Does anybody else feels that this whole idea that Japan and Japanese people are very clean is kind of a lie, or at least a misrepresentation?
I worked kitchens when I was a university student and the stuff I saw, even working at a fancy izakaya was a shock, there is 0 food safety or hygiene culture in the food industry here (probably because everyone is on baito and don’t give a fuck).
Then you have all these people that will swipe the front of their houses every morning, but live in a hoarder’s nest full of cockroaches. The classic oyaji 10s rinse before jumping into the onsen, or the phantom hand wash after bathroom (just move your hand under the sink for a millisecond and it will automatically get clean, Nippon Sugoi!)
Not to mention the weird obsession with separating trash and recycling and having no trash bins but generating a huge amount of utterly pointless trash from all the extra packaging that everything has. Wouldn’t it be much more “eco” to actually not create the trash in the first place?
Fuck, I’m just pissed because some colleague was surprised when I casually mentioned I showered every day, sometimes twice, dropping something like “Wow, you are like Japanese person! I didn’t know foreigner like to shower!”.
Fuck off Tanaka, cleanliness here seems to be mostly performative like every social habit. It’s all tatemae, always has been.
EDIT: Just to clarify, I know public spaces tend to be much cleaner than the average country, I’m talking more about how shocking the contrast between those clean exteriors and the reality of private spaces and habits can be.
by ppp–