[HN Gopher] Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at e...
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Station of despair: What to do if you get stuck at end of Tokyo
Chuo Rapid Line
Author : edward
Score : 491 points
Date : 2025-02-05 09:12 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (soranews24.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (soranews24.com)
| nwroot wrote:
| Enjoyed this. Thank you.
| Haeuserschlucht wrote:
| Sad and disappointing like any dead end station.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| For some reason it didn't seem sad and disappointing to me at
| all. I love weird little places like that so much.
| Moru wrote:
| I would be totally happy with a big place like that as end
| station. Here you are lucky if it's two houses next to
| eachothers. Probably noone home anyway. I have fond memories
| of people falling asleep and then back in school next day
| talking about how their parents had to drive two hours to
| pick them up in the nowherelands. This ofcourse before mobile
| phones was in the hands of schoolkids. Most of the time the
| busdriver stopped where you usually got off. Looking back and
| noticing you are asleep they get up and prods you to get off
| the bus :-) Such nice drivers we had then.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| It's pretty nice actually. With a Big Echo and Lawson's within
| just a few minutes walk from the station, you're all set for a
| reasonably comfortable night on the cheap, with a toothbrush,
| hot chocolate, snacks, and a private space. Probably still best
| opting for the hotel though.
| astrange wrote:
| It's not that sad. The secret is to do the opposite of American
| development; don't build parking lots and giant streets
| everywhere and let people open late night businesses in walking
| distance of the station.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I love stuff like this so much. Part of me wants to go to a
| Station of Despair and survive the night now.
|
| I live in NYC and I've thought about doing the "take every train
| to the end of the line" thing before. It would, of course, be a
| much different experience.
| walrus01 wrote:
| There was a guy who set the self-imposed goal of visiting all
| 472 subway stations and taking a photo with the station name
| sign:
|
| https://bensol.medium.com/i-visited-all-472-subway-stations-...
|
| photos here:
| https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19dangAIVe2l6nQNW2HKV...
| walthamstow wrote:
| I attempted visit all 270 tube stations in London in 24 hours
| with some friends when we were younger
|
| It involves a lot of going to the end of one line then finding
| a way to the terminus of a another line and go back into town
| without going back on yourself.
| autoexec wrote:
| I always wondered why they didn't just keep the trains running,
| even if only for a handful of runs overnight. Seems worth it to
| keep drunk salarymen from wandering around the streets until
| morning only to have to go back to work.
| Liftyee wrote:
| Maintenance, perhaps? For the London Underground at least, the
| power is switched off after the trains stop running (4th rail)
| so workers can safely go onto the tracks.
|
| Also, it would almost definitely run at a loss (excluding
| externalities)... same reason why many Chinese cities'
| subsidised metros close quite early. Agreed that it's probably
| beneficial in the big picture but maybe hard to justify to
| superiors?
| singleshot_ wrote:
| May I ask what the third rail is for in your neck of the
| woods?
| itcrowd wrote:
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/fourth_rail
| jffry wrote:
| It seems the London Underground uses a four-rail system
| http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/tractioncurr.htm
| daedrdev wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification#Fourt
| h...
| rtpg wrote:
| My understanding is they do a _lot_ of maintenance at night.
|
| I have to imagine it might not be worth it though. The whole
| "city that never sleeps" vibe is relatively localized to a
| couple neighborhoods and having all lines run through the night
| would be a bit of an extravagance (all that for, what, the 5
| hours they're not running?). Train drivers aren't cheap! And we
| invented technology for getting small groups of people home
| already, it's called taxis.
|
| Post COVID I think there's been a huge push to just chill out
| even with the 24 hour stuff. Lots of places close earlier than
| they used to, and some places that used to be 24 hours just go
| until midnight now.
|
| There was a bus that would go between a couple of the nightclub
| spots throughout the night, never took it though. Maybe there
| would be a decent business in running "commuter"-y buses
| throughout the night between certain areas, at least to try and
| get closer home.
| decimalenough wrote:
| I've heard the theory floated that this is at least in part due
| to furious lobbying against it by taxi companies, who currently
| have a de facto monopoly on transport at night.
|
| More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed,
| 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and
| Chicago the only well-known major cities with it. Tokyo does
| stand out by not even having night buses though. (It used to
| have a skeletal network, but even that was killed off by
| COVID.)
| nicoburns wrote:
| > More likely it's just for train maintenance, and indeed,
| 24-hour train operation is vanishingly rare, with NYC and
| Chicago the only well-known major cities with it.
|
| Yes, and at least NYC is notorious for how poorly it's train
| network is maintained, which I suspect is no coincidence.
| grayfaced wrote:
| They could get rid of this phenomena if they had the train
| schedule end in a lively area. Meaning the last train arriving
| an endpoint is followed by a single last train that only goes
| halfway. I imagine that extra half-route is opposite that most
| passengers are traveling though.
| jdietrich wrote:
| As others have suggested, running trains overnight hugely
| complicates routine maintenance. When people are working on the
| line, any train movements will hugely increase the risk
| profile.
|
| The more sensible option is generally night buses, which are
| considerably less expensive. The London Underground runs a
| limited night service on some lines on Friday and Saturday
| nights, but London has a fairly extensive night bus service.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Like others said, it's probably maintenance. But presumably
| they could run late night bus service along essentially the
| same routes as the trains.
|
| Trains are good at bypassing traffic and carrying large numbers
| of people, but you don't need to worry about those things in
| the middle of the night, so a bus should work fine as
| substitute.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Many European cities do run buses at night, often replacing
| rail services. The largest ones run the metro/trains,
| sometimes only on Friday and Saturday night.
|
| It's not only useful for people leaving a party, but workers
| on early or late shifts like cleaning out working in
| restaurants.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| 24 hour service is one of the factors that make NYC Subway
| maintenance difficult.
|
| They literally have switches from the 1930s that are impossible
| to replace - they have machine shops that fabricate spare
| parts.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| Other's have said maintenance, which is right. But the context
| is also important in that if the trains are delayed by 5
| minutes in Tokyo at peak hours, the congestion can be so bad
| that many people won't even fit in the next train. This can
| have a cascading effect, and since so many use the public
| transport, opting for car is not a workable solution in such
| density.
|
| So it actually _makes sense_ to focus on efficiency and
| reliability at peak hours, at the cost of running it 24hours.
| Tokyos rail line are one of the few trains in the world that
| actually make profit (although not all of it from trains) and
| reliability is kinda key to this profit margin, especially at
| prime time. (Most major stations have malls and commercial
| activities in Japan. And those are run by the train companies,
| and surprisingly the majority of the profit for Train companies
| are not the trains but those activities. Those are not open
| past 22:00 in most places, so that 's another reason)
|
| Edit: Not just bike mentioned it on this video (timestamp)
| https://youtu.be/6dKiEY0UOtA?t=887
| SapporoChris wrote:
| In addition to the maintenance comments. There are many
| residential areas and hotels that are very close to the tracks.
| Having a few hours of no trains running is important for those
| wishing to sleep.
|
| Example: Tokyo City View Hotel (Tabita station), rooms
| approximately 13 meters from tracks.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| The trains themselves are pretty quiet going past, but the
| railway crossing bells can be quite irritating at night.
| autoexec wrote:
| That's a great point!
| rsynnott wrote:
| I used to live beside a commuter train elevated line (in
| Ireland, not Japan). Many nights after the line shut down,
| there'd be at least some maintenance going on, sometimes
| extensive maintenance. And that was just on the short stretch I
| could see. Heavy rail takes a fair bit of maintenance, and 24
| hour buses can _mostly_ plug the gap in places that have them
| (volumes are way lower at night).
|
| Irish Rail sometimes runs late services around Christmas and
| New Year, but have been fairly clear that it's not sustainable,
| and even then there's an hour or so gap where the tracks are
| cleared before normal service starts up around 05:30.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| Ended up on Elmendorf Air Force Base (at the hospital) this way
| once as a little kid in the early 1980s. The bus actually went
| from Anchorage onto the air force base and then called it quits.
| That was definitely my station of despair. "Mom... drive onto the
| military base and get me."
| hinkley wrote:
| "I'm here to get my son."
|
| Uh, ma'am, if he's enlisted he cannot just leave.
| Liftyee wrote:
| I wonder which other cities have examples of this phenomenon.
| Presumably any large one with a mass transit system - having
| lived in London (England) I can imagine some undesirable Tube
| termini to wake up at, but most terminus stops are still well
| within the suburbs. That is, unless you end up on longer distance
| commuter rail lines, where you might just wake up in Portsmouth.
| Those longer distance trains might be more akin to the line
| discussed in the article.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Drunk people on Vancouver's skytrain definitely do end up at
| King George (the terminus station furthest from downtown) if
| they fall asleep and miss their stop. The train stops running
| entirely at about 1:15 AM.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I have a London-based friend who once woke up in a bus depot
| with the bus parked and nobody else around. Presumably the
| driver is supposed to check for anyone left on the bus before
| parking it and leaving it, but they didn't on this occasion.
| Animats wrote:
| There's an app for that.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFnkSuyRV54
| rv3392 wrote:
| Definitely most Australian cities. In Brisbane, Sydney,
| Melbourne or Perth you'd be waking up in the middle of nowhere
| in most cases.
| chrisfowles wrote:
| Or even worse, Frankston.
| jen729w wrote:
| I've also (see my sibling here re: Morden) done this. Lived
| in Alphington. Woke up in Diamond Creek.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| I wouldn't want to end up in Chorleywood, near the north
| western end of the Metropolitan line, late at night. It's a
| nice little village, but I suspect it would be pretty dead.
| leoc wrote:
| Crewe is a station of despair for the British rail network
| despite not being a last stop, instead in fact because it's
| something like the heart of the network. If you try to travel
| far enough across the island (especially from the north, I
| think) and you depart lateish or don't have the right tickets
| or enounter delays, the chances are excellent that you will be
| spending several hours overnight in Crewe. You can forget about
| finding a convenient and affordable bed, so instead you'll be
| slumped on a chair in the little waiting room, which at least
| is lit and heated, and feels like it's the secret heart of
| Britain. Or at least that's how it all still was the last time
| I was there, but I doubt anything much has changed since.
| justinhj wrote:
| Crewe native here. It's a big town rather than a small
| Mountain village, but aside from that it would be a similar
| experience to the article. There's modern Best Western across
| the street. Pubs open until midnight or 1ish. Indian
| restaurants accommodate after hours drinkers and diners until
| the wee hours. There is a 24 hour McDonalds and some late
| night garages for supplies.
| fsagx wrote:
| You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew That he
| was walking up and down the station;
| Animats wrote:
| Aw, Skimbleshanks.
