World of Warcr... er the Living

Wow. It has been a long time since I have done this. Sorry about that, it kinda got away from me there.

I came to a realization the other day while Gail and I were walking home from dinner: things in Japan just don't seem so novel anymore. Which I think is probably the main reason this blog has been drying up. We had the new ALTs come in late August/early September and it made me think again of what japan looked like when we first looked at it. So in an effort to reconnect to that fresh look at the world I've been trying to think of what struck me as some of the biggest diffferences between rural Ohio and urban Japan. When I look back to that time I would have to say the first things were: the general cleanliness of the cities, the smallness of everything here, and the more "fashion-focused" women.

I should say that cleanliness is pretty subjective but I would say that roadsides and river banks here are most definitely cleaner than those in Dayton, Ohio. At first I thought this was just do to Japanese people being more responsible and repectful of their surrounds. Which is the impression most people have when they stay in Japan for a short time. If you stay here longer though you start to realize that they are just as bad as everyone else, you just have to know how to look.

A lot of times we will pass by tied up bags of rubbish left along the sidewalk or at a station. One might be forgiven for thinking this must just be the day's garbage going ot in the morning. That isn't true. Actually someone tied up their garbage from their car and then dropped along the way to get on the train. Japanese also love to do the "Oh, I forgot" style of littering. This is were you set your empty bottle on the seat next to you or on the floor beside you and then after a moment walk off. This style is the perferred style as it allows you to say "Oh, I forgot" if you are caught out.

Japanese also use the "dump it out of sight" which is dumping their refuse into one of the gullies surrounding the city. This is usually the fate of things that be left at the station such as TVs, refrigerators, and motor bikes. Part of the reason for this is that it is a big pain in the butt to throw big things away in Japan. About six months ago our refrigerator died and we had to dispose of it. To get rid of it we had to contact two government agencies and go to the post office and the local convenience store to get all the arrangements taken care of along with all the permits and stamps that needed to be attached to the applicance when they came to pick it up. You can see why some people would chuck it down the mountain.

Japanese seem to like to hide their littering in cracks and crevices and not just toss it into the street like it is done in America.

The odd thing about Japan is that a lot of scrap metal gets tossed into the valleys. Back in Ohio, particularly in the country that is throwing away money. With scrap prices the way they are you can get a few bucks for the scrap at least. Well in Japan you have to have a special liscence to receive money for scrap metal. So instead of making a few dollars when you go to throw out that bras bed frame you have to pay someone $50 to take it off your hands.

The third thing that goes on here to make Japan seem so clean is that every morning business owners send their employees out to sweep the streets around their shops for about 100 meters. This isn't just some tiny broom sweeping into the bushes or somehting like that. Oh no! They go out with dust pains and handheld extendable claws to pick up debris. They don:t just clean the sidewalks, they go out into the middle of the street and sweep up in the one foot wide median with traffic flying all around them. I see them doing this everymorning from my bus to work. (The Mazda and Honda dealerships seem to be competing against each other or something.)