These trees have a story to tell. Japan has its share of troubles, but one of them isn't vandalism nor is it random criminality like it seems is so frequent in the USA or other European and some Asian nations. Japan is well known for a very low crime rate. It is astounding especially when you consider that in Tokyo, a city of over 65 million people, that crime is so low.
I could run all sorts of statistics about crime in Japan compared to other countries but those are plentiful. Today, I'd like to give you some anecdotal evidence of how safe Japan is by showing you some trees.
There is an old guy who has several dozen Bonsai trees outside of his house and next to a big apartment building just 30 seconds walk from Yoga Station. Yoga is in Setagaya-ku in Tokyo and is about 10 minutes ride from Shibuya station. So we are talking about a big city here folks.
He has all his trees lined up outside where people can walk by and touch them.
Nobody steals them. Nobody knocks them over in a spate of vandalism.
These beautiful trees just sit there and bring some nature into the lives of people crammed into the big city.
It's nice to see these trees. It's nice the old guy takes care of them and allows them to brighten our days.
Their existence outside is a testament to the peacefulness of Japan and low crime rate. I think they speak volumes about what kind of a society Japan is.... Much better than crime statistics ever could.
You read that headline correctly. In Japan, last night on the headlines of the world's biggest newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun; a newspaper that was established in 1874 - that has over 13.5 million newspapers delivered daily, ran a Headline News story read about a 44-year-old man who stole some Valentine's Day chocolate because, "He wanted some." Saints preserve us! Is this the beginning of some kind of out-of-control criminal crime wave sweeping the nation?
Yes. They have Hershey Kisses in Japan!
(And on Valentine's Day in Japan,
the girls give the guys the chocolate - NOT the other way around!)
Now, this isn't just a story about why Japan blows away most of the rest of the world when it comes to a lack of crime, it also is a story about the general psyche of people in this country. But first, here's a quick and simple translation of the story: The Yomiuri Shimbun headlines read; "Man claims, after stealing chocolate, 'I wanted some.'" On the 16th of this month, police in Sendai in Miyagi prefecture arrested a 44-year-old unemployed man on suspicion of theft. According to the police statement, at about 2:40 am on that day, the suspect was in Miyagino City in the vicinity of an apartment where a 31-year-old civil servant lived and saw some Valentine's Day chocolate and other items in a vinyl bag hanging from the handlebars of the bicycle owned by that civil servant. The chocolate had a value of ¥550 (about $5.93 USD). When the suspect took the chocolate, the 31-year-old civil servant gave chase and subdued the suspect. Upon being asked why he stole the chocolate, the suspect was quoted as saying (testifying), "I wanted some chocolate!" Feb. 17, 2013, Yomiuri Shimbun
The online edition of this story
Now, people are often asking why Japan I think is a much better place to live than, say, the United States and it's often difficult to point out specifics as to why. But when it comes to crime, Japan is miles away safer than just about any western country in the world. I never have to worry about my wife or daughters going out at night. But this little anecdote about the chocolate also shows us a glimpse of something very important about the Japanese psyche that is difficult to put a finger on. This story shows what the level of crime is in this country and what people think about crime in general. From my westerner perspective, that this sort of story could even hit the newspapers is amazing; and we're not talking about some local newspaper here! We are talking about a national newspaper in a country of 130 million people that has a circulation of 13.5 million copies daily! This sort of crime would never make any major newspaper in the USA... I think even local newspapers wouldn't run this! Also, one more thing about the Japanese... And this too is an intangible, but this article points to it. The Japanese are generally shy and humble people... Where I come from, Los Angeles, I hear it is a badge of honor for head bangers to get arrested and have a criminal record. Not in Japan. In Japan, a criminal record is a shameful thing. Shameful for that person and very shameful for the family. I think when most Japanese hear this story they think, "Stealing is a crime and that's bad! He should never do that!" The Japanese pretty much have a zero-tolerance for this sort of thing... Of course that 31-year-old guy wouldn't let the old thief slide. Theft is theft in this country and a shameful act; it must be dealt with properly. I think, "Poor guy." Heck, if that were my chocolate and he stole it (and I chased him - which I probably wouldn't do) and caught him and he meekly said, "I just wanted some chocolate..." I probably would have felt sorry for the guy and gave him the chocolate... Heck, I probably would have bought him some cigarettes and a beer too... After that? Who knows? If he were even luckier, maybe I would even have given him a Valentine's Day wink and a kiss too! Poor guy indeed.