| mzhaase wrote:
| Berlin has this and it's Schoneweide. There is a light rail
| ring with two lines going in opposite directions... and one
| line going straight into the middle of nowhere. If you don't
| pay attention it's easy to end up there by accident.
| jounker wrote:
| But on the weekends the trains run 24 hrs a day, so
| schoneweide isn't really a station of despair. It's not even
| really that far out.
| 1832 wrote:
| Even on weekdays there is public transport running with
| buses all night, and as far as Berlin is concerned
| Schoneweide is still pretty central.
| simmo9000 wrote:
| Uxbridge, High Barnet, Edgware, all painful for a wake-up nudge
| from a rail worker at 1am.
|
| Cockfosters was proper despair, and Mordor (or Morden) well...
| don't.
|
| What took the cake though was flying back and arriving at
| Stansted after midnight and waiting for the 5am escape back
| home in the depths of winter.
|
| London offered many memorable evenings for those silly enough
| to party in the city a while back.
|
| Not drinking so much is probably a way to avoid the despair,
| but where is the fun in that?
| aqueueaqueue wrote:
| I'm a vomiteer rather than a sleeper so I never have this
| problem. But I know people who slept and ended up in
| Cambridge.
| Digit-Al wrote:
| I used to know a female comedian who hosted a comedy night
| once a month. She and her partner lived in Morden for the
| sole reason that she has fallen asleep on the tube and got
| stuck there so many times that they figured it was easier
| just to move there lol
| mhandley wrote:
| Six of the London tube lines have all night service on Friday
| and Saturday nights, so if you fall asleep on these, you won't
| be stuck.
|
| https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/tube-improvements/what-we-are-do...
|
| My route home is via commuter rail so I don't have that luxury.
| I wouldn't possible know what it is like to wake up after a few
| beers and find myself on the last train of the night, four
| stations past my stop, but rumour has it that the night bus
| network is pretty good at getting me^H^Hpeople home, even if
| the wait can be cold, so long as you've not actually left
| London. Or Uber.
|
| https://sucs.org/~cmckenna/maps/busspider/2012-14/west-londo...
|
| But if you don't wake up til the end of the line, it's probably
| pretty much like in Japan, except less clean.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Chicago, too, particularly on Metra (the commuter rail
| network). The longest line is the UP Northwest line, about 63
| mi/102 km to the far rural town of Harvard, Illinois.
|
| Or, if you're heading to Indiana, the NICTD South Shore Line
| can take you all the way from Chicago to South Bend.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| To note, ending within the suburbs doesn't help that much if
| everything is closed and your choice is wandering the streets,
| spending 5h at the only opened bar, forking for an hotel or
| paying a cab.
|
| That said, France is the same regarding commuting trains,
| oversleeping in Paris's RER will lead you to pleasing but
| pretty far away towns.
|
| Did it once, and spent about 5h visiting the sleeping town by
| foot to mark the occasion. Did it again in the midst of winter,
| and the staff allowed me and the two other blokes to stay for
| the night in the next departing train with the heating on.
|
| Spain had trains going well into the mountains as well. I can't
| imagine how it goes for Russia, China and India.
| divbzero wrote:
| > _Did it again in the midst of winter, and the staff allowed
| me and the two other blokes to stay for the night in the next
| departing train with the heating on._
|
| That's a notably kind and humane gesture in the midst of
| winter.
| aqueueaqueue wrote:
| I slept on a train from London once and ended up in Edinburgh.
| But that was planned :)
|
| Also not a despair place. But the point is you can go far. Same
| must be true in Japan.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| The Caledonian Sleeper!
| immibis wrote:
| I was trying to think of one in Berlin, but on weekend nights
| the metro trains run all night, and don't really cross over
| huge gaps of non-city like the one highlighted in the article.
| At any U-Bahn end station on a party night, you'll wait 15-30
| minutes and get on the next train going the other way. On non-
| party nights, get out your navigator app and wait the same for
| a night bus.
|
| You could definitely take a regional train passing through the
| city, for two hours to somewhere like Magdeburg, but you don't
| get on those by mistake as they run infrequently, only stop at
| the bigger stations, and have separate platforms.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In Copenhagen you could reasonably plan to go from the
| central station to, say, Hoje Taastrup, but fall asleep and
| end up in Aalborg 5 hours and 400km away.
|
| Hoje Taastrup is a large suburb at the edge of Copenhagen,
| and the end of an S-train line, but anyone who lives there
| will know an intercity train is faster. Trains to Aalborg
| stopping at Hoje Taastrup leave at 00:50 and at 02:50
| tonight. The other suitable intercity and regional trains
| overnight are to nearer places, 150km or so.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| One of my favorite jokes from the British sitcom "Spaced":
|
| Daisy: [answering phone] Hello? Oh, hi, Mike. Yeah, he's here,
| I'll just get him.
|
| [to Tim]
|
| Daisy: It's your boyfriend.
|
| Tim: He's not my boyfriend.
|
| [picks up phone]
|
| Tim: Hi babe.
|
| Mike: Hello Timmy!
|
| Tim: Where are you?
|
| Mike: Err, Sheffield.
|
| Tim: What are you doing in Sheffield?
|
| Mike: Fell asleep on the tube.
|
| Tim: The tube doesn't go to Sheffield, Mike.
|
| Mike: Yeah, I know. I, uh, must have changed at King's Cross.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A friend woke up in Leeds once. The main problem was the
| unexpected cost of a peak time ticket back to London the
| following morning, which is a lot for a student.
| jen729w wrote:
| Can confirm. I used to live in Islington. I woke up in Morden
| very early one morning, head against the tube window. Sadness.
| rwmj wrote:
| Milton Keynes (and a few other stops) on the West Coast Main
| Line function in the same way if you're unlucky enough to fall
| asleep on the last north-west commuter train out of London.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| In the case of Paris, you would not really have that with the
| Metro which is confirmed to Paris and relatively immediate
| suburbs but with the RER (they share the same stations with the
| Metro) you can easily get off in the middle of nowhere (again -
| relatively, I am thinking about the south of Paris, mostly)
| gloosx wrote:
| Moscow is a severe case. The lines are going radially in all
| directions from the city center 250-300km away, with your stop
| somewhere along the first 40 min of the journey.
|
| Well, how to decribe it... Simply put: you don't end up in a
| clean and cozy Japaneese town, there are few shady taxis who
| will be ready to propose you a comfortable trip back for around
| 200-300$. There is no convenience store open 24/7. If you're
| unlucky to end up there in the winter, then it's probably -20C
| outside. There is one 24/7 ATM corner which is mostly occupied
| by the local homeless people - so the ONLY warm option left is
| to go for a shining 24/7 slots machines/gambling place and try
| to gamble what you have for a taxi money or just to kill time.
| I once spent a night like this in Tver, gambling ~10$ what was
| left in my pockets all night with minimal bets.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I could have sworn I saw a Youtube video version of this article,
| but I can't find it in my history. I was reminded of another
| unusual end of line station, though: One you can't leave, because
| it's inside the campus of Toshiba.
|
| https://youtu.be/zVpLuZxsHq0
| larrymcp wrote:
| Get a taxi or ride-share maybe?
|
| I was expecting the article to cover this possibility, but it
| didn't mention it.
| presentation wrote:
| Ride shares aren't a thing in Japan and most people can't
| afford blowing hundreds of dollars on a super long taxi ride -
| for reference from where I live to there, the dominant taxi app
| here estimates 40,000 yen in the day time, which is more
| expensive at night due to increased late night rates. Plus
| Otsuki is in the middle of nowhere - I presume there are taxi
| drivers looking to capitalize on this, but there may not be
| many of them so far from a major area.
|
| These train lines are very long, so you might be quite far away
| from where you were actually intending to go.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Interesting that rates are higher at night. Most cities I've
| been in its the opposite due to there being much less traffic
| at night.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's less of a traffic thing than a supply/demand thing.
| People mostly want to sleep at night.
| sleepy_keita wrote:
| A taxi from Otsuki (the station mentioned in the article) to
| even Hachioji (another station that's famous for being "the
| last stop") would take over an hour and cost >20,000JPY. At
| that point it's cheaper to get a hotel. Even if you have the
| money, the possibility of taxis just not being available at
| that time in a place like Otsuki is pretty high.
| ipnon wrote:
| I submit to you the hypothesis that some people are poor.
| walrus01 wrote:
| There is something delightfully oldschool about the design and
| layout and basic functionality of this Sora News website. It
| looks like webpages I saw about Japan in 2005. Nothing has needed
| to change since then, so they haven't changed it, and it works
| just fine.
|
| The "AKIBA PC HOTLINE!" hasn't changed at all in 20 years either.
| Worth reading with auto-translate for news about weird PC stuff
| and electronic items for sale in Akihabara.
|
| https://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/
| allenu wrote:
| I immediately thought of old school blogs in the 2000s when the
| page loaded. No annoying clickbait titles, memes, or reaction
| gifs, just personal reporting with short paragraphs and plenty
| of photos.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I once read that one of the reasons behind very
| straightfoward page layout on Japanese websites is a legacy
| of the internet-on-phone data services, screen sizes, and
| reading experience in the years before 2007/2008+, when the
| iphone and then android devices came out.
|
| Japan had its own domestic ecosystem of IP data to phones and
| web browsing 2006 and earlier, but page rendering features
| were very rudimentary, and you had to keep the total data
| transfer sizes down or nothing would load properly.
| creamyhorror wrote:
| SoraNews24 (nee RocketNews24) has been like this since 2008,
| with basically no change in the article style, so yeah, it's a
| descendant of the 2000s Internet. Glad it's still going strong
| without changing.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Good read as I catch a train home close to midnight. I've often
| wondered what I would do if I fell asleep on the train and missed
| my stop. Peterborough isn't the most exciting town during the
| day; being there after midnight would rather unfortuanate.
| Thankfully it hasn't happened yet!
| rfwhyte wrote:
| This is honestly a super delightful article. It has personality
| and charm, and actually provides some useful information, despite
| said information having literally no bearing whatsoever on my
| life.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| Yeah, I loved it. It reminds me of the weird little things you
| would read on the old internet.
| croissants wrote:
| If you want the same kind of thing with no useful information,
| how about this report on the accuracy of a sign?
| https://soranews24.com/2024/06/27/is-this-7-eleven-sign-in-j...
| brazzy wrote:
| Ahhh, that reminds me of my year as an exhange student in
| Yohokama. Specifically the time when I cought the last train on
| the Den-en-toshi line from Tokyo towards my dormitory at Aobadai,
| only to realize that the last train doesn't go all the way - I
| think it stopped at Tama-Plaza, 5 stops early.
