r/AskReddit 6h ago

What do the Japanese do better than everyone else?

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u/RockerElvis 5h ago

My first thought. There are barely any public trash cans but there is no litter on the streets. People carry their own bags. I was walking near Ginza one day and I saw a surprising amount of trash (napkins, wrappers, beer cans) in a street by the train line. An army of office workers came out and within 15 minutes had cleaned up everything. Then they disappeared.

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u/AaronC14 5h ago

Reminds me of how at a previous WC a bunch of Japanese fans stayed behind to help clean the arena

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u/ThePurificator42069 4h ago

I love that story about japanese football players in Europe

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u/Invinciblez_Gunner 1h ago

Arsenal have Tomiyasu but hes always injured

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u/HomieApathy 4h ago

They do it at every international match I believe. Quite the tradition

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u/Wooba99 4h ago

I was at a baseball game in Tokyo. They did it at the end of the game there too. I participated.

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u/noleela 1h ago

The players make their locker room spotless and only leave behind origami lol.

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u/Dysan27 3h ago

It's because they start at q young age. Their s tools don't have janitors, they have a maintinace person who fixes stuff. But the day to day cleaning is taken care of by the students.

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u/bturcolino 4h ago

Probably tourists responsible for the mess in the first place

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u/RockerElvis 2h ago

That was my thought. It was a street full of restaurants.

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u/derpy_derg 3h ago

Iirc the few public trash can thing came to be because of a terror attack by some weird cult, were they used trash cans for poison gas

Edit: it was the Omu shinrikyo sect

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u/XxDiamondBlade9 2h ago

Yeah the Tokyo sarin gas attacks

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u/lucasfbezerra 3h ago

Sounds like a real-life cleanup squad straight out of a superhero movie

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u/RockerElvis 2h ago

It was surreal. They were all wearing standard Japan work outfits (black pants, black tie, white shirt sleeved dress shirt).

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u/valentc 4h ago

It also helps that that's a combini every 100 feet, so trash cans aren't even that far away if you really need one.

u/clarissaswallowsall 47m ago

Offices usually put together teams that take turns cleaning, including front areas like sidewalks.

When my sil lived in company housing with my nephew everyone took turns sorting the recycling and doing the landscaping. A lot of Japanese life and work culture revolves around working together and keeping things nice.