Japan is a very peaceful country. Ask the Japanese, ask anyone who has ever been here. The Japanese will tell you, "日本は平和な国" ("Nihon wa heiwa na kuni" - Japan is a peaceful country). It is. Japan is an extremely peaceful country. In the west you constantly have news about grotesque crimes, murders, bombings and wars, in Japan? News about ducks crossing a road in downtown Tokyo.
The crimes that hit the news sources in Japan are completely out of this world when compared to the crimes that hit the news compared to, say, the United States. In the USA, the news is about riots, police brutality, government spying on citizens, Americans losing their freedoms, white collar crimes and idiocy about what kind of fashions movie stars are wearing.
Ducks crossing busy streets in the world's most crowded city,
Tokyo, was big news for several years in Japan.
Photo from NTV - Channel 4 Nihon TV (Japan TV) Network
In the USA, there are roughly 17,000 murders per year. Japan, with roughly half the population of the USA has about 1,000 murders a year... Many of those murders are murder suicides so it is not exactly an apples to apple comparison. If there is a murder in the USA, it doesn't even hit the news unless the victim is a famous person or the relative of a famous person. In Japan, a murder usually becomes big news all over the TV and news networks for weeks after the incident.
The comparison of US news and Japan's news shows two countries that are as different as night and day. Here's things I skimmed from Yahoo news just now.
Okay. Yeah, that cops beating people up story has been going on for a long time. It's winter now, just wait until it warms up again and then we'll start seeing more of this. Hillary Clinton's fashion? Ugh. The only thing worse than kissing Hillary Clinton would be to kiss Imelda Marcos. Who cares what her fashion is? Why are Americans so concerned with what people are wearing? Teen rapes 5-year-old? At a McDonald's? WTF!? Priests rape kids? Same old, same old... Murder says angel that told him to do it looks like Olivia Newton John? Well aren't all angels beautiful like Farrah Fawcet or Olivia Neutron Bomb?
A dead shark found in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park has sparked an investigation into who brought it there, an officer at Yoyogi Police Station said Monday.
A park security guard called the police at 7 a.m. Sunday after finding the shark, which was covered by a blue tarp and measured about 1½ meters long, the police said.
The shark had been gutted and was found near a parking lot for bicycles near one of the entrances leading to JR Shibuya Station.
"The shark was not rotten, so I guess someone left the shark not so long ago," Hiroshi Okano, a deputy chief at Yoyogi Police Station, told The Japan Times by telephone. He said the police station is keeping its carcass at a storage facility there.
Okano wouldn't disclose any other details because the matter is still under investigation as an illegal dumping case.
On Twitter, dozens of posts from Feb. 14 to early on Feb. 15 said a shark was being exhibited in front of a sushi restaurant in Shibuya. The tweets later said someone had taken it away.
Only in Japan! And, actually, this is a pretty big story here in Japan. So what the deal is was is it seems that this shark was on display in front of a sushi shop. The sushi shops claims that some dumb gaijin (foreigner) told the sushi shop that we was an artist and wanted the shark to use to create some artwork. So, the sushi shops gave it to him. They say he must have dumped the shark in the park...
Uh, huh... Riiiiiiiight. Now, pun intended, but that story sounds really fishy! I don't believe that for a minute and it seems that the police don't either. It also strikes me as odd that the supposed perpetrator of this heinous crime is, of course, the unknown and shady foreigner...
Now, we all know that all foreigners in Japan are criminals, crack-addicts, sun-glass wearing untrustworthy, despicable characters (present company excluded)... But I don't know too many who have a hankering to be walking around carrying a 1.5 meter long shark under their arm... Also, considering that all artists (and musicians) are dirt poor, how is this artist going to get this shark home? On the train? And to think that a sushi shop is going to pay several hundred dollars for a fish (yeah, yeah, I know a shark isn't a fish) then just give it away to some guy walking up the street is a bit too much to believe.