|
| There was a line of at least 50 people at the taxi stand, and I
| didn't fancy staying for 4 hours until the trains would run
| again, didn't see any all-night restaurants either. So I walked.
|
| Note that this was years before Google Maps, I didn't even have a
| cell phone. I just tried to follow the train lines, walking
| through unfamiliar, quiet, dark residential areas, occasionally
| passing the areas I knew, around the train stations, but seeing
| hardly any people even there.
|
| Then the train line went underground - I think that must have
| been here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AhUkt1HcvquknHpK6
|
| With nothing else to do, I just continued through the night into
| the same direction, until I recognized the area around the Aoba
| Ward Office, where I had been to get my residence permit. I knew
| how to get back to the train line, across the flood plains of the
| Tsurumi river, and there I came across the only place that was
| actually busy at this time of night: a distribution center for
| the morning newspaper where delivery drivers loaded stacks of
| newspapers onto their scooters. I'm pretty sure it was this
| building: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YgEAFMGvrkbPkPxR8
|
| I continued following the train tracks for another half hour or
| so until I finally reached my dormitory to catch at least a few
| hours of sleep.
| adregan wrote:
| I had a friend who used to fall asleep regularly on the first
| train after a night out and would wake up in the farthest reaches
| of the opposite direction of his home.
| hinkley wrote:
| I had a weird sixth sense about sleeping too long on the
| bus/train and rarely went more than a couple stops too far. I
| think my record was an extra half mile on a quiet night with
| nowhere to be but bed.
| adregan wrote:
| I used to have a really long commute when I lived in Tokyo
| and would regularly nap on the train. I was always amazed
| (and grateful) when I would wake up just as the train pulled
| into my station.
| idlewords wrote:
| If you haven't been to Japan, it's worth lingering over these
| pictures and noticing a few things:
|
| - The complete absence of vandalism
|
| - How generally clean everything is
|
| - Accessibility strip for blind people (bumpy yellow stripe in
| train stations and sidewalks)
|
| - Nothing is broken or out of service
|
| - How safe and welcoming the public transit system feels.
|
| Japan is worth the journey if you ever want to step into a high-
| trust other dimension.
| testfoobar wrote:
| What is it that makes this possible in Japan? And why doesn't
| it happen in the US?
| cruano wrote:
| American individualism
| astrange wrote:
| Japanese are more individualist than Americans. They just
| don't apply this to graffiti.
|
| They do sometimes litter, throw up in the sidewalk after
| drinking, and don't wash their hands after using the train
| station bathrooms.
|
| I mean, Tokyo isn't even that clean. I was just there and
| saw a rat on the sidewalk every night. They're like NYC and
| just leave commercial trash bags on the sidewalk instead of
| using trash bins. (Also frequently saw aggressive "no
| dumping" signs on the pile of trash bags. Not very high
| trust!)
| sho_hn wrote:
| I think by individualism what people usually mean is the
| general "me, I got mine" attitude & the idealization of
| not giving a care to what other people think, i.e. "do
| your thing". I lot of what happens in the East Asian
| countries from peer pressure/accountability is to be
| actively defied in the West, and particularly in America.
| Keeping things clean because otherwise _you might get
| judged by someone else_ is almost an incentive to litter.
| inkyoto wrote:
| > They're like NYC and just leave commercial trash bags
| on the sidewalk instead of using trash bins.
|
| You might have mistaken it with the organised rubbish
| collection. It is common in New Zealand where business
| owners pack up rubbish at the close of business in
| dedicated, pre-paid rubbish bags that they leave in the
| front of the shop. A garbage truck comes by later and
| quickly collects rubbish. The cost of the service is
| included in the price of the rubbish bag, and the garbage
| truck won't collect a random or unrecognised bag but
| people do not do that.
|
| It also seems cleaner as rubbish bins require cleaning on
| a regular basis, and the bags do not.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| This is for certain what the GP saw.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| I don't believe Individualism is the issue, unless you mean
| by that a specifically American variety if Individualism.
| Individualism also comes with the idea of individual
| responsibility, and many relatively individualistic
| countries are close to, or in certain ways exceed, Japan
| (e.g., in Japan people tend to leave trash in public spaces
| to a degree that would be inconceivable in many Western
| countries).
| walrus01 wrote:
| At the risk of stereotyping an entire nationality, Japanese
| culture puts a high degree of emphasis on conformity, obeying
| rules, obeying social hierarchies and keeping things in a
| generally orderly fashion.
|
| For instance, many Japanese primary public schools have no
| janitor. This is normal. The children scrub the floors,
| bathrooms and do all the other cleaning tasks in a defined
| schedule.
|
| some random reference examples:
| https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-
| b-d&q=japanese+...
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Not sure why you are downvoted. Japanese schools do a good
| job of promoting prosocial behaviour.
|
| A relatively low income inequality may also be a big
| factor. Also, much less societal tolerance for drugs?
| userbinator wrote:
| _Also, much less societal tolerance for drugs?_
|
| As in, _none_. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcem
| ent_in_Japan#Medic...
| astrange wrote:
| There's certainly a lot of tolerance for smoking, that's
| just not a drug that makes you commit crimes. (Except
| littering.) But they're only into mild stimulants because
| of memories of pervitin abuse.
|
| The main difference I can think of is we think it's cool
| if a celebrity does drugs, but they get insta-canceled so
| hard they disappear from society entirely.
| astrange wrote:
| Of course they have janitors. The students sweep the
| classroom, but they aren't expected to fix a blocked toilet
| or refill the soap.
| hinkley wrote:
| Nah you have a supernintendo or maintenance for that.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Why would I make something worse if I'm ever going to see,
| touch, feel, think about?
| galacticaactual wrote:
| Incredible a site supposedly full of smart people cannot
| piece this together.
| johnyzee wrote:
| If you're alluding to immigration, this cannot be blamed
| for vandalism and littering. Other kinds of crime,
| arguably, but not those, there are plenty of middle class
| shitheads who will happily do their part.
| pb7 wrote:
| Look how hard they're tiptoeing around the issue as if you
| can't just check and see who commits the who most crime per
| capita in the US and see that there are zero of those
| people in Japan. Gee, what could be the issue I wonder.
| mc32 wrote:
| Culture and mentality. They don't have the same urge to
| vandalize or graffiti. Same as Singapore.
|
| They are much more united and much less diverse in various
| ways. While they have many subcultures, they mostly adhere to
| a greater social cohesion.
|
| To make up for that a bit, they do allow people to get
| plastered and spray vomitus publicly, including public
| transit and no one bats an eye. That said, you don't get the
| public defecation that we get.
|
| Even their bums tend to take care of themselves as best they
| can. They try to maintain a certain decorum despite their
| dire circumstances.
|
| Americans, in a sense, lost quite a bit of their sense of
| shame.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Strong vs weak sense of obligation to the collective (the
| people around you).
| phs318u wrote:
| This. There is a fundamental cultural difference which is
| also reflected in the priorities of municipal governments.
| Yes, this is a generalisation and yes, it is slowly
| changing over time. Nevertheless, it's probably the single
| biggest driver of this phenomenon.
| kennysoona wrote:
| Way more of a hive mind mentality and indoctrination.
| Expression individualism and going your own way is actively
| discouraged.
| astrange wrote:
| They're actually very good at individual expression.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Pure-Invention-Japans-Culture-
| Conquer...
| kennysoona wrote:
| Given the extent to which it's discouraged, it can' be
| true as a general rule, regardless of the nations
| inventions. Although most of those examples in the blurb
| of the book you linked refer to corporate inventions, not
| individual inventions.
| presentation wrote:
| You state that very confidently despite having no idea what
| you're talking about.
| kennysoona wrote:
| Just because you disagree doesn't mean I have no idea
| what I'm talking about. Japanese culture's suppression of
| the individual in favor of the community is well
| documented.
| presentation wrote:
| My honest opinion of "Japanese society works great
| because the whole society is formed by a unique strain of
| humans who lack any sense of individualism" is a pretty
| shallow take in my opinion, where most of the
| corroboration are other clueless people repeating the
| same basic stereotype.
|
| The other commenter mentions the huge impact of Japanese
| pop culture and technical innovation, which somehow isn't
| legitimate proof of individual expression, but if you
| need academic citations then here's some from even back
| in the '90s arguing that Japan is not less
| individualistic than the West, and even arguably is less
| collectivistic depending on how you measure that. [1][2]
|
| Here's an example purely from a Japanese stereotype that
| shows a type of individuality that people could generally
| understand (just in a form what westerners tend to look
| down on)--the concept of an otaku [3], or in other words,
| someone who follows some interest much further than
| anyone thinks is socially "normal" or "reasonable." And
| yet these people are generally accepted by Japanese
| society, if not empowered in the form of a respected
| "craft" culture, in a way that would just make you a
| total loser in most of the West.
|
| My personal experience actually living in Japan for 7
| years now, matches a different common trope in Japanese
| culture, wherein what people outwardly say to people they
| don't trust is completely different than what they
| actually believe and say to people they do trust
| (honne/tatemae [4]).
|
| And unfortunately for the Westerners parroting these
| stereotypes, they firmly fall into only hearing the
| tatemae.
|
| To the original thread, there are plenty of rational,
| direct reasons for why Japanese cities can be clean and
| orderly, that aren't that "Everyone in Japan is some kind
| of brainless drone," but unfortunately people who justify
| things based on that excuse will never learn what those
| things are, doomed to make the same mistakes... very
| drone-like, in my view.
|
| [1] https://sci-hub.ru/10.1111/1467-839X.00043 (https://o
| nlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-839X.00043)
|
| [2] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&typ
| e=pdf&d... e5f
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otaku
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae
| Klonoar wrote:
| I lived and worked there for several years and I agree
| with them. Pretty sure my wife, who I met there, would
| also agree.
|
| You can't just lob a "you don't know what you're talking
| about" without some actual context like that - this forum
| is _supposed_ to encourage more useful discussion.
| donw wrote:
| Simply put: because it's full of Japanese people.
|
| Everybody speaks the same language and has the same cultural
| norms, which are the foundations for any high-trust society.
|
| Japanese culture has an exceedingly high focus on the
| appearance of cleanliness and politeness. The inside of
| someone's home might be a hoarder's dream, but the _outside_
| will be clean.
|
| Someone might be an absolute jerk, but to act on that in most
| social spaces would have very real consequences. Rude
| behavior, like dancing and playing loud music on a train,
| _will_ get you arrested here.
|
| Misbehavior in Japan is dealt with, and quickly.
