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[eIn0791207912]

Hey there. Some people know me here, not many though.

Ive been in Korea teaching for a while now and I'm really ready for Japan. I've heard rumors and I want to find out if they're true...

Is Japan really that neat and clean?

To be honest, I'm a bit of a neat freak myself. Almost OCD about it actually, and Korea has been one of the worst places to be for a clean freak. Around every corner, there's another pile of trash thats been backing in the hot sun for a few days. I have to play "dodge the dog poop" on my walk to work in the morning. Ciggy butts littered from here to there. Ages old bird poop collected under walk ways and over hangs. And then theres the dust.... the dust that just seems to pour in all hours of the day no matter how hard i fight it. I vacuum and wipe down my furniture at least twice a day, yet, there always seems to be this fine layer of gray colored filth all other the place.

Please tell me the heaven of cleanliness and order exists there. Please tell me my dream of living in at least one asian city that knows how to pick up trash and not let animal poop just lay around is real.

pwetty pwease. pwetty pwetty pwease.

[lensman]

Yes it�s true. They are a nation of Obsessive Compulsives.


It sounds like you will fit in very well.

[Glenski]

Uh, it ain't so.

Plenty of open burning going on even in the streets of Tokyo. Garbage may rest under netting, but it hardly protects it from attacks by crows. Spring uncovers a lot of stuff people have thrown away to hide in the snow. People avoid paying for removal of TVs, air conditioners, fridges, tires, etc. by "hiding" them in alleys and various streets. Offices may have shopping bags and cardboard boxes stuffed with paperwork in the locker rooms and other areas to collect dust or block fire escapes.

It's not a pig sty here. Shopkeepers hose down walks in front of their shops. Practically everything is triple-wrapped (THERE'S OCD for ya!). But, it could be better.

[cornishmuppet]

It might not be Singapore (prescriptions required for chewing gum...!) but its the cleanest place I've ever been to or lived in. Glenski obviously has high standards but Korea sounds a bit like where I lived in Italy. After the rains all the street's dog cr&p got washed into a big chunk and then dried hard, right outside my door. Wasn't enjoying that.

[Ryu Hayabusa]

I live in a small town now, but when I was living in Osaka I was always a little surprised when people said that Osaka was dirty. I lived in Seoul for a year before moving back to Canada and then to Japan. Comparing Korea to Japan by comparing Seoul to Osaka is valid. Straight-up, Japan is way cleaner than Korea. The biggest things that I notice are that people hose down their front sidewalks and front areas and that people don't throw their trash away onto the streets and stuff. Korea and Japan are similar in that there are never enough garbage bins or recycling boxes but the difference is that in Korea, there were garbage piles on many a street corner that people would add to and not think anything of it. I added to them, too. It was actually quite liberating to throw away my trash like that. Terrible for the environment, though.

I wish I could find a happy medium between Korea and Japan. Here in my town, I have to separate all of my trash into many different bags. It takes a long time and I hate it. It's good for the environment but, back in Canada, my tax dollars went towards paying other people to sort through trash. I would gladly pay for that service here. But, Japan is not Canada.

In Osaka, though, there was no recycling! Everything went straight into the trash and on its way to incineration. That, too, was very easy--but not good for the environment.

Sorry that I got off-track.

[pastis]

Yeah Tokyo is much cleaner than Seoul. But then Seoul is a dump, so that's not exactly saying much... Either way, I can't think of a cleaner megalopolis in the world than Tokyo. Still got the unavoidable smog (not so bad though), but no piles of rotting trash and excrement.

[Apsara]

[Vince]

[fhsieh]

It's funny: the first time I went to Tokyo I was amazed at how clean the city was compared to New York City (where I had been living at the time).

Then a couple years later a friend who had studied at Waseda (and thus been around Tokyo) came to visit NYC and remarked at how clean NYC was compared to Tokyo.

So I guess it really depends on what you're used to vs what you notice. In NYC it's impossible to ignore all kinds of trash that gets tossed onto the streets; in Tokyo, it's pretty hard to go anywhere without following someone's trail of cigarette smoke.

[wayne432]

As fhsieh said, it all depends on where you look and what you're looking for.

[BobbyBan]

Japanese cities such as Osaka and Tokyo are pretty clean compared to almost any other city in the world of their size. Smaller cities tend to be even neater and garbage doesn't get left lying around for very long. It might be true that the youth of today are tend more and more to litterbuggery but that is the kind of lament you'll hear from any old fogey anywhere in the world.

Compared to Seoul, I think Osaka is very clean. There are still a lot of cigaratte butts to be found on the ground but this is starting to become much more socially unacceptable here. The garbage collection system is, I think, more efficient than that in Seoul. When I went to Seoul I did occasionally run into the large piles of stinking rubbish that you mention but you won't find the same in Osaka, or at least, it doesn't seem to hang around long.

I don't know quite how much of a neatfreak you are but unless you are a very severe case then you shouldn't worry.

* The only thing I would be careful of is if you have any problems with skin allergies etc... as the air in places like Osaka is somewhat notorious for exacerbating things such as exzema and other skin problems.

[seklarwia]

I had heard that spitting was the main problem here, but I haven't really noticed it at all. I suppose that after living in the factory of the world that is China, where spitting really is the national sport (Can't blame them with that pollution...Unless you have lived in a place like Zhejiang, you don't know what real smog is), Japan is quite close to paradise.

Around my neighbourhood the crows are not really a problem. My area is very strict about only putting out rubbish between 6.30 and 7.30 on the collection day so the rubbish is simply not there long enough for the crows to make any serious mess. My neighbours have told me that the monkeys will become the real nuisance when they start coming down from the mountain.

[Conor_Ire]

I've lived with Koreans and Japanese.


And Japanese are cleaner! (to put it lightly!)

Hands down!

No quams about it.

[Conor_Ire]

[eIn0791207912]