Let me just say, "I don't think so."
I seems that the police don't believe this story either and are "grilling" (pun intended) the people from the sushi shop. It seems obvious to me that they had this huge shark that they didn't know what to do with and some Einstein there decided to dump it in the park and blame it on the scummy foreigners...
Heck, that's what any thinking person would do!
Well, that's the sort of thing that hits the news in Japan.
Ok. Maybe I would call the police... Or at least the the Coast Guard or the navy!
The other thing about this that really surprises me is that the park attendant, upon finding the shark, would actually bother to call the police? Really? If it were me, I'd just get a big trash bag and throw it out on trash day. The other thing is that the police would actually bother with this. Do the police in Japan actually have so much free time that they'd launch and investigation as to where this shark came from?
Don't those police clowns have any real criminals to catch? No they don't... They only have traffic tickets to give out and sushi to eat, in between raiding prostitution parlors andarresting S&M dominatrix queens.
Nihon wa heiwa na kuni. Japan is a peaceful country. (With the police wasting our tax money).
In an executive order that went out on Monday, US president Obama declared a national emergency in order so that the USA could fight the Yakuza.
LUPIN THE THIRD
Japan's most famous cartoon Yakuza
Obama said, "These organizations facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts and increasingly facilitate the activities of other dangerous persons. " Ha! Ha! Ha! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
On July 24th, President Barack Obama declared war on the yakuza (ヤクザ）aka The Japanese mafia, in an executive order which stated that “(the yakuza) are becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous to the United States; they are increasingly entrenched in the operations of foreign governments and the international financial system, thereby weakening democratic institutions, degrading the rule of law, and undermining economic markets. These organizations facilitate and aggravate violent civil conflicts and increasingly facilitate the activities of other dangerous persons. I therefore determine that significant transnational criminal organizations constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”
So the USA, the world's biggest criminal organization decides that the Yakuza are a threat? Really? I'd care to debate that issue. I don't think in the entire history of the Yakuza could they have killed or robbed nearly as many people as the United States does on a daily basis.
Nope. The Yakuza could never hold a candle to the criminal institution that is the United Sates government.
It is though, cool (in a twisted sense), to see these Yakuza guys getting some foreign recognition finally. Might just increase the interest in and mystique of Japan.
By the way, I know a few Yakuza pretty well. I wrote about a very close experience with one I still see from time to time here in "Yazuka: Japan's Modern Day Cowboys".
The Yakuza have always been nice to me and very friendly. But, as my friend said about one Yakuza boss we both know well (and like), "Yeah. He is a very nice guy. The scariest ones are always the nicest ones."
Fact is, I'm meeting this Yakuza on Saturday night and will drink with him. I'll ask him what he thinks of this and maybe he'll have a funny answer.
He usually does... I mean, after all, he is a really nice guy.
The recent blogs about how bad the USA have become have really hit a nerve with some Americans. I keep getting more comments from one guy who seems like he just can't stand it when someone makes a remark like "Japan is better place to live than the USA."
This entire conversation started with an letter I received from a friend. I reprinted it in "Japan is a Much Freer and Better Place to Live Than the United States." The letter, from an ex-pat American living in Northern Japan was just a slice of life that, for me, represents how much better and safer and freer Japan is than today's USA.
PIANISTAR HIROSHI
I used the anecdotal story in the letter to say Japan was a better because Japan has much less crime and much more personal freedom than today's USA does.
This reader got upset and made some strange remark about how I always talk about facts, but had no facts to back up my claim. Gee? The statement "Japan is a Freer and Much Better place to Live than the USA" is a pretty subjective statement. Do I even need to back up subjective statements with facts?
If I say that the Beatles are better than the Rolling Stones, is it normal to be asked to show some sort of proof?
I think, like in the letter I reprinted, the fact that kids can play on the beach without adult supervision shows a very safe society without fear of crime and the ability to smoke or drink in public - while small things - and something that one cannot do in the USA anymore - are a sign of a society that shows common sense. These things are in very short supply in the USA police state. Small freedoms add up to a lot of freedom.
The first on the list, "The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe" should have ended the discussion, but it didn't.