|
| On that note: Japanese police don't play games. You do not
| have a right to a speedy trial, there is no jury of your
| peers, and they can hold you as long as they'd like. The
| phrase "police brutality" does not translate into Japanese.
|
| Do not break the law in Japan.
|
| There is a de-facto truce between the Yakuza and the police,
| as the Yakuza deal with foreign gangs and other problems that
| would be... difficult to solve with normal police work.
|
| Japanese gangs are fiercely nationalistic. If the police
| don't handle you, the Yakuza will, and although I don't have
| any data to back this up, I'd wager that the police are the
| better option.
|
| Additionally, Japanese neighborhoods have social
| responsibilities. Every couple of months, I am responsible
| for cleaning our trash area for two weeks, and there's
| usually some kind of repair or cleanup event twice per year.
|
| In Japan, many people have lived in the same place for
| multiple generations, and can trace their ancestry within
| Japan back for thousands of years.
|
| Japan is, quite literally, their ancestral home, and they act
| like it.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Everybody speaks the same language and has the same
| cultural norms, which are the foundations for any high-
| trust society.
|
| This is rarely talked about but is so important, and any
| comparisons between countries that fail to take this into
| account are severely missing the mark.
|
| The US is 59% _white_ but even that racial category is
| largely a human construct that doesn 't reflect the truly
| bewildering variety of national origins that lumps
| together.
|
| Norway, meanwhile, is 75% ethnically Norwegian. Finland is
| 88% Finnish. Japan is _98%_ ethically Japanese.
|
| Many things--from healthcare to crime prevention to
| sanitation to education to democracy--become substantially
| easier the smaller the range of genetic profiles and
| cultural backgrounds you have to account for.
| astrange wrote:
| The Japanese government, like France, doesn't keep track
| of ethnicity. That number means citizens and everyone
| just reports it as if it's ethnicity. You wouldn't be
| able to tell if some of them are half Korean or Chinese.
|
| Tokyo in particular has a lot of immigrants these days,
| and I think you'd only notice if you read their nametags
| at the convenience store.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You don't get a Japanese passport easily in Japan so in
| fact yes it's easy to track the ethnic groups in Japan
| donw wrote:
| Last year, less than 9,000 foreigners naturalized into a
| population of 123 million.
|
| In order to naturalize, you must present a compelling
| case to do so: you must speak, read, and write Japanese
| to the level required by compulsory education, must
| demonstrate that you can and will supporting yourself
| financially, must have no criminal record in Japan or
| elsewhere, and nominally must be married to a Japanese
| citizen.
|
| Japan does not allow dual citizenship. If you naturalize,
| you are required to show proof that you have surrendered
| any non-Japanese citizenship.
| astrange wrote:
| I said "half" for a reason, I wasn't talking about
| naturalized citizens but rather their descendants or
| people with part foreign ancestry. Zainichi Koreans are
| the main example I think.
|
| It's not a lot more, but it's more than 2%.
| lolinder wrote:
| If it doesn't drop below 88% then it's still higher than
| Finland and doesn't change my point at all.
| donw wrote:
| I'm confused. If you are born and raised in Japan to at
| least one Japanese parent, you are Japanese.
| astrange wrote:
| Not to the kind of person who thinks Japanese people are
| genetically well-behaved.
| lmm wrote:
| > you must present a compelling case to do so
|
| Nope. You must give a reason statement but it doesn't
| need to be compelling.
|
| > you must speak, read, and write Japanese to the level
| required by compulsory education
|
| Technically true but misleading - yes it's permitted to
| leave school at 14 in Japan, but very few children do.
|
| > must demonstrate that you can and will supporting
| yourself financially
|
| Up to a point. It's more "must have a household income
| equivalent to a minimum-wage full-time job, or equivalent
| lump sum assets, and not be behind on your taxes".
|
| > nominally must be married to a Japanese citizen
|
| What? No.
|
| > Japan does not allow dual citizenship. If you
| naturalize, you are required to show proof that you have
| surrendered any non-Japanese citizenship.
|
| Right, which is exactly what makes "less than 9,000
| foreigners" a very misleading figure. Naturalisation
| gains you little compared to living as a foreign
| permanent resident, and requires renouncing citizenship,
| so most people don't.
| cthalupa wrote:
| For the overwhelming majority of people just becoming a
| permanent resident is more than enough - there's not a
| strong need to become a Japanese citizen vs. permanent
| residency outside of the right to vote, and for
| overwhelming majority, the trade-off isn't worth it.
|
| But Japan is not a particularly difficult country to
| naturalize in if you so desire. The N1 can be studied for
| and passed without being fluent. Supporting yourself
| financially basically means having roughly full-time
| employment. No idea where you got the idea you need to be
| married to a Japanese citizen, not true at all.
| fenomas wrote:
| > This is rarely talked about but is so important
|
| > 98% ethically Japanese
|
| In the million of these discussions I've seen, this is
| usually the first/only explanation people jump to.
| (moreso for people only superficially familiar with
| Japan).
| lolinder wrote:
| I'm speaking more generally about all comparisons between
| countries. The US is constantly compared to the Nordic
| countries and people constantly wonder why they're so
| much better on axes like healthcare and education. Very
| little attention is given to the obvious explanation that
| it's easier to treat and to educate a relatively
| homogeneous population.
| fenomas wrote:
| Strongly disagree. People jump to that when they see a
| healthy society that's relatively homogeneous, and ignore
| counterexamples like relatively homogeneous countries, or
| states within countries, that have poor
| education/healthcare/etc. It's a post-facto explanation
| with no predictive power, and people jump to it only
| because it's superficially obvious.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... In the 1980s, Ireland was _extremely_ homogenous.
| This was not a place that people came to, it was a place
| that people left. Today, 20% of the population was born
| outside the state, and Ireland has one of the highest
| immigration rates in the world.
|
| Spoiler: The education and health systems in 1980 were
| _far_ worse than today. Like, really, there's no
| comparison. They're not exactly world leading now (in
| particular the health service has a constant staffing
| crisis) but they were really quite bad by European
| standards back then. When I started primary school in
| 1989 or so, there were more than 40 kids in my class;
| today there's a cap of 30 and the average is 22 or so.
| Health, education, and social services were bad because
| we didn't spend enough money on them.
|
| Organisation and resourcing seem like more obvious causes
| of problems with US healthcare and education than
| _demographics_, tbh.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Rude behavior, like dancing
|
| I think Americans are a little more footloose in that
| respect.
| yongjik wrote:
| > On that note: Japanese police don't play games. You do
| not have a right to a speedy trial, there is no jury of
| your peers, and they can hold you as long as they'd like.
| The phrase "police brutality" does not translate into
| Japanese.
|
| In 2024, US police shot and killed 1,173 people [1]. That's
| 0.35 deaths per 100,000 Americans.
|
| In 2022, Japan had 289 homicides, or 0.23 per 100,000
| people [2].
|
| I.e., an American is more likely to be shot by police than
| a Japanese person is likely to be killed by a murderer.
|
| I don't speak Japanese, but if "police brutality" does not
| translate into Japanese, then maybe that's because such a
| thing is unthinkable in Japan.
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-
| to-de...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inte
| ntion...
| cthalupa wrote:
| Do you think that physical violence is the only sort of
| thing that police can unjustly inflict upon you?
|
| I love Japan, have spent a significant quantity of time
| there, and if I was a billionaire, it'd be the place
| where I bought the penthouse luxury apartment. So if
| anything, I am very favorably biased towards the country.
|
| But it also has a 99% conviction rate, and not because
| their police are so stellar that they always get the
| perpetrator on the first try. They hold you for extended
| periods of time and the system is set up to extract
| confessions. We know that people are weak to being
| coerced into false confessions even in countries where
| there is significantly less pressure and attempts to get
| them out of you.
|
| Also plenty of laws that have penalties that would be
| considered quite harsh compared to much of the western
| world - simple possession of pot can get you 5 years in
| prison, and intent to distribute/profit can get you 10 -
| and personal stash levels are plenty to bump you into
| that range.
| nottorp wrote:
| There's also the other interpretation that prosecutors
| don't ... prosecute ... unless they're 99% sure they'll
| win.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > I.e., an American is more likely to be shot by police
| than a Japanese person is likely to be killed by a
| murderer.
|
| Many parts of the US are stuck in a bad equilibrium where
| there is lots of police violence _and_ lots of crime,
| because the police violence is targeted on the basis of
| ethnicity rather than whether someone 's actually
| breaking the law or committing antisocial behavior.
| rtpg wrote:
| There's a sign in Otsuka (northern Tokyo suburb) like "Otsuka
| has half the crime rate of 10 years ago!" Things are the way
| they are, up until the moment that they change.
|
| Things can change if people will it into existence. My 2-bit
| belief is basically simplified "broken window theory", where
| stuff being broken leads to more stuff being broken, trash
| leads to more trash... so dealing with cleaning stuff up
| quickly is good.
|
| Generating an environment where people have some pride in
| what's around them and are also benefiting from the thing
| themselves, on top of the thing not being busted probably
| helps a lot.
|
| There's a lot of anti-littering campaigns and the like. I
| feel like the gov'ts as a whole are pretty responsive to new
| kinds of crime and try to build a public consciousness
| against it as soon as they realize what's up.
|
| Plenty of hooliganism in Japan all over, and plenty of
| raging, but at the end of the day if there's a nice bench
| that someone is allowed to sit on in a chill way, people
| probably tend to not take their rage out on it.
|
| Maybe everyone in Tokyo is just ground down from having to
| work all the time and is just subservient to authority. Who
| knows!
| thinkyfish wrote:
| Lingering colonial attitudes. America, for the longest time
| was the "exploited space" for Europe and much like India,
| carries this beaten in attitude that "this is not the nice
| place". You can find nice places like this but you have to go
| to the richest enclaves to find it. Japan is its own "nice
| place".
| rawgabbit wrote:
| It is part of Japanese culture. Even in elementary school the
| children clean their own classrooms.
|
| https://youtu.be/jv4oNvxCY5k
| dpc050505 wrote:
| We cleaned our own classrooms in Canada too and it doesn't
| keep people from littering.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| You can have a diverse low-trust society or you can have a
| homogeneous high-trust society, but you can't have a diverse
| high-trust society.
|
| People will trust someone more the more they think the other
| person is similar to them.
|
| Japan has made choices that make it relatively homogeneous,
| the US has made choices that make it relatively diverse.
| famahar wrote:
| While not as diverse as the US, Singapore is a melting pot
| of cultures and religions and is arguably safer and cleaner
| than Japan. Singling it out to diversity simplifies the
| issue. It's a million other choices and policies that made
| the US what it is today.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Black population of Singapore is what?
