Have you noticed when you walk around Tokyo that it is almost impossible to find a rubbish bin? I have now learned to take my rubbish home.
I’d like to know where the Japanese hide their rubbish bins? Is the sight of it so aesthetically offensive to the Japanese that setting it out visibly for its utilitarian purpose is still questionable? Unless you’re in a public place like a park or a zoo, where, if you look hard enough, you can spot one. What bothers me is the fact that public places, e.g. the underground, are fairly clean and litter-free except maybe for stray wrappers or discarded aluminum cans. Do the Japanese have a special pocket in their bags where they deposit bits and pieces of accumulated rubbish?
Every time I get ready for a trip outdoors, I make sure I have my pocket-size tissues, my JR map, and my AA “Useful Japanese Words and Phrases”, I can count on finding bits and pieces of trash in my backpack, used toothpicks from samplings of pickled vegetables at the department store, yakitori sticks, rubber bands, coffee stirrers, chewing gum wrappers, the list grows.
It’s a surprise every time I open my bag; not like finding a tenner in a jacket pocket, but more like finding something moldy in the fridge.
I’d like to know where the Japanese hide their rubbish bins? Is the sight of it so aesthetically offensive to the Japanese that setting it out visibly for its utilitarian purpose is still questionable? Unless you’re in a public place like a park or a zoo, where, if you look hard enough, you can spot one. What bothers me is the fact that public places, e.g. the underground, are fairly clean and litter-free except maybe for stray wrappers or discarded aluminum cans. Do the Japanese have a special pocket in their bags where they deposit bits and pieces of accumulated rubbish?
Every time I get ready for a trip outdoors, I make sure I have my pocket-size tissues, my JR map, and my AA “Useful Japanese Words and Phrases”, I can count on finding bits and pieces of trash in my backpack, used toothpicks from samplings of pickled vegetables at the department store, yakitori sticks, rubber bands, coffee stirrers, chewing gum wrappers, the list grows.
It’s a surprise every time I open my bag; not like finding a tenner in a jacket pocket, but more like finding something moldy in the fridge.
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