Train Safety and the Trash Nazis

The Japanese are a very reserved people in general. It is normal to go about everything quite conservatively here. With the exception of short shorts and short skirts worn by the very fashion conscious young women and school girls, everyone seems quite sheepishly conservative here. It is not only a cultural construct of thousands of years of having to respect each other's space on this very small and very populated island, but it is also a government mandated kind of thing. It seems as though there is a very pervasive sentiment of safety and collective respect based in the complete lack of individuality throughout most aspects of Japanese culture.

Heres a harmless example. The train systems here are quite elaborate and heavily relied on for transportation to and from work (favorite collective pastime of the Japanese). It is interesting to ride the trains during busy hours. As rumored, there are uniformed officers at the busiest train stations who are present for the specific purpose of squeezing and prodding as many passengers on board the train as possible. It reminds me of a cattle round up, with less hollerin' and fewer men in tight pants, assless chappes and cowboy hats. But despite the supremely close quarters, the inevitable nearness of miscellaneous body parts associated with another living, breathing, perspiring body... the only body parts that rarely make contact are eyes.

This for me is an exercise in cross cultural awareness. For I, I am a people watcher. It's what I do when there are people around. I try not to be persistent or creepy about it, but it's hard for me to actually NOT look at other people. There aren't any negative judgments swirling around in my head. It's not like I'm sitting there going, "what a lame haircut, her roots are totally still showing" or "I bet that Gucci is a fake" or "Jeeeee-sus! Look at that lady's bitchin' moustache"... No, usually there isn't much stirring around in my dome except some sort of music or the occasional envious admiration of sombody's rad anime hair or perhaps, perhaps just a statement of objective truth- "That old lady is tiny" or "Nobody is talking... at.. all."

That's where it is. Nobody talks to one another, whether or not the train is completely full... in fact, the more populated the train car is the less likely it is that you will hear anyone speak to another. This is fascinating to someone who comes from a place where even a full train car still has elbow room and where there is at least some eye contact and usually some sort of verbal communication between passengers, whether or not they know one another. It's just not that way here. People just sit there, silently, sometimes for hours. Usually heads are down and eyes averted from any sort of interpersonal ocular connection. People here work very hard, very long hours, and it's common to see people in business suits sleeping on their commute to or from work... if not that- and they're lucky enough to have snagged an actual seat... they work on their laptop or perhaps read the news paper.

The act or reading the newspaper on the train is a masterful art in and of itself. It gets folded into something resembling a perfectly folded news paper, all compact and efficient. Being that the language is written in stacked letter columns from top to bottom it is easy to nearly roll the paper into a sort of burrito looking thing and therefore- keep it in your own space, thus not to disturb anyone else's space. The really interesting stuff comes into play right here.

On all trains, there are posted instructions detailing "How to sit on the train". This as I understand is for everyone's collective comfort and the spacial efficiency factor. I'm cool with it, it makes for a very fair and efficient- but still uncomfortable train ride. The train's many announcements though are what kind of creep me out in terms of the robotic and sheeplike nature of the general collective here.

The ones in English usually precede the ones in Japanese. They tend to be friendly. Short. Sweet. To the point. Something like, " The train is now approaching Kamakura Station. Doors will open to the left." It's very direct and pretty unassuming. The Japanese announcement is seriously long potentially because of it's very motherly quality. The little mousy voice comes over the speaker and says something like (in Japanese of course) "The train is now approaching Kamakura Station. The doors will open to the left. Do please be careful when exiting the train as there is a gap that could easily catch a foot. Please hold onto small children because they could be trampled by a mob of suits or fall into the gap between the train and the platform and harm might be done to them. Be sure to hurry safely to your connecting railways, it would be a shame if you were late to work. If you stay at work late, you might as well sleep there because we stop running the trains at 12:30 AM and you'll be much a more productive member of the group if you wake up in your cubicle at your desk, refreshed for another day of work. We hope that your workday is long, productive and full of good work. Oh, and be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

Sure, I'm exadurating and I really mean no disrespect. It is important in a collective society for each of it's individuals to remain respectful of rules and the group identity. To what extent is this dehumanizing though? Where is the line between being respectful of others and being a robot controlled solely by learned behavior sanctioned by your government and the idea of collectivism?

