The biggest flex about Japan is going to Shibuya or Shinjuku at 3-4 am and seeing how trashed it looks. But by 6 am? It’s clean again. Those cleaners are superhero’s.
I couldn’t get over how public restrooms were pretty clean in Tokyo, and how people just…didn’t litter (other than the bar scene areas like Shibuya).
We’re disgusting in America. Also people don’t lock their bikes, aren’t afraid to leave their stuff on tables in cafes, etc. they are so trusting because people just don’t break the trust. In America that shit would be stolen in a heartbeat.
Don’t worry USA, the UK is just as bad.
Eh, def depends on the areas. Some parts of Tokyo like Kabukicho or the seedier areas can look “filthy and disgusting” if you’re walking around at night, but it’s usually gone by the morning. I would’ve brought up how filthy n disgusting the way we treat women n mental health is though.
Why were people laughing at this? There was absolutely nothing funny about anything he said. He was just describing his trip.
Also, I hate the patronizing term “the entire country is like Disneyland”, like it’s some kind of playground because it’s “kept so nice”. Anyway, Jimmy Kimmel sucks.
What he says is true — but does he realize his political stances further result in this?
Man, don’t give Fox clicks. Just link to the video on YouTube.
Japan is probably one of the only places where you can have bidets in every convenience store toilet. Would have been trashed in days in the US.
I’ve noticed during my trips there that the “main street” is clean and free of graffiti but once you go down a side road it gets much dirtier. I had a laugh explaining to my Japanese friend how dirty and full of graffiti our trains are and he was horrified. Simple things like I’ve never seen people litter but here in Sydney people will literally drop rubbish on the ground as they walk along, and if you ask them not to do that they get huffy, abusive, and in some cases, violent.
When Americans find out there are other countries in the world…
Don’t worry the Philippines is worst than the US. We even have garbage politicians!
They never ask the question why Japan is orderly and clean
He’s right. I’m from the U.K. and have lived in Japan, and recently travelled to NYC. Japan is *far* cleaner than both the U.K. and NYC, and I was baffled when a Japanese student of mine said Tokyo is dirty! Shinjuku and Shibuya can be dirty at night, but those are exceptions and are cleaned extremely well by morning. Japan’s cleanliness is one of my favourite things about the country 🇯🇵
Japan is super clean yes and there’s no real negative side to this. Or at least not sufficiently negative to suggest dirty streets are a better option. Sure, there’s the insane social pressure in Japan, but that’s not the main reason the streets are clean. The Japanese are taught very early on to respect public property. Kids have to clean their own classroom, participate to cleaning the school and serve meals at lunch. They are trusted with being good citizen from a very young age and it pays off.
In Europe, kids are either told they are too good to do menial tasks or, conversely, that they can’t be trusted with them. It results in selfish adults who can’t process that something that is beneficial to everyone is especially beneficial to themselves. Nah, let’s destroy public property and pretend nothing happened.
Having been to a lot of other counties, America isn’t overly dirty. It’s just that Japan is so clean and safe. It’s the outlier.
The USA is a dumpster nowadays and Europe too lol
Yeah I am always appalled at the breakdown of society and overall decency in the US. Makes me consider expat life a lot.
Fox News is an odd source for this.
It was so hard to get used to the litter when we returned to Australia. Rubbish everywhere, especially on the trains and streets, compared to Japan, and just general grime everywhere. Hadn’t noticed it much before our trip to Japan then as soon as we got off the plane at Sydney we went into the toilets and the state of them shocked me. Even the air felt cleaner in Japan somehow.
i’ve seen this posted 3 or 4 times now with the same shock headline, but man’s right. i’ve been to so many US cities that straight up smell like shit. like portland smells like human shit. fuck even Fargo smells like piss. the US is gross as hell.
Pokémon opened a Pokémon centre in New York but later closed it as it didn’t meet the cleanliness and efficiency standards expected of a Pokémon centre
> There’s no litter. People carry their own trash. There are no garbage cans in Tokyo,” he said. “30 years ago, some terrorists put a poisonous gas in some trash cans. They’re like, ‘Okay, no more trash cans. Everybody clean up after yourselves,’ And guess what? They clean up after themselves. They bring their garbage to their houses.”
This is the part where he’s wrong. People shove garbage in bushes (I’ve seen it first hand) when they don’t feel like hauling it to the nearest bin.
He should’ve focused on the “Japan takes pride in sanitation and therefore devotes ample resources (e.g. early morning sanitation squads) to maintaining public spaces” angle, not that “Japanese people don’t litter” angle. Both because 1. anybody who has been in any part of Tokyo before first train has seen what drunk Japanese people really do with their trash (and dinner 🤢) and 2. Because by othering and orientalizing Japanese people as uniquely (implicitly ethnically) clean, he’s made it impossible to address the problems of sanitation infrastructure in the US. “We’re just not like that” being the excuse. (“It’s too heterogenous here” being the angle Fox News would likely take.)
Absolutely hilarious that Fox News, of all media, chose to run this story. If any city talked about using more tax dollars for custodial services rather than cops, they’d be rabidly against it, but here they are complaining about how filthy the US is. Obviously they have a different angle on who is to blame.