This is an embarrassment to every American. They should be ashamed. But, once again just shows another problem with the USA; A lack of freedom of the mind.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than
those who falsely believe they are free."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Some of the other items on this list should have ended the argument too... They were: There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world. There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world. There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world. The list went on.
Anyway, for the sake of fairness (and fun) let me print this reader's letter in entirety. His comments are highlighted in yellow.
Anonymous said...
As the writer who so rankles the blogger enough to warrant a follow-up blog post,
I would like to respond that I agree that the military industrial complex, the drug war, and our privatized prison system represent detestable facts.
OK. That's a huge chunk of what life is the USA is all about nowadays. The military industrial complex is responsible for the drug wars, foreign wars, loss of freedoms (even the loss of freedom of speech)... But he wants to move on and ignore the 900-pound goriila in the room. He writes:
But so is Japan's 99% conviction rate.
It strikes me as odd that a person from a country that has so many lawyers and such massive litigation going on all the time, that they point out to anything involving the legal system. And, he is not looking at the entire picture. Japan has a high conviction rate because lawyers and the police will not go to court unless they are pretty damned sure of winning. Here's your proof of that:
J. Mark Ramseyer of Harvard Law School and Eric B. Rasmusen of Indiana University examine if the accusation is in fact warranted. In their paper ("Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate So High?") they examined two possibilities. One is that judges who come under the control of central bureaucracy are pressured to pass a guilty verdict, ensuring high conviction. Another possibility is that, given that non jury system under inquisition system has predictable ruling on guilt, prosecutors rarely ever bring a case which have even minute chance of failure.
Entire Japanese court ruling is accessible in digital format and the two academics examined every case after WWII in which the court found the defendant not guilty. The result is mixed.
...by examining the individual cases, the two academic founds that all of those cases which negatively affected judges career had political implication (such as labour law or electoral law) and that the facts of the case (i.e. the defendants committing the accused deed) itself was never in dispute. However, Judged delivered not guilty verdict on technical basis such as statute of limitation or constitutional argument, which was subsequently reversed in higher court. In cases in which the judge delivered not guilty verdict because they ruled that there are insufficient evidence to ascertain that the defendants did the accused deed, the judged suffered no negative consequence. For this reason, the paper argued that Japanese judges are politically conservative in legal interpretation but are not biased in matter of fact.
In the matter relating to Japanese prosecutor being extremely cautious, the paper found ample evidence for it. In Japan, 99.7% of case brought to court result in conviction while in U.S. it is 88%.
According to a cited research, In U.S. the 22% of federal case and 11% of state case, the accused contest the guilt while in Japan, the ratio is modestly less. The paper attribute this difference to greater predictability of the outcome in Japanese case. This is due to two reason. One is that it is judge rather than jury who determine the verdict. As judged "have seen it all before" and the lawyers on both side "have seen them seeing it" as they can read judge's previous ruling, which include written reasoning for previous verdict, the way judge think and argue is very predictable.
So is the deep control the LDP government exerts over the press.
This guy has got to be kidding me, right? Talk about people in glass houses throwing stones! Are we talking abut a guy from a country complaining that the government controls the media? A guy from the very same country that has a lap dog media that cheered the USA invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq? This point is so absurd that it is laughable. Perhaps the LDP "controls" the media? It can't be any worse than the USA whose media cheers on wars that bomb and kill hundreds of thousands of brown-skinned men, women and children 24/7. Let's not forget that the USA also has a public that gave its president a 92% approval rating while doing so.
So is the power of the bureaucracy and the corruptive, malignant influence of amakudari.
Seriously. This is another joke again, right? Never heard of Washington's revolving door? This guy complains about revolving door politics and business yet he comes from a country where a president's son becomes president 8 years after dad? Name one other country like that! Quick!
Like father, like son
So what I have a problem with is absolutist statements like "Japan is freer than the U.S."
No. He has a problem with a subjective statement like "Japan is Freer Than the United States." Even so, I stand by my subjective statement, "Japan is a freer nation and a better place to live than the USA". I've given a list of facts and data. I've even given anecdotal evidence and the guy gets difficult - and rude on top of that!