|
| Hispanic population of Singapore is what?
|
| Zero?
|
| Not much of a melting pot.
| phs318u wrote:
| Seriously? Dude, you're parading your ignorance.
|
| Singapore has a mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay and Indian
| people (with plenty of ethnic Europeans thrown in for
| good measure). They're a mix of Buddhist, Christian,
| Islamic and Hindu religions.
|
| All that in a space smaller than many American cities. If
| that doesn't qualify as a melting pot, I don't know what
| does.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Singapore has a mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay and
| Indian people
|
| A mix of Asians, Asians, and Asians.
|
| The US ain't that.
| phs318u wrote:
| Wow. Doubling down eh? At this point I have to assume
| you're trolling because I struggle to believe anyone
| could be this obviously racist and/or stupid.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| The US is a mix of ethnic Europeans, Africans, Native
| Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, including ethnic
| Chinese, Malay and Indian people, and many others besides
| that.
|
| That's a melting pot.
|
| Singapore is described as "a mix of ethnic Chinese, Malay
| and Indian people".
|
| That's not a melting pot.
|
| Those are two different things. I don't care one bit if
| you think it is racist or stupid to point out the
| difference.
| hnbad wrote:
| I know this goes against your deeply held beliefs but
| race _is_ socially constructed. I 've heard Americans
| refer to Italians, Turks and Slavic - and even Roma
| people - as "white" but tell a German that and they'll
| look at you with confusion. Tell them that Hispanics are
| more foreign to you, a white American, than Spaniards are
| to them, a white German and they'll just think you've
| lost the plot. Heck, go and tell a Japanese person
| they're interchangeable with Malaysians and Indians and
| see how they feel about it. Even throwing Indians and
| East Asians in one racial category seems frankly insane
| to me as a European for reasons that should be obvious if
| you've ever seen them let alone talked to them (and even
| superficial racism you can use to group all "black"
| people together doesn't explain it as a Punjab Indian
| person and a Han Chinese person share no obvious visual
| features).
|
| China, Malaysia and India are culturally and ethnically
| extremely different. Heck, India and China alone span
| enough area to cover extremely distinct ethnic and
| cultural groups themselves. The reason "white" Americans
| think they're a distinct unified group from "Africans",
| "Hispanics", "Asians" and so on is that the US largely
| eroded the cultural differences over the centuries to the
| point "cultural origin" has become more of a costume than
| a meaningful identity - if you're an American descendent
| of German settlers, you're an American, not a German and
| Germans (except for the most ideologically driven
| _volkisch_ nationalists) will humor you but never see you
| as "one of them" more than any other foreigner.
|
| You know what Africans call a black American? American.
| You know what Asians call an Asian American? American.
| The US is a melting pot, alright, but it is a racially
| segregated one and that's what makes you think the races
| matter. The US dragged itself kicking and streaming to
| the point where it even acknowledged black people as
| actual people and abolished all the mandatory racial
| seggregation laws that were put in place by white
| Americans who felt icky about having to share space with
| former _Untermenschen_ slaves. The Chinese specifically
| were the first group of people the US actively tried to
| prevent from immigrating (which was later expanded to all
| people from East Asia).
|
| You're also ignoring that Singapore is only half the size
| of Texas while having a similar number of people living
| in it. The US has had a wide range of immigrants but they
| tended to cluster in different places. Comparing
| Singapore and the US is apples to oranges but not because
| you think Asian people are a coherent group outside of
| racial shenanigans. I know this isn't very "politically
| correct" for me to say but: Yes, your racism is
| intellectually insulting but it has also successfully
| impaired your comprehension of demographics, sociology
| and ethnic groups to that point that you're _not even
| wrong_ [0].
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
| BirdieNZ wrote:
| As a non-American, Hispanic, white, and black American
| people in the USA are all "American, American, American",
| and not really a melting pot if that's the only ethnic
| groups you're counting.
| michpoch wrote:
| Looks pretty similar to what I'd expect to a regular European
| town.
|
| What are you comparing it to that you see such a drastic
| difference?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Things are actually open. In Switzerland everything closes.
| Japan is notable because there'll be people everywhere and
| things will still be clean. Compare football games as
| example.
| michpoch wrote:
| > In Switzerland everything closes
|
| Sure, because there are worker rights and we do not keep
| people working at night unless there's a reason.
|
| > Japan is notable because there'll be people everywhere
| and things will still be clean
|
| What do you mean people will be everywhere? There are
| people as well in regular European towns and it's clean as
| well.
| astrange wrote:
| > Sure, because there are worker rights and we do not
| keep people working at night unless there's a reason.
|
| Part of this is low wages, but the population density
| also means you can easily find people who'll work the
| night shift. Or sometimes the store owner does it.
|
| But no, they aren't like Europeans who think workers
| should have the right to work five hours a year.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| "Five hours a year" is a gross thing to say. Surely we
| should emulate the Japanese, where death by overwork is a
| joked about phenomenon
| astrange wrote:
| Don't get all your news from 2000s stereotypes. There was
| a fair amount of reform for that in the last decade.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AVHWPEJPA065NRUG
|
| China is probably the better example for long work hours
| right now.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > death by overwork
|
| Stop reading tabloids
| flemhans wrote:
| I know this a difficult case to win, but I'd always
| prefer night shifts and get annoyed when my government
| decides it's not 'the right thing to do'.
|
| Same for Sunday Closures. What's so special about Sunday
| apart from old religious concerns?
| TylerE wrote:
| It's not that Sunday is special pet day, just that they
| don't want employers working the disadvantaged 7 days a
| week with no breaks.
| inkyoto wrote:
| > [...] working the disadvantaged 7 days a week with no
| breaks.
|
| In countries with a high development index, the
| employment law usually prohibits 7 day long working
| weeks, and there is a provision of at least one day off
| (granted, since employment laws vary across
| jurisdictions, there is no universal rule).
|
| The situation is different for small businesses and self-
| employed as they are the masters of their own fate (so to
| speak), e.g. if a cafe owner decides to run the cafe 7
| days a week _and_ work there in person _themselves_ ,
| that is their choice.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| As a student - that fucked me over, as working Saturday
| and Sunday in stores would be the easiest way to earn
| money on side. :P
|
| And then govt decided to stop for brownie points with
| church.
| michpoch wrote:
| > And then govt decided to stop for brownie points with
| church.
|
| Sundays off are about workers rights, little to do with
| religion.
|
| And you can still work on Sunday - in businesses that are
| allowed to be open (gastro, petrol stations, certain
| shops).
| sib wrote:
| >> Sundays off are about workers rights, little to do
| with religion.
|
| Why did they all happen to pick Sunday?
| BirdieNZ wrote:
| It's for workers' rights. Even ole' John Calvin (who
| probably started it in Switzerland) wanted Sunday as a
| day off because it protected workers rights against
| overwork, not because he saw it as mandated by the Bible.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > because there are worker rights
|
| That's a ridiculous answer. People work at night in Japan
| because there is a market for that.
| presentation wrote:
| I disagree with the implication that Swiss/European
| people are morally superior to those in other parts of
| the world and their choices are de-facto better than
| those being made elsewhere. Seems like a common, ignorant
| and bigoted stance.
| kikokikokiko wrote:
| Cleanliness and a general sense of respect for the public
| spaces IS de-facto better than trash everywhere and a
| society where everyone only cares for number one. If it's
| offensive to you, your moral compass is wrong.
| ktallett wrote:
| Hmmm the few people that clean up at Japanese football
| games don't actually represent everyone. Many leave drinks
| containers behind or bento boxes that they brought with
| them, and often you are given bags of goodies (not actually
| that exciting, I got a branded folder of the team, and a
| salad dressing one time) which end up being 'forgotten'.
| Whilst yes some fans do keep it very tidy, as with many
| things in Japan, there is an idolised view that isn't based
| on reality.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Yes, it's not fully tidy but I think comparing a top tier
| derby in either nation is nonetheless instructive.
| byteraccoon wrote:
| Not football, and i've only been to one baseball game in
| Tokyo, but it was crazy , after the game everyone spent
| time to clean up their area - it was like a peer pressure
| thing almost & didn't seem like just a just a few people
| but the entire stadium for the most part
| lukan wrote:
| Having travelled quite a bit in europe, I disagree. There are
| european towns with train stations that look similar clean.
| But not at all everywhere.
|
| Eastern europe in general less. Norther europe more.
|
| Western and southern europe is mixed. Graffiti I have seen
| quite a bit, but broken glass or other types of vandalism are
| sadly common, too.
| jwr wrote:
| Central European here (Poland). The bizarre and amazing
| thing is the change that's been happening in the region
| over the last 20 years or so: the large cities have become
| very clean.
|
| So, what you wrote stands true for smaller places, but
| large cities are now very clean. Not quite Japan-level, but
| close, and certainly much cleaner than anything in western
| Europe.
| lukan wrote:
| Yeah, true. I know that phenomen. And it is true in
| eastern germany as well.
|
| Dresden for example has always working elevators and the
| stations are looked after regulary.
|
| The small towns? It can take weeks, before a broken
| elevator is fixed, or a public toilet reopened. (If there
| is one at all in the first place) Until then you have to
| step over pee and shit.
| ido wrote:
| Berlin is filthy and seems to have only gotten more so in
| recent decades.
| lII1lIlI11ll wrote:
| Have you been to Japan? I can't say that Krakow made an
| impression on me of being "close" to Tokyo in cleanliness
| TBH.
| jwr wrote:
| Yes, in fact I live in Japan right now. Warsaw
| (especially the center) is quite close. Certainly much
| closer than most cities in western Europe.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Don't bother :) There are other examples, but the US/HN
| audience is particularly fascinated with Japan in a "if you
| have to pick one" kind of way. Perhaps also because it's an
| old adversary.
|
| It's much better than 0 outside benchmarking, so I've learned
| to just let these threads roll on.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| I've been on a few business and pleasure trips to France,
| Italy and Spain was struck by the volume of graffiti.
|
| Way more than in NYC or Boston today, it reminded me of NYC
| when I was a kid in the 80s.
| redmajor12 wrote:
| Same in Germany. Graffiti everywhere; walls, buildings,
| fences, signs, historic monuments. It's awful and I don't
| know why they can't manage to do anything about it, but it
| also seems like no one cares about it as a problem to begin
| with. To me, such an individual invasion of the public
| space seems like a mockery of the common trust and the
| notion that the Europeans (and the Germans especially) have
| some sort of communal responsibility.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > Looks pretty similar to what I'd expect to a regular
| European town.
|
| Europe is not one country, and even within the same country,
| there may be big differences between regions, and within the
| city itself. Naples and Geneva for example are like polar
| opposites.