He should go to Nishinari
Smaller cities and prefectures in Japan are clean. Tokyo and Osaka are still filthy
Just got back from a month stay in Japan. Completely agree with Jimmy.
I travel to Japan a few times a year for work, and while I love to return home to my family, there’s a tinge of disappointment as I exit the plane knowing the environment I’m about to walk into.
One thing I noted about my time in Japan. Never have I been able to understand how a place with so few public trash cans have so little litter.
It’s because they instill the importance of cleaning from elementary.
Kids clean the schools. That teaches people to be concerned. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s everyone’s.
We could do that here. But too many parents don’t want their wonder angel beauty children to have to clean.
While that’s cute and all, I’m on my third trip to Japan and there are certainly dirty areas and ethical/moral standards which rival the USA. It’s not all cherry blossoms here. There is still dark shit if you have open eyes. However I think the point he is making is valid, on the whole there is a concerted effort to better oneself and locale. Sure there are dirty areas but I would think the Japanese society vibe is – what can we do, whereas the American vibe – is fuck that, not my problem. Dare I say the socialistic part of Japan overrides the hyper capitalism also prevent here. We can actually have it both ways.
So he had the normal experience that everyone has when they travel from Japan to the US. Also, the customers service is bad.
I’ve never in Japan, and reading other people comments, even when some places might be “dirtier”, I bet those places are still cleaner than most of other places in the world. That should say enough.
Recently traveled to Vietnam. I wish we could export that Japanese cleanliness everywhere!
He should come to Berlin, then go back to the US and do the inverse speech.
When i was in Japan last year what really struck me was a lack of garbage cans. They are around the city but not as prevalent as they are hear.
People take their garbage home with them as it’s not societies job to clean up after you.
Personal responsibility is off the charts in Japan.
I had the opportunity to go to Japan last year. It was incredible. People were respectful, it was so clean, theft wasn’t really an issue. Then I came back to California and was upset about how shitty we all treat everything around us
The dirty parts of Japan are where people aren’t looking. Check along busy “rural” roads for cans and bottles thrown from windows. Look around a major bridge and see the thousands of bottles and tossed bags of trash.
Japan does a lot of cleaning great. But the quiet places that avoid notice don’t get attention.
He is not wrong.
Being better than the US is like beating a 5 year old toddler in basketball 😂
I left Japan 2 years ago to return to the US. Miyazaki airport? Clean. Haneda? Superb.
39 comments
The biggest flex about Japan is going to Shibuya or Shinjuku at 3-4 am and seeing how trashed it looks. But by 6 am? It’s clean again. Those cleaners are superhero’s.
I couldn’t get over how public restrooms were pretty clean in Tokyo, and how people just…didn’t litter (other than the bar scene areas like Shibuya).
We’re disgusting in America. Also people don’t lock their bikes, aren’t afraid to leave their stuff on tables in cafes, etc. they are so trusting because people just don’t break the trust. In America that shit would be stolen in a heartbeat.
Don’t worry USA, the UK is just as bad.
Eh, def depends on the areas. Some parts of Tokyo like Kabukicho or the seedier areas can look “filthy and disgusting” if you’re walking around at night, but it’s usually gone by the morning. I would’ve brought up how filthy n disgusting the way we treat women n mental health is though.
Why were people laughing at this? There was absolutely nothing funny about anything he said. He was just describing his trip.
Also, I hate the patronizing term “the entire country is like Disneyland”, like it’s some kind of playground because it’s “kept so nice”.
Anyway, Jimmy Kimmel sucks.
What he says is true — but does he realize his political stances further result in this?
Man, don’t give Fox clicks. Just link to the video on YouTube.
Japan is probably one of the only places where you can have bidets in every convenience store toilet. Would have been trashed in days in the US.
I’ve noticed during my trips there that the “main street” is clean and free of graffiti but once you go down a side road it gets much dirtier. I had a laugh explaining to my Japanese friend how dirty and full of graffiti our trains are and he was horrified. Simple things like I’ve never seen people litter but here in Sydney people will literally drop rubbish on the ground as they walk along, and if you ask them not to do that they get huffy, abusive, and in some cases, violent.
When Americans find out there are other countries in the world…
Don’t worry the Philippines is worst than the US. We even have garbage politicians!
They never ask the question why Japan is orderly and clean
He’s right. I’m from the U.K. and have lived in Japan, and recently travelled to NYC. Japan is *far* cleaner than both the U.K. and NYC, and I was baffled when a Japanese student of mine said Tokyo is dirty! Shinjuku and Shibuya can be dirty at night, but those are exceptions and are cleaned extremely well by morning. Japan’s cleanliness is one of my favourite things about the country 🇯🇵
Japan is super clean yes and there’s no real negative side to this. Or at least not sufficiently negative to suggest dirty streets are a better option. Sure, there’s the insane social pressure in Japan, but that’s not the main reason the streets are clean. The Japanese are taught very early on to respect public property. Kids have to clean their own classroom, participate to cleaning the school and serve meals at lunch. They are trusted with being good citizen from a very young age and it pays off.