But, I know the truth is that he probably fears what I have made an opinion on is too close to home and is an ugly truth. People just don't like to admit it and they get mad at someone like me stating so. I suspect that he's had this argument with others before and is taking it out on me. The Internet is full of articles on America's loss of freedom. And, as if it really matters what I think. A good example for this guy's chip on the shoulder attitude is like a guy who buys a crap car. He knows he bought a lemon and the car is no good, but doesn't like it if you tell him that.
Why does the guy get pissy with me? I don't know. I never insulted him! Why do Americans take everything so personal and are so abusive? Do a Google search on "America is Losing Freedom" and you'll get 61 million results. Do a Google search on "America Police State" and you get 108 million results. This guy needs to wake from his slumber.
And I have serious doubts about whether your way of defining freedom are sound.
Gee. I gave an anecdotal example. The reader asked for data. I gave him that too. Japan has much lower crime, a much safer society, people live longer, universal health care, the best public transit system in the world, people have more respect for each other (say, if you drop your camera in the park, it will probably still be there a few hours later when you go looking for it), and many small personal freedoms that are not available in the USA, etc. etc.
Make no mistake about it. These above are freedoms. At the very least they are the freedom from fear and worry.
You write so much about critical thinking but I find obesity, divorce rates, and drug abuse have little to do with a society's freedom. It seems you conflate lifestyle choices with freedom, misrepresenting your argument.
This guy is confused and needs to read more and study. For one, obesity is not a "lifestyle choice." Obesity is a disease. Obesity is a prison. Does anyone in their right mind think people want to be fat? Two, drugs? Drugs are a sickness and a sort of prison too. Healthy people do not abuse drugs. America's well documented problems with over-the-counter and illegal severe drug abuse is the sign of a very sick society. Divorce is just another sign of unhappy people. Nobody wants to get a divorce either. They do it when they find that they need "out." This is caused by many factors; extra marital affairs, drug and alcohol abuse, money, etc. etc. Getting a divorce is a very expensive process it is not a "lifestyle choice." Either way, a high divorce rate is also a sign of a very ill society.
A lifestyle choice is things like how people dress, wear their hair, where they want to live... These things he mentions are not lifestyle choices by any stretch of the imagination.
It would have been much more sufficiently argumentative had you described the difference as one of quality of life rather than freedom. Linking your Lew Rockwell articles doesn't mean diddley-squat to me. I don't give a hoot who Rockwell is. The guy carries nothing in the way of legitimate scholarship as far as I'm concerned. Just another American fringe movement.
And what the hell is a "free market anarchist?" Would love to read your blog on that one.
This guy sure likes to act intelligent but he isn't well-read, is he? Not only does he need to read more, but he also needs to learn how to use Google search engine. Open Google.com. In the box type in "Free market anarchist." You will see nearly 4 million results. Gee! It's so unknown that there's even a Wikipedia page for it.
I'm sure as usual it will be extremely offensive.
Well, have a nice day to you, too my friend. The only thing offensive here is this guy's self-centered attitude. I write a statement that Japan is a freer place than the USA and mention safety and smoking and drinking in public and he calls that offensive? Someone certainly has a problem here.
This guy is the perfect example of one more thing about Japan that blows the USA away. In the USA, way too many people are very rude and argumentative. If you go to, say, a bar and state an opinion about something like politics (or some other trivial matter) if someone disagrees with you, you could get into an argument. Or worse, you could get into a fist fight. Or even shot! Americans are famous the world over for being loud, interrupting each other all the time, being argumentative and boisterous.
But, in Japan, if you state some opinion that someone disagrees with, you won't get into a fight. If I say something like, "Tokyo is a better place to live than Osaka." The typical Japanese reaction would be, "Oh?" And that would be the end of it. But not that American. He gets angry and rude. Typical.
This reader is in serious denial. Its because of people like him that the United States keeps going downhill: You can't get better until you get out of denial and face the problems truthfully.
I remember living in Southern California a long time ago and thinking, "This would be the best place to live in the world... If only there were no people."
Another good reason Japan is a better place to live: People have manners and still have respect for each other. Something that seems to have died off in far too many Americans long ago. This reader doesn't seem to have much.
