Japan is smokers’ heaven.
Tokyo is hell for any person who likes breathing!
But smokers are slowly changing.

In Brazil they have really good warnings on the cigarette packs telling male smokers if they smoke they won’t be able to get an errection!

The reason some areas are clean is related to that. Shopkeepers clean up in front of their shops. It’s only in the areas where no one is directly responsible that things pile up. It’s a direct reflection of the whole culture in regards to only acting ethically when you feel responsible to do so or feel you will be judged or caught if you do not do so.

There is a lot less of an “internal moral compass” in the Japanese culture because they don’t have the same concept of morality. That’s not to say they lack morality. It simply works in a different way. The same person who would blithely toss an empty coffee can in your bicycle basket because you’re not around to see it might decide not to eat a candy bar on the train while sitting next to you because he worries that it may disturb you to hear the wrapper crinkle. An American with his moral compass may feel littering is wrong and not do it under any circumtances but might not worry about making noise and irritating you in a public place because he feels its his right to do whatever he wants as long as it’s not illegal or directly putting you out.

Apart from on the train platforms themselves, it’s very hard to find seating in any shopping mall, or public area. Most of the time you have to end up sitting on the concrete edging around a fountain etc.

Sometimes you just want to sit down without having to squat or sit on the filty floor! Perhaps the lack of benches is to stop homeless people sleeping on them?

Just don’t park your mamachari near a pedestrian crossing or you’ll come back to find your basket overflowing with rubbish.

Actually I saw someone park their motor scooter near a pedestrian crossing in Shibuya and people had jammed rubbish into every single nook & cranny of it!

The biggest problem I find is there are numerous bins for plastic bottles, but there are hardly ever just plain old garbage bins! I get tired of walking around with trash in my pocket all day.

Compared to other cities though, such as Detroit, I would still eat off the streets of Tokyo if forced. (Detroit makes me want to shower the second I leave my hotel room)

P.s. I’m not expert about English if I wrote wrong I really sorry.

And that brings me to the question of why there are so few litterbins in Japan. Was it already like that before the sarin attack?

But then these days litterbins had become quite extinct in Singapore train stations too for fear of terroism….so I can appreciate the feeling -_-”

I love the Japanese attention to detail, beauty, and cleanliness. If I was Japanese and saw any gaijin throwing trash in the streets I would berate them to no end. No wonder they have a view of the ‘dirty foreigners’. Frankly I don’t blame the Japanese for wanting to keep Japan closed - they don’t want people coming in and trashing up the place when they go to such lengths to keep it clean.