|
| Japan is very uniform by comparison, and about as clean and
| well maintained as the best European cities, I'd say the US
| is about average by European standards, but with less
| variation. The general, very rough idea with Europe is that
| the further north you go, the cleaner it is.
| rtpg wrote:
| Japan is definitely high trust and has a lot of advantages
| downstream of that. Though I think lots of that list is more of
| a "vibrant Japanese city" vibe (go up to some dying onsen town
| and you'll see plenty of broken shit and TVs dropped on the
| side of the road).
|
| Cleanliness is... mostly downstream of storefronts and the like
| picking shit up _all the time_. There are pockets of land that
| don't end up people's direct responsibility and end up getting
| very dirty very quickly. Little micro-pockets of trash that
| pile up (very quickly!). But lots of places you tend to have
| someone going around and just picking something up.
|
| For like a year there was a guy consistently eating his cup
| noodles or lunch box near my building, and he would just drop
| it near the bike parking. But we had somebody come by the
| building twice a week to deal with trash and the like and he
| was picking it up (I'd throw it into a garbage bag if I saw it
| and had one in my hand). Still though, like if I'd go on a
| midnight walk I'd see it.
|
| Turns out that the way super crowded places can be clean is by
| cleaning constantly (see also restrooms, which need to be
| constantly cleaned). "Nothing is broken" also definitely feels
| downstream of people fixing stuff promptly. Low latency when
| trying to deal with issues might be key.
|
| And an aside for the public transit... while the transit feels
| clean, ask most any woman living in Tokyo how they feel about
| riding public transit. Many might still grade it above other
| ones but I have heard many nasty experiences that white guys
| just don't get exposed to at all. Groping, verbal harassment,
| the works.
|
| EDIT: I mention lots of this to get to a bigger point: good
| things are possible! There is no magic entirely localized in
| the Japanese Isles.
| mc32 wrote:
| You know how there are pictures of certain immigrants to NYC
| and other places in the early part of the XX century and they
| would show those people sweeping their stoops and sidewalks
| and generally keeping their neighborhoods tidy?
|
| Well, in Japan, you still see that. Shop owners will go
| around their shop with a duster cleaning away any dust or
| cobwebs that might have sprung overnight. Awnings, signs,
| etc.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That was a political machine thing. In the days before
| social security, destitute old people with connections to
| the local ward leader would be handed a broom and a modest
| wage.
|
| In my small city (~120k people at the time) they had a few
| thousand people on the payroll doing stuff like this.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Why don't we do that any more?
| buddavis_ wrote:
| Social Security is advertised as an "insurance fund",
| rather than a transfer payment.
|
| If it was advertised as a handout, then many of the
| recipients would be asking for a broom; provided they
| were able.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| We moved that money upstream. That infrastructure of
| party committeemen and aldermen died with cities.
|
| End of the day, it's cheaper to sell politics like
| toothpaste than to build relationships.
| conception wrote:
| This is definitely part of government job programs. Paying
| people to keep your cities clean has a lot of advantages.
| rtpg wrote:
| Near my building it was the building manager. Most shops
| it's just a shop member that cleans up the stuff by the
| shop. At the McDonalds there's a staff member _constantly_
| roving around cleaning tables up and picking up trash
| people leave (and they tend to not be able to keep up with
| the patronage trash generation...)
|
| It's just in the job description for most things honestly.
| jarsin wrote:
| When I play Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio games like "Lost Judgement"
| or "Like A Dragon" I always find myself wondering if groping
| is a big deal over there.
| em-bee wrote:
| the problem is that complaining and making a fuss about
| things that bother you is frowned upon. especially for
| women. so they suffer in silence. and the games probably
| are mostly made by men, who of course don't think it is as
| much of a big deal. not much different from what it used to
| be in the west. if only samurai chivalry was more
| prevalent. but unfortunately keeping appearance (and not
| embarrassing others) is more important.
| TylerE wrote:
| The RGG games are pretty open about widespread societal
| problems in Japan. Indeed, the game before the current
| one had a pretty humanistic depiction of sex work that
| was not at all glamorous or lecherous.
| fenomas wrote:
| It's not _common_ , but it's a notable widely publicized
| issue - so if you're writing a video game and you want a
| low-level antagonist for the hero to fight, it'd be one of
| the default options.
| foundart wrote:
| It's common enough that there are women-only cars on the
| subway in Tokyo.
| refurb wrote:
| _Cleanliness is... mostly downstream of storefronts and the
| like picking shit up _all the time_._
|
| Indeed, it's the same in Singapore.
|
| Despite the law and order reputation of Singapore, plenty of
| people regularly break laws there, including littering.
|
| All you need to do is get off the tourist strips and you can
| walk down park paths with plenty of trash strewn everywhere.
|
| What people don't see is the army of foreign labor who is
| constantly picking this trash up.
|
| The government is good at enforcement - if an area has
| problems with trash cameras get put up along with signs
| warning of the consequences, but if the cleaning staff were
| to disappear overnight it wouldn't take more than 24 hours
| for Singapore to look quite untidy.
|
| In terms of Western countries like the US, cleanliness does
| come down to an operations issue. Cleaners don't come often
| enough, trash cans aren't emptied enough and littering
| enforcement is weak. But it's certainly possible to make the
| US as clean as Japan with surprisingly little increase in
| effort.
| byteraccoon wrote:
| I lived in Singapore previously and currently living in
| Japan for the past 5 years. Japan is not like Singapore -
| yes you're right Singapore is a mostly government enforced
| society including the artificial cleanliness but Japan is
| not. Cleanliness in Japan is cultural, people in Japan
| truly care about cleanliness and it's "common sense" to
| them and you do not see "plenty of trash strewn about" in
| non-touristy areas of Japan. (Of course Japan is not some
| perfect society and there are places that are dirty)
| rtpg wrote:
| I mean you can just go to the streets in Shibuya at
| night, loads of people leave their cans wherever. Or if
| you head out to random small towns in Saitama and see
| residential spots with plenty of garbage. And you can get
| into the pathological stuff like gomi-yashiki but that
| gets into a whole other thing.
|
| Or (the one that's so odd to me given most stations have
| trash cans) random drinks and the like above the urinals
| in lots of stations. Plenty of posters asking the dudes
| to please please please please please please please not
| leave trash there. Like I get wanting to get rid of
| evidence or something but they have trash cans right
| there!
|
| I am not going to comment much on Singapore because I had
| not seen much random trash, I just really dislike
| cultural essentialism about cleanliness, because there's
| still clearly a good amount of people who are just
| totally not aligned with that. The cleanliness is a
| result of society doing things despite there being bad
| actors in the system!
| panorama wrote:
| Seems most people in this thread are on roughly the same
| page, but here's an anecdote to give you an idea of why
| people are specifically comparing to the west:
|
| Just today I was walking home from Nakameguro station in
| Tokyo and saw an orphaned protein bar wrapper on the
| street. I was shocked, it was the first time I'd noticed
| obvious trash (most likely not intentionally littered) on
| this street in years.
|
| While living in Manhattan last year, I grew accustomed to
| holding my nose when walking past actual piles of garbage
| strewn about the street. This is not figurative as most
| people have used this phrase throughout this thread--You
| simply leave your rotting garbage on the street for
| trucks to pick up (obviously stray trash would get picked
| up by the wind and tossed into the air, descending upon
| Manhattan en masse). Only starting last November did they
| start using actual trash bins.
|
| There was even a day when I saw multiple public garbage
| cans lit on fire and kicked into the street (in Chelsea,
| a fairly nice Manhattan neighborhood). Could you possibly
| imagine that happening anywhere in Tokyo? It would be
| news coverage for a week.
|
| For all the nuance and exceptions one has to go out of
| their way to find when talking about trash in places like
| Tokyo and Singapore, it's unbelievably ages ahead of New
| York City, the richest city in the world.
| bsoft16385 wrote:
| A big part of the problem in Manhattan is that most
| places don't have alleys. There is nowhere for the trash
| to be left except on the sidewalk.
|
| Some cities have the trash trucks drive around playing
| music, ice cream truck style, and you are required to
| bring your trash out to the truck. Logistically that
| would probably work in Manhattan. Politically I don't
| think you would ever be able to get it done.
| chipsa wrote:
| Most places in the US don't have alleys. The problem
| isn't the alleys, it's the trash cans. Most modern US
| cities have cans that can be lifted by the truck, and
| then emptied. NYC, on the other hand, insists on just
| leaving everything in flimsy bags, open to the rats.
| volkl48 wrote:
| Most places don't have a mostly continuous street wall
| with little/no setback from the public street/sidewalk.
|
| Part of the problem in Manhattan has been that many
| buildings really do not have any place they could store
| those sorts of bins, or at least not in the quantity of
| them that they need for their trash output.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Manhattan isn't unique -- and as far as I've heard,
| they've recently copied systems in use in Madrid (bins in
| parking spaces) and London (wheelie bins) to solve the
| problem.
| rtpg wrote:
| Trash fires are definitely a rare occurrence in Tokyo,
| the bigger chaos generation is some bird poking at a
| trash bag and causing stuff to fly all over.
|
| Though apparently there are about 50 trash truck fires a
| year? Mostly from batteries in the trash of course...
| cthalupa wrote:
| If you think there's not plenty of trash strewn about,
| you need to spend more time out at night or down back
| alleys. Once the booze starts flowing or the kitchens get
| too busy, plenty of waste starts appearing. You're less
| likely to see a bunch somewhere like Meguro than you are
| Shibuya, but you don't exactly need to go hunting to find
| overfilled trashcans where people have given up and just
| leave stuff beside them, trash bags left out overnight
| besides the back door to the restaurant kitchen, etc.
|
| (And for anyone not aware, Tokyo is a place where the
| entrances to plenty of places are down these back alleys
| - it's not just the service entrance/back doors down
| there. )
| larodi wrote:
| Looks like many places in Europe to me
| blackguardx wrote:
| 100% this. Tokyo seems impossibly clean compared to NYC but
| Shirahama has a grunginess that feels almost like the rust
| belt of America.
| cthalupa wrote:
| Walk off the main thoroughfares of Tokyo and you end up
| with plenty of grunge and grime, too. I got invited to step
| outside for a cigarette at a craft beer joint down an alley
| in Shibuya and our 3rd companion was a rat as large as any
| I'd ever seen in NYC. Plenty of trash in the alleys,
| kitchens dumping buckets of waste water and not caring if
| plenty splash over the street or sidewalk instead of going
| down the drain, etc.
