The order

It's been a while since I noted the things that happened in Japan, and it's certainly not because of the lack of interesting occasions but of negligence.

One thing that really kept astonishing me over the past few months has been the strict order/harmony/obedience to ethics and rules in Japan. Even though it is now well known to me that Japanese in general are quite orderly and well behaved in public places, they still manage to surprise me once in a while.

In January I was at the Kansai airport for a flight to China. I was sitting close to a group of drunken Japanese business men. Some of these men were seriously pissed, barely managing to walk straight when they tried. Even so, after they had their little party in front of the boarding gate, they still did not forget to clean up, recycling all the beer bottles and disposing all the remaining garbage. I was surprised that what most of the sober people in other countries "forget" to do, was carried out neatly by these guys. It reminded me of the time I spent at a camp with a group of 200 gentlemen who had the right to be there because of their high level of "education". I used to watch them litter every little patch they move past.

Another incident that surprised me was the sight of an unattended booth in a deserted location up a touristic mountain village. The booth had bags of tea, a money box, and a sign saying that a bag of tea for 100 yen.