In Europe, kids are either told they are too good to do menial tasks or, conversely, that they can’t be trusted with them. It results in selfish adults who can’t process that something that is beneficial to everyone is especially beneficial to themselves. Nah, let’s destroy public property and pretend nothing happened.
Having been to a lot of other counties, America isn’t overly dirty. It’s just that Japan is so clean and safe. It’s the outlier.
The USA is a dumpster nowadays and Europe too lol
Yeah I am always appalled at the breakdown of society and overall decency in the US. Makes me consider expat life a lot.
Fox News is an odd source for this.
It was so hard to get used to the litter when we returned to Australia. Rubbish everywhere, especially on the trains and streets, compared to Japan, and just general grime everywhere. Hadn’t noticed it much before our trip to Japan then as soon as we got off the plane at Sydney we went into the toilets and the state of them shocked me. Even the air felt cleaner in Japan somehow.
i’ve seen this posted 3 or 4 times now with the same shock headline, but man’s right. i’ve been to so many US cities that straight up smell like shit. like portland smells like human shit. fuck even Fargo smells like piss. the US is gross as hell.
Pokémon opened a Pokémon centre in New York but later closed it as it didn’t meet the cleanliness and efficiency standards expected of a Pokémon centre
> There’s no litter. People carry their own trash. There are no garbage cans in Tokyo,” he said. “30 years ago, some terrorists put a poisonous gas in some trash cans. They’re like, ‘Okay, no more trash cans. Everybody clean up after yourselves,’ And guess what? They clean up after themselves. They bring their garbage to their houses.”
This is the part where he’s wrong. People shove garbage in bushes (I’ve seen it first hand) when they don’t feel like hauling it to the nearest bin.
He should’ve focused on the “Japan takes pride in sanitation and therefore devotes ample resources (e.g. early morning sanitation squads) to maintaining public spaces” angle, not that “Japanese people don’t litter” angle. Both because 1. anybody who has been in any part of Tokyo before first train has seen what drunk Japanese people really do with their trash (and dinner 🤢) and 2. Because by othering and orientalizing Japanese people as uniquely (implicitly ethnically) clean, he’s made it impossible to address the problems of sanitation infrastructure in the US. “We’re just not like that” being the excuse. (“It’s too heterogenous here” being the angle Fox News would likely take.)
Absolutely hilarious that Fox News, of all media, chose to run this story. If any city talked about using more tax dollars for custodial services rather than cops, they’d be rabidly against it, but here they are complaining about how filthy the US is. Obviously they have a different angle on who is to blame.
He should go to Nishinari
Smaller cities and prefectures in Japan are clean. Tokyo and Osaka are still filthy
Just got back from a month stay in Japan. Completely agree with Jimmy.
I travel to Japan a few times a year for work, and while I love to return home to my family, there’s a tinge of disappointment as I exit the plane knowing the environment I’m about to walk into.
One thing I noted about my time in Japan. Never have I been able to understand how a place with so few public trash cans have so little litter.
It’s because they instill the importance of cleaning from elementary.
Kids clean the schools. That teaches people to be concerned. It’s not someone else’s problem. It’s everyone’s.
We could do that here. But too many parents don’t want their wonder angel beauty children to have to clean.
While that’s cute and all, I’m on my third trip to Japan and there are certainly dirty areas and ethical/moral standards which rival the USA. It’s not all cherry blossoms here. There is still dark shit if you have open eyes. However I think the point he is making is valid, on the whole there is a concerted effort to better oneself and locale. Sure there are dirty areas but I would think the Japanese society vibe is – what can we do, whereas the American vibe – is fuck that, not my problem. Dare I say the socialistic part of Japan overrides the hyper capitalism also prevent here. We can actually have it both ways.
So he had the normal experience that everyone has when they travel from Japan to the US. Also, the customers service is bad.
I’ve never in Japan, and reading other people comments, even when some places might be “dirtier”, I bet those places are still cleaner than most of other places in the world. That should say enough.
Recently traveled to Vietnam. I wish we could export that Japanese cleanliness everywhere!
He should come to Berlin, then go back to the US and do the inverse speech.
When i was in Japan last year what really struck me was a lack of garbage cans. They are around the city but not as prevalent as they are hear.
People take their garbage home with them as it’s not societies job to clean up after you.
Personal responsibility is off the charts in Japan.
I had the opportunity to go to Japan last year. It was incredible. People were respectful, it was so clean, theft wasn’t really an issue. Then I came back to California and was upset about how shitty we all treat everything around us
The dirty parts of Japan are where people aren’t looking. Check along busy “rural” roads for cans and bottles thrown from windows. Look around a major bridge and see the thousands of bottles and tossed bags of trash.
Japan does a lot of cleaning great. But the quiet places that avoid notice don’t get attention.
He is not wrong.
Being better than the US is like beating a 5 year old toddler in basketball 😂
I left Japan 2 years ago to return to the US. Miyazaki airport? Clean. Haneda? Superb.
SEATAC and JFK? Filthy.