Japan In A Dishpan*

April 2010
Everywhere we have been in Japan has spotless streets, apart from the odd cherry blossom petal or two that by the end of this week is starting to fall. Despite there being a number of smokers the streets are devoid of cigarette ends.

This is partly because smoking is frequently forbidden on many streets (and the Japanese would never break such rules) and smokers are confined to smoking areas, but even in such areas there are no cigarette ends. Littering is forbidden (and the Japanese would never break such a rule) and smokers will put out their cigarettes and either pick up the butts and put them into a receptacle provided or use their own portable ash trays! These ashtrays are quite common and, evidently, are given away free at tobacconists.
Nor are there any ‘blobs’ of chewing gum on the pavements and in a society where everything is wrapped in reams and reams of unnecessary packaging and what must amount to millions of disposable chopsticks it is strange to see hardly any litter on the streets (apart from the occasional McDonalds package). All of this may have something to do with the swinging penalties that can be imposed – 10,000Yen (about £73) for dropping litter or smoking in a no-smoking zone (which can cover very large areas of cities) and 50,000Yen for any graffiti.
On the outside it certainly seems to be a conformist society – there is a Japanese national proverb “The nail that sticks up must be hammered down"- so conformity is almost enforced. With one of the lowest crime rates in the world and where the police seem to spend much of their time helping tourists, it all seems an ideal place to live. However all of this seems to mask an undercurrent of something very nasty; from reading English language version of Japanese newspapers it would seem that sex crimes go unreported because, generally, women have a low status; school girls sell sexual favours in return for designer label goods; organised crime seems to be prevalent (the much feared ‘Yakusa’) and the police have a reputation for forcing confessions from people and holding suspects for weeks without access to a lawyer.