To start off I want to apologize for the long gap between post as time has been hard to come by. That being said here it is.
During my time in Japan, as one would expect, I was constantly shocked by the cultural differences between the U.S and Japan. Though there are dozens to choose from, the culture regarding trash had to have been the most surprising. Here in America, Hawaii included, it isn’t out of the norm to see trash littering the roads and public spaces. Wherever I go, I could expect to find some form of trash, but in Japan, the opposite maybe true. During my stay in Hakodate, despite traveling to nearly every subdivision, I was shocked to find that the streets were regularly pristine or at the very least free of all trash. On top of that, one could walk miles through Hakodate and never find a trash can. “How do they do it?”, I asked myself and after a particularly surprising event I got my answer.
Approximately five weeks into the program, my host family decided that we should drive about 45 minutes north from our home to attend a festival at a park called Onuma (O- Big/Great, Numa-pond). There I had my first experience at a lively Japanese Summer festival filled with food vendors serving everything from Octopus legs, yakitori and frozen strawberries with condensed milk. It was amazing and to finish the night off there was a beautiful firework show. Despite all that however, two thoughts stuck in my mind more so than any of that delicious food did and they were “Where are the trashcans?” and “Wow, this place is spotless”.
After devouring my delicious festival food, I was stuck with the conundrum of what to do with my trash but despite searching for over half an hour, I could not find a single trash can at the festival with at least 1,000 people. Upon returning to my host family however, I learned that in Japan there really aren’t very many trashcans at festivals, instead, most Japanese people simply pack their trash up and bring it home to dispose of it. At first I was in disbelief but as the festival ended and the hordes of people packed up to return home, I was met with a park that looked just as good as the time I had been there previously. It truly was a sight to be seen. But then I finalized realized why that was possible. On the way back to the car, a man ahead of us dropped a little piece of paper, not thinking much of it, I was just about to walk past it when I heard my 6 year old host brother cry out “まま、ゴミはだめだよ” (Mama, Trash is bad). Then without any hesitation, he preceded to pick up the trash and put it in our family’s trash bag. Needless to say, I was shocked but most of all impressed.
Returning to our house, I brought it up with my host mom who explained to me that from a young age, Japanese kids are taught that trash is bad and that if you are going to make trash you need to be responsible for it too. Though I would say that the same lesson is taught here in the U.S, we don’t seem to take it as seriously and in that respect I think we have a lot to learn from the Japanese and their Trash Culture.
On a final note, to stress how rare trashcans are in Hakodate, here is a picture I felt obligated to take at a different festival of me and one of the only trashcans I have ever seen in Hakodate.
