillusionment. I already experienced it with one city I visited.
Japan is very clean. When you live there, there is something that just seems morally wrong to drop a piece of paper on the ground. Its just 'in the air'. I guess its like a taboo, like in the U.S., where among certain company, lighting a cigarette in the bar, or chomping on a Twinkie just doesn't fly.
Also, Japanese love to beautify and take care of what little personal space they have. So people make a conscious effort to make it all look good. It's just ingrained in the culture. As an aside, I also lived in New York City for a few years, and New Yorkers don't have that sense ingrained in the culture, not even a little bit.
Japan is very clean. When you live there, there is something that just seems morally wrong to drop a piece of paper on the ground. Its just 'in the air'. I guess its like a taboo, like in the U.S., where among certain company, lighting a cigarette in the bar, or chomping on a Twinkie just doesn't fly.
Also, Japanese love to beautify and take care of what little personal space they have. So people make a conscious effort to make it all look good. It's just ingrained in the culture. As an aside, I also lived in New York City for a few years, and New Yorkers don't have that sense ingrained in the culture, not even a little bit.
Lived in Japan for three years, not only is Tokyo very clean, but Japanese people have the best customer service and work ethic in the world. Secretly they don’t really like foreigners, as evidence by the countless establishments that are off limits to them, but they’ll never show it from a personal standpoint.
It’s an amazing place and everyone should visit it.
Japan is very clean. When you live there, there is something that just seems morally wrong to drop a piece of paper on the ground. Its just 'in the air'. I guess its like a taboo, like in the U.S., where among certain company, lighting a cigarette in the bar, or chomping on a Twinkie just doesn't fly.
It’s called Japanese “shame society” and it works like a charm. Basically, don’t do anything to shame yourself or your family.
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The society of traditional Japan was long held to be a good example of one in which shame is the primary agent of social control.
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In cultural anthropology, a shame society, also called shame culture or honour-shame culture, is a society in which the primary device for gaining control over children and maintaining social order is the inculcation of shame and the complementary threat of ostracism.
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