|
| It's impressive how well kept the main areas are, but any
| metro area of 40m people is gonna generate plenty of trash.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| In most parts of Tokyo if you drop your wallet on the street
| somebody will _chase you down_ to return it.
|
| Umbrellas? Not so much. Stealing umbrellas is the official
| city pastime in Tokyo. Turn your back for one second and that
| thing will be gone. Report it to the cops and they'll just
| tell you to steal somebody else's.
| n1b0m wrote:
| I picked up a couple of abandoned umbrellas on my recent
| visit to Japan.
| uwagar wrote:
| i recalls a standup routine that there are only 6
| umbrellas in the world.
| adrian_b wrote:
| That is really true.
|
| In 2024 I have visited Japan. It happened that when we
| changed quickly the subway train in some station, one of us
| has forgotten his expensive smartphone in the other train.
|
| Someone from the old train has noticed this and she ran
| very quickly to our new train, returning the smartphone to
| the owner. She had to run very quickly between the 2
| trains, otherwise her train could have departed, but she
| succeeded to go back.
| hinkley wrote:
| The weird thing with the subways is you can ride around
| on them all day as long as you have a ticket that covers
| the fare from where you entered to where you leave.
|
| A lot of the stations didn't have shops, and a lot of
| those were outside the "turnstiles", but there are some
| places where for lulls you could change trains to get a
| drink or a snack then backtrack to where you were
| "supposed" to get out.
|
| So someone chasing you down is just lost time, not lost
| money.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| This is actually a good thing from an environmental
| perspective. Japan has the type of downpour which can
| thoroughly drench you (in July for instance), but most of
| the time you don't need an umbrella. Obviously this means
| that umbrellas get lost, misplaced, or forgotten. If no one
| just took any seemingly lost umbrella out of politeness,
| you would end up with thousands of them going to a
| landfill.
|
| I had the same thing with my umbrella when I left Japan
| after a year of studying there. "What should I do with
| this? It's still a good umbrella.", "Oh, just leave it at
| the station, someone will take it."
| immibis wrote:
| As we all know though, low latency is often opposed to high
| throughput or efficiency. If the average person had to work
| one hour less each day but the toilets weren't spotless (but
| still clean enough), wouldn't that be a worthwhile trade?
| Larrikin wrote:
| If this is the station drunks end up at after passing out, then
| there is a high probability of seeing throw up or a passed out
| person on the weekends.
| astrange wrote:
| > - Accessibility strip for blind people (bumpy yellow stripe
| in train stations and sidewalks)
|
| Have you tried to find an elevator? There's one in every
| station, but they don't tell you where it is.
|
| Also, they like making sidewalks out of the slipperiest
| substances you can find. It's a problem when it rains and can't
| be easy for anyone who walks unsteadily.
| johngossman wrote:
| I notice that too, just carrying luggage around. Same with
| pedestrian overpasses some places. Overall, I'd say Japan is
| noticeably less accessible than the US or western Europe.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| The US Americans with disabilities act really does a lot of
| work
| TylerE wrote:
| Yes, and as a disabled American is one reason I'm
| extremely scared right now.
| jdlshore wrote:
| The US is more accessible than any country I've been to
| (and I've been to a lot). Water fountains are another thing
| the US is good at.
| goosejuice wrote:
| It's hard to find anything in the large stations. Shinjuku
| station is mad. It's like a confluence of 12 rivers.
| presentation wrote:
| I have not had any such problems living here for 7 years...
| elevators always have signs all over the station telling you
| exactly where to go to get to them, with standardized
| coloring and symbols, and text saying what it's about in
| Japanese and English. They tell you even while you're on the
| train which car the elevator will be in front of.
|
| I would chalk up your experience to being generally
| overwhelmed and not used to it, mixed in with being
| illiterate in the local language (despite there being English
| and symbols to assist further).
| TylerE wrote:
| Now find the elevator with your eyes closed. That's the GPs
| point.
| bschwindHN wrote:
| Most stations play sounds to indicate stairs and ticket
| gates. Typically a slow ding...dong sound, and birds
| chirping. Though I'm not sure if they indicate elevators
| with those sounds, I need to check next time I'm in a
| station.
| astrange wrote:
| I do know how to read. I was thinking of the case of
| finding it from the outside, especially at a large station
| like Shibuya where they're always closing random entrances.
| Jorudan/Google/Apple Maps also don't incorporate them into
| search.
|
| It's fine once you've learned where they are of course.
| usefulcat wrote:
| Having never been to Japan, I don't dispute anything you say,
| and as an American I definitely agree those things sound great.
|
| However I do think it's fair to point out the existence of
| women-only train cars in Japan, which I believe exist at least
| in part due to groping. Seems like YMMV depending on gender.
| iszomer wrote:
| One thing that occurred to me recently is that Japanese book
| stores will wrap your books in paper to protect one's privacy
| while reading on mass transit. There are still some
| bookstores in Taiwan that still preserve this tradition as
| well.
| jrockway wrote:
| I mean, groping on the subway is a problem in New York City
| too. We just close our eyes and plug our ears while singing
| "hire more cops". A women-only car would be most welcome.
| goosejuice wrote:
| There's quite a lot of interviews with western women on this
| subject on YouTube. Can't remember the channel.
|
| I felt so incredibly safe in Japan and I don't remember even
| seeing a cop. As an American, that felt crazy to me for how
| large those cities are. I had some expectation of that but it
| still surprised me, particularly in the touristy nightlife
| districts with the street drinking.
|
| Obviously seems like there might be some downsides to the
| culture that leads to this.
| buzer wrote:
| > I don't remember even seeing a cop.
|
| You probably didn't realize what to look for. There are
| quite a lot of kobans
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dban), especially in
| busy locations. Seeing police patrolling around the area is
| rare sight from my experience though (disclaimer:
| Experience strictly as tourist).
| deadbabe wrote:
| In New York people push other people onto the tracks for fun
| and we do little about it.
| marxisttemp wrote:
| I'm a frequent user of public transit in LA, NY, and my current
| smaller city and I've never felt unsafe or unwelcome. I mostly
| see these sorts of takes from Fox News shut-ins tbh
| vishkk wrote:
| https://aeon.co/essays/the-life-changing-magic-of-japanese-c...
| the_svd_doctor wrote:
| I went to Japan (first time) a few months ago, and I was blown
| away by almost everything (including what you mention). It's
| just so different from the US in almost every way, but so nice
| overall (people, cities, transit). I loved it and want to go
| back already.
| kopirgan wrote:
| Japanese are obsessed with being clean. Like wiping the pen
| with tissue paper before handing it to you. On more than one
| occasion I have had a stranger passenger on long distance train
| clearing my cup of coffee as she goes to throw hers in the
| trash. May be she is signalling you can't trust these
| foreigners to clean up before they leave!
| BirdieNZ wrote:
| I don't know about clean, I saw hardly any (men) wash their
| hands after using the bathroom. Sometimes they'd wave their
| hands under the tap. Without turning it on.
|
| Seemed more like obsession with being tidy than hygeinic.
| lasc4r wrote:
| -Random cones everywhere
| 65 wrote:
| Hey, at least the NYC trains run 24 hours, so this situation
| would never happen if you're in NYC.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| "- The complete absence of vandalism" There are plenty of
| places in Japan that have graffiti. Additionally vandalism,
| name etching and such occasionally occurs at shrines. Vandals
| are primarily tourists but sometimes a drunk Japanese citizen
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tokyo+graffiti&iax=images&ia=image...
|
| A better statement would be a general absence of vandalism.
|
| "- Accessibility strip for blind people (bumpy yellow stripe in
| train stations and sidewalks)" This is very well done in the
| major cities, however I've seen many incomplete implementations
| especially in parks where I suppose funding simply ran out.
|
| I do believe their situation is much better than the average.
| hinkley wrote:
| In the 90's I was walking down a back street in the Tokyo burbs
| at almost 3 am realizing something felt wrong and I couldn't
| figure out what.
|
| There was woman half a block in front of me, by herself, not
| even worried there was a random white guy walking behind her. I
| am definitely not in Kansas anymore.
|
| The other weird late night encounter was a road crew working at
| O-dark thirty on Sunday night/Monday morning when it was a
| national holiday. I understand late night crews but on a three
| day weekend?
| itsthejb wrote:
| Yes. However there are downsides to Japan's intensely high
| trust (and high shame) culture as well. Death by overwork is
| the one that's most known in the west, although there are
| plenty of others that outsiders would never usually learn about
| neilv wrote:
| There's more despair when you miss the last train/bus in a _US_
| city, in an unfamiliar area, you don 't have a phone, nothing is
| open, and the only other people you've seen seem to be deciding
| whether to mug you.
|
| (I've done this more than once, accidentally.)
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm surprised things like Uber haven't solved this.
|
| You're a young person with a car, and insomnia. Good time to
| make some extra cash.
| anyonecancode wrote:
| Never have I ever woken up to find myself in Far Rockaway,
| Queens.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That would be pretty miserable!
| apricot wrote:
| The only thing I know about Far Rockaway is that Raymond
| Smullyan was born there.
| hinkley wrote:
| Warriors! Come out to play-ay!
| astrange wrote:
| My favorite thing about soranews is the English writers always
| call the Japanese writers "us" or "our reporter", but you never
| see any of them when they post pictures of the office. I assume
| they're being kept in a dungeon somewhere.
| jrockway wrote:
| Most interesting to me is that the Chuo Line appears to have
| finally gotten its new rolling stock with Green Cars! I went to
| high school in Tokyo and was slummin' it in the 201 series:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_series#/media/File:JR_EAST...
| tjpnz wrote:
| The green cars are double deckered and you can ride them for
| free until April!
| jeffchien wrote:
| If you get stuck there between ~10PM (the last train back to
| Hachioji that could connect to Shinjuku) and 11PM (or midnight if
| you can spare the change for the limited express), you can also
| consider going west to Yamanashi and Kofu. Let's just say that I
| was almost in this exact scenario from a long day in Kawaguchiko,
| but I ended up making it back to central Tokyo.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| Oh man this make me nostalgic! My mothers sides family were from
| an area close/along the Chuo rapid line, west Tokyo probably
| exactly between Otsuki & Shinjuku.
|
| Otsuki is actually not the most common final destination along
| Chuo Rapid Line, but Takao is. Takao is close to a popular hiking
| spot Takao mountain so there's definitely more stuff there
| compared to Otsuki.
|
| Probably the WORST "getting stuck at Chuo Rapid Line" is Actually
| mistakenly taking Chuo Line that transfer to Ome Line that could
| sometime go all the way to Okutama. There's literally nothing
| there, and you're deep in the mountain. There's so little light
| pollution there, that my sisters friend that live there told me
| that at night you can actually see the light pollution from Tokyo
| inner city from the east, and locals call it Fan Nao noGuang
| (The light of lust/carnal desires).