Here is something a little more harmful. It occurs once a day, five days a week. Trash.

In Japan there is a very sophisticated and efficient system of disposing household articles of every variety from paper products to plastic bags, bottles to fabrics. There is a very specific piece of documentation on how to achieve the collective happiness that is #Garbage Disposal and Recycling".

I'm going to take this straight from the document published by the City of Kamakura, so there is no bullshit.

The cover of this pamphlet has some very happy but square looking duck-like bird things on it... to make it friendly and happy. I'm surprised there is no song accompanying the document.

It reads:

-Please observe these garbage disposal and recycling rules.
-Please take out garbage and recyclable items by 8:30 am on collection days (do not take them out early in the morning or at night).
-Each garbage collection site is maintained by people who use the site. Please do not dispose of garbage and recyclable items outside of your neighborhood.

.Since fabrics (clothing and rags) cannot be recycled when wet, they will not be collected on rainy days.

.All other recyclable items and garbage can be taken regardless of weather.

.Paper (cartons, newspapers, magazines, paperboard, etc, and miscellaneous paper) do not need protection from rain, and should not be put in plastic bags.

This pretty much ends the first page. Harmless enough, right? Totally.

The second page is tips on how to reduce your waste. Handy, helpful tips about reducing, reusing and recycling things within your own household. #Start with what you can do! Small initiatives lead to big reductions!"

Page 3 is the locations of disposal facilities.

Pages 4-11 are requirements and exclusions of the recycling and disposal process. These things range from food and beverage cans needing to be cleaned and flattened and placed into the yellow container, plastic bottles being placed in a plastic bag (no lids allowed) and flattened if possible, to yard trimmings being cut into small pieces (personally mulched) and placed into plastic bags... paper and cartons separated into white paper bags or brown paper bags with either cartons or waxed or news print or misc. paper... fabrics... combustibles which include kitchen scraps, leather, shoes, plastics that cannot be recycled, toys and anything not on the list of recyclables.. thats right, they burn it... non-combustibles happen once a month, stuff like: pots and pans, umbrellas, ceramics, small appliances, glassware... Hazardous waste happens once a month: light bulbs, motor oil paint, fluorescent lights... You get the idea.

So, at first glance this very specific and thorough system of recycling and trash disposal seems pretty cool to me. It's like people want to make life easier for everyone and do good things for the environment. It's not like in the states where there are just huge plastic containers of un-separated trash sitting next to yard debris and a small crate of glass and aluminum. Oh no... each morning there is a very neatly organized pile of items. Here everyone is involved with your trash. Your neighborhood has a designated netted area where each household neatly places their refuse on it's given day. "Wow!" I thought to myself as I first learned of this collective caring for the environment, "it's not that hard to do within the house, and everything that can be recycled actually is!".

Everybody recycles everything possible here... they like new stuff though so you can't sell anything used and it usually gets thrown away or recycled on the curb. I'm talking BRAND NEW stuff. So I ponder the possibility that one could harvest new stuff from the curb and use it for themselves, saving the bloated expenditure of brand new - brand new stuff. Sounds logical, right? Oh wait.

It is while trying to learn the ins and outs of the trash system here that I learned some fascinating cultural information. I haven't yet experienced the wrath of the Trash Nazi down the street, and I truly hope that I don't. That is exactly what they want. They want you to be afraid of making mistakes and will hold you accountable if you're not within their little box of collective identity and conformism.

