A different way of life

'What do you mean people don't steal things in Tokyo?'

I was talking to my mother on the phone a few nights ago when I told her I had just bought a bike.

'But where do you park it?' she asked, concerned.

'Oh, I just leave it downstairs in the apartment complex with the other bikes.'

'What do you mean you just leave it downstairs? What if someone steals it?' she asked.

'People don't do that kind of thing here!'





The picture above perfectly demonstrates the amazingly high level of safety in Tokyo. This 'salaryman', as he is called in Japan, was fast asleep on the sidewalk, outside of Tokyo station, at 4.30 in the morning. Most likely he was out drinking with his co-workers, as is the norm here, and like me, had missed his train home. I had gone with my drinking buddies to an all-night all-you-can-drink karaoke place to kill a few hours. But this salaryman, exhausted and drunk, simply lay down outside the station gate, put a book over his face, and took a snooze until the trains opened at 5 am.

A drunk man sleeping on the sidewalk might not seem like an incredible thing to you. But just take a second to think about what this picture signifies. Imagine that in a big city like Tokyo, at 4.30 am, a salaryman, who probably has a lot of money in his wallet, can lay down, alone, drunk and defenseless, and not a soul will touch him. Nobody will take his wallet, nobody will steal his shoes, nobody will take the gold watch off of his wrist, nobody will gently lift his drunken, sweaty head and nab his briefcase.

It truly is a different way of life in Japan. I'm slowly starting to let my paranoia and distrust of the general public subside. But the concept of public trust is quite new to me. The concept that you simply don't have to worry. That you can accidentally leave your umbrella outside of a store for an entire day, and when you return that evening, you can bet your last dollar that it will be exactly where you left it. People often park thier bike outside of a store with bags and other belongings in the front basket, and nobody touches anything. Imagine that! In Trinidad if you only blink twice someone will steal the chain from off your neck.

But people simply don't do that kind of thing here.

Bizarre, isn't it?