| biztos wrote:
| I do hope somebody has made a movie, or written a novel, or
| started a band -- or, ideally, all three -- called Fan Nao
| noGuang .
| baxtr wrote:
| What is it about Japan that people find even small empty towns
| like this fascinating?
|
| PS: I include my self here. Just spent looking at pictures of
| around Okutama. Very beautiful.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| I wonder if it's because of watching anime as a kid. I even
| love the look of Japanese alleys with lots of wires hanging
| above. I'm pretty sure it's because it was a common sight in
| anime that was different from my lived reality.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| My friends and family like to joke about "anywhere USA."
| There are places all across the US where the same design
| language, chain restaurants, etc are all the same. There will
| be some differences in local business and in
| political/religious signage, but otherwise, they are cookie
| cutter, somehow feeling basically the same from Anchorage AK
| to Tampa FL. Importantly, these are all connected by car
| line.
|
| I think there are a few things that make Japan fascinating to
| anyone who lives in a car-oriented culture, and a very
| important aspect is that even the small, out of the way,
| rural towns are still connected via passenger train, which
| changes the relationship of the small town to the central hub
| in important ways like what's described in the article here.
| Getting off the train in a small town is very different than
| getting out of your car in a small town.
|
| You can find this same dynamic in the US, btw. You'll find
| that _old_ rural towns, that grow up connected to the central
| hubs by either boat or by passenger train, have a lot of the
| same charm and feel. But if things are developed along roads,
| there 's no presumption about walkability: they are designed
| for people to get in their cars and go from one parking lot
| to another.
|
| Anyway, I'm actually totally clueless about this and
| speculating with very little informed knowledge outside my
| lived experience. I should probably delete this comment.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Japan is beautiful, that's why.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR_Y0XOin8Y
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Eh, you see the same kind of romanticism about the French,
| Italian, Greek, Swiss countryside, to list just a few.
|
| It's more so that US small towns are deeply uninteresting
| since many have been hollowed out to have the same chains.
| Japan has followed the opposite model and promotes obscure
| regional specialties like an obsession.
| gambiting wrote:
| Does it? Even in this article you see that Japan is
| dominated by a bunch of big chains. Even in a small sleepy
| town you find a 7-11 open all night, few other well known
| convenience stores, a big chain gym, a popular hotel chain
| as well as a nation wide karaoke parlour chain.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| are there chains? sure. but there are also tons of local
| small businesses and government initiatives like the
| roadside stations
| (https://www.japan.travel/en/guide/michi-no-eki/) to
| promote regional specialty. they're not present in this
| article because they're generally _not_ open 24 hours,
| which is the focus of the article.
|
| Here in Washington state a lot of the small towns don't
| have a whole lot of small businesses outside of super
| tourist oriented towns.
| jounker wrote:
| The freakiest thing to me is the Lawsons. This was a tiny little
| convenience store chain that existed in a few counties near
| Cleveland, OH. It went out of business around 1980, but through
| some baffling chain of events managed to migrate to Japan where
| they seem to be only slightly less common than 7/11s.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Mister Donut also started in the US. Tower Records also lives
| on in Japan.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| And Yahoo search!
| gcanyon wrote:
| Shoutout for Mister Donut in Thailand! Lived there two years
| and ate Mister Donut often -- I had no idea it started in the
| US.
| kkylin wrote:
| We were happily surprised to find Tower Records in Tokyo! It
| was great.
| rwmj wrote:
| Lawson's also big in China now.
| kalleboo wrote:
| 7-Eleven Japan also got so big that they bought out 7-Eleven
| USA. But now the Canadian owner of Circle K is bidding to buy
| 7-Eleven Japan so I guess it's the circle of corporate life.
| chasd00 wrote:
| My son went on a school trip to Japan last year. Of all the
| amazing things he must have seen the 7-Elevens are what he
| talked about the most haha.
| neuronic wrote:
| 7-11 trips at any given time of the day are one of my most
| precious Japan memories from my 3 week trip.
|
| I cannot even explain why, maybe it it the Nintendo-like
| jiggles and atmosphere of comfort. We have similar markets
| where I am from any I know 24/7 chains from around the
| planet and it isn't really what this is about. The products
| are not super special either ... still it eminates magic
| for me and when I went to Taiwan a few years later I was
| EAGER to enter a Japan-style 7-11.
| lleb97a wrote:
| They bought 7-Eleven Australia, too.
| biztos wrote:
| Lawson is big in Thailand, but I only see them at the BTS Sky
| Train stations. Well, I _might_ have seen one in a mall but I
| 'm not 100% sure, also in an airport.
|
| Interesting to hear they're from Ohio. Their logo is
| incongruousy milk-just-like.
|
| Here's their Insta, it seems to be their main online presence:
|
| https://www.instagram.com/lawson108thailand/
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| Their old buildings are still all around here, but now holding
| karate studios or vape shops.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| My wife and I enjoyed Tokyo for ten days in October of 2023.
| After a long day of site seeing, we would stop in at a Lawsons
| for a variety of snacks to eat while we rested up for the next
| day. The store was always clean and the small meals were very
| tasty.
|
| (not related to Lawsons: we discovered the "joy" of a bidet in
| our hotel room. Upon returning home we immediately ordered a
| Toto.)
| cruffle_duffle wrote:
| > we discovered the "joy" of a bidet in our hotel room. Upon
| returning home we immediately ordered a Toto
|
| I'm pretty sure this story is replicated by anybody who
| visits Japan. Once you use a bidet you can't go back.
| yibg wrote:
| I just wish installing one in North America was a bit
| easier. Need access to power (usually no outlets near the
| toilet) and water (requires some minor plumbing work).
| pstuart wrote:
| There are cheap versions that don't require power and tap
| into existing plumbing. Obviously not the deluxe Toto
| experience but still worthy of consideration.
| brewdad wrote:
| I have 3 toilets in my house. One I was able to tap into
| the power supply at the light switch and install on
| outlet for a fancy Toto model. My other two bathrooms
| would require opening up walls and running new wiring
| through many studs in order to add a power outlet, so
| they get the cheap cold water models.
| gambiting wrote:
| What do you need power for? Bidets are relatively popular
| in Poland and they are just taps for warm water that you
| can direct wherever with a convenient basin. Not sure
| what you need the gadgetry for. And yes, bidet is an
| absolutely essential thing to have in a bathroom.
| brewdad wrote:
| Do Polish bathrooms tend to have an instant water heater
| installed in the bathroom like much of Europe? American
| homes have one main heater, often far from the bathroom.
| I have to run my shower for nearly a full minute before I
| get any hot water. A warm water tap that isn't in
| constant use won't get warm using the amounts of water a
| bidet requires. We need a power supply that can heat the
| water either a tank in the bidet or on demand. That power
| supply is uncommon here.
| gambiting wrote:
| I know we always had a hot water tank in or near the
| bathroom so hot water was nearly instant. I honestly
| can't tell you if it's widespread or not though.
| sib wrote:
| I've tried them a few times (in Japan, Europe, and in the
| US) and I just don't get the love affair... We even had the
| plumbing and electrical power put in next to the toilet in
| our master bedroom when we remodeled our house, but have
| never bought the bidet seat.
| BjoernKW wrote:
| In London, that's called Cockfosters.
|
| Other than that, there's an intriguing Clive Barker short story
| on how lonely passengers on those late-night trains actually end
| up ...
| empressplay wrote:
| If you party too hard in Melbourne and decide to hop on a V/Line
| train northbound on the Sunbury line and then pass out, you can
| end up in Bendigo
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6yg4ImnYwA&t=8s
| ClimaxGravely wrote:
| I always wondered what would happen to those people on the train.
| I tried waking them up but they do not budge.
| tjpnz wrote:
| Station staff do it at EOL.
| x86hacker1010 wrote:
| Im so intrigued by Japan. It seems truly like a dream. As an avid
| love for Haruki Murakami, I feel he captures the essence of Japan
| more than any other writer.
| thom wrote:
| Ah, the time I've spent in Tring.
| morepork wrote:
| There's an episode in the second season of Colin from Accounts
| that is basically this scenario, but in Sydney
| miki123211 wrote:
| Something like this happened to me once on a bus, not because I
| fell asleep, but due to the line I was on changing its route,
| which I didn't know about. I just assumed it would go to my stop
| like it always did, so I didn't even bother checking. It turned
| out that this was the last bus of the day, in winter.
|
| I eventually ended up at the "loop", AKA the last stop where
| buses turn around, and waited around an hour for a night bus that
| could get me back to where I wanted to be. Doing this as a blind
| person, with nobody else around to help just in case, was quite
| scary.
| dcsan wrote:
| wow congratulations to you. I hope you weren't in a foreign
| country at the same time! I can understand why you might be a
| creature of habit and an unplanned bus routing is definitely a
| monkey wrench
| knotimpressed wrote:
| I always wondered how blind people navigate situations like
| this on public transit-how did you know another bus was coming?
| Kwpolska wrote:
| The depots for this train seem to be in areas that are much more
| populated (Wikipedia says Mitaka and Toyoda [0]). If Otsuki
| Station is the station of despair, this would suggest the trains
| ride empty from Otsuki to the depot. Why couldn't they allow
| passengers on that final ride to the depot, requiring them to
| disembark at Mitaka/Toyoda at the latest?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D_Line_(Rapid)
| itsthejb wrote:
| It's possible the last train simply parks there for the night.
| This would mean that you ride the same train back after this
| misadventure
| Kwpolska wrote:
| That would mean the train driver spends the night in the
| middle of nowhere, I doubt they would agree to that.
| readingnews wrote:
| There is something strangely magical about the pictures of the
| city streets at night. Lack of trash? How clean the roads are?
| The lighting? I have been out at night in plenty of places (not
| Japan), but it never looks like this. At first I thought it was
| their camera, but I think it is just Japan at night?
| itsthejb wrote:
| I've never ended up in this situation myself, but I have many
| times lived on similar commuter lines. Hearing the names of those
| end of lines stations becomes a big part of your every day
| routine. In most cases I never even visited them, which looking
| back feels like a pity, and even disrespectful of their
| incidental importance
| commiepatrol wrote:
| You can't take an Uber back home?
| gregoriol wrote:
| I really don't understand what this article is about: every
| bus/train/subway line from a city center usually ends up in an
| small-town place and if you are on the last bus/train/subway in
| the night, it will be the same emptiness everywhere, whether it
| is Tokyo or any place with public transport. And people miss
| their stop sometimes, literally happening everywhere.
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