I found out that most people here don't really give a flying ffffffffffffish about reducing, reusing, recycling or saving the environment (not unlike most of America). They just fear what will happen to them if they throw glass away in the combustibles, or leave trash out on yard debris collection day by mistake, or incorrectly collate papers and cartons into white and brown paper bags. (Unlike Amuuurica)

What happens is... The neighborhood Trash Nazi (I'm not sure how the Trash Fascist is determined, possibly self manifest, perhaps neighborhood delegated) will go from house to house with your mistake literally in hand, knocking on doors and questioning ownership until he or she finds the culprit. Once this occurs, and a stern but passive aggressive talking to is dished out, your name has been tarnished and black listed in the neighborhood. Strike two means you are disgracing the neighborhood system and I believe you have to pay a fine to the garbage company and apologize to everyone in the neighborhood for dishonoring the trash manifesto. Your disposal practices will forever be scrutinized and I think you have to report to the Trash Nazi with every item you wish to throw away or recycle until you can prove that you are correctly collating your paper and cutting all of your yard debris into fine bits with children's safety scissors so it neatly fits into a plastic bag.

The original concept is amazing to me. If with the intention sustainability and efficiency, reduction, reuse and recycling, this system exists to truly make a difference in the impact on the environment and also to make it an easier job for the sanitation workers... that is quite Utopian if you ask me. That people would actively make such a change in lifestyle (a pretty easy one as far as lifestyle changes go- in regards to consumption and disposal efficiency) simply to make the place in which they choose to reside a cleaner, healthier and more environmentally friendly one would really speak to the progress of the environmentalist movement. But that's not what it's really about here. It's about conforming to whatever the corporation, the government and the Trash Nazis tell you to do. It's about full cooperation, without room for error. It's about guilt. And they're not even Catholic here!

It's pure collectivist trash-ism with no real impact-conscious intention behind it. Pure fear based conformity, I think the people here have a great respect for fear. Fear and fashion. The fashion thing I'll save for another blog... oh man it will be good. It's like middle school meets Hollywood meets 'Shinjuku Barbie and Anime Ken' all the time.

To conclude my ranting... I know this probably reads like I'm being overly critical, like I'm kind of being an asshole perhaps, maybe like I'm missing the point of coming here and interacting with these wonderfully refined and respectful people. I'm not.

The end result of all this train safety and trash fascism is a very clean and safe environment where it is perfectly normal to see reasonably young kids and old ladies traveling alone by train late at night or walking through dark alleys without fear. You can drop your wallet here and have it returned to you with all the money still in it. You can ask anyone a question and they are typically genuinely interested that you are lead to the services you need. Who doesn't want that? And when and where in America would you get your wallet back with money still in it, or see young kids or even old ladies walking through dark alleys late at night. It is even very easy and safe to ride bikes on the highway here... the drivers respect the various modes of transportation and the cyclists respect the rules of the road. Everyone is very conscious of how their actions will affect others, and that is kind of refreshing.

I would like to reassure you that I mean no disrespect and truly am enjoying this experience for all that it is. It is one of learning and curiosity... often in that order. I learn something and it leads to curiosity about why and whether things are truly as they seem on the surface. It is really what this journey is all about and I'm realizing that it is what life is all about. As soon as you choose to stop asking "what the?", as soon as you become comfortable and complacent, as soon as you begin to take experiences for granted... you become idle and you slow your growth as a spirit. I was feeling a little of that before I decided to ditch the states for a while, and it is really becoming evident that while I miss home... I wouldn't be growing nearly as rapidly or openly at home.

Like I said before... this is a dumping ground for some thoughts and experiences. I just hope you enjoy reading it, and I hope my stream of thoughts doesn't bore you or piss you off. Know that while I may write in a slightly cynical or sarcastic voice, while I may obdurate some things at times and be overly critical at others... it is supposed to be fun and interesting for you, and kind of liberating for me. I hope you enjoy and comment or ask me questions if you're curious.

Oh yeah. Its picture time.

Peace, Love and Seaweed Sammiches,

Chris