I received several mails from irate Americans who just can't handle the truth about how much of a hellhole that country has become. One guy even wrote::
I find it amusing that this blogger constantly ballyhoos the importance of facts and then writes an editorial with the provocative headline above without any exercise of facts save you can smoke in restaurants and drink at the beach-- if that's your definition of freedom, then I feel sorry for you. This is black-and-white writing, emotional, if not hysterical. If you're going to be provocative at least put a little effort into it. This just feels like lazy writing. And your characterization of Japan is maudlin.
Look who is talking about being maudlin! Check the rear view mirror for knee-jerk emotional reactions, my friend. Why do I need to re-state old facts that everyone - who has been paying attention - already knows? Take off the rose-colored glasses and read on....
#1 The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest total prison population on the entire globe.
#2 According to NationMaster.com, the United States has the highest percentage of obese people in the world.
#3 The United States has the highest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.
#5 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#6 There are more car thefts in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world by far.
#7 There are more reported rapes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#8 There are more reported murders in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#9 There are more total crimes in the United States each year than anywhere else in the world.
#10 The United States also has more police officers than anywhere else in the world.
#11 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#12 The United States has more people on pharmaceutical drugs than any other country on the planet.
#13 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#16 The United States has the largest trade deficit in the world every single year. Between December 2000 and December 2010, the United States ran a total trade deficit of 6.1 trillion dollars with the rest of the world, and the U.S. has had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976.
#17 The United States spends 7 times more on the military than any other nation on the planet does. In fact, U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
#19 The United States has the most complicated tax system in the entire world.
#20 The U.S. has accumulated the biggest national debt that the world has ever seen and it is rapidly getting worse. Right now, U.S. government debt is expanding at a rate of $40,000 per second.
I'm being maudlin when I rail on what the USA has become? Ha! I'm maudlin!? These facts I have linked to above are old news. It is astounding, though, that many Americans seem blissfully unaware of them. If anyone should know these facts, the Americans should.
About that USA #1 article you published. Curiously the author didn't mention the USA as:#1 in nuke and other WMD stockpiles.
#1 in WMD sales to other countries
#1 in lawsuits and lawyers per capita and, of course,
#1 in invading other countries!
Smoking & drinking are small things? Yes. That's why Japan blows away the USA for freedom. In the USA you can't even do these small, trivial things. Is that my definition of freedom? Yes. What's yours? (Feel free to choose from the multiple choice list above).
Recently, I went back to the USA. I briefly mentioned it in passing on this blog as I went there to help a dear old friend take care of business because his wife passed away. Bless her soul. I wasn't there for vacation.
I didn't write about "that place" (USA) because, after living in a peaceful and civilized country (Japan) for so many years, and watching the USA turn from the world's worst aggressor nation into the world's worst aggressor nation and fascist police state, I've come to despise everything about the USA. And make no mistake about it, America has become what it has and that is the fault of average Joe-blow Mr. & Mrs. America.
As Ted Rall writes: "For all the admirable qualities of the American people - love of rock 'n' roll, deep-fried food, and hugely impractical cars, and ridiculous movies featuring numerous explosions - Americans are not the smartest. They are an easily confused lot."
They've also let their country go to hell while still believing that everything is OK.
My friend asked me why I didn't write about my visit in detail this time and I thought to myself, "what can I say that I haven't already said?" In 2005, I wrote an article entitled "America is Bankrupt" which Lew Rockwell told me was the #2 most read article on his web site for that year... When I wrote that article, I got blasted by many Americans saying that I was wrong. If you read that article now, it sounds like "same old same old" nothing special or nothing new. I told him that I have nothing good to say about America so it's just best for me to ignore the dead.
Japan blows the USA away for a great place to live. There's a million and one things about Japan that is better than the USA and much more free than the USA. The USA is a busybody nanny state.
I won't go into specifics. Why bother? I've done that a hundred times.
Here's a short vignette by my friend who is from San Francisco and living in northern Japan. Read this and think deeply about what is being said. It is about freedom and the fabric of society. If you understand this, then you can see why Japan is a much better place to live than the USA.
Here is his letter:
Dear Mike,
Went to the beach with my 9 year old and 2 of her friends this Sunday afternoon. It was a warm day and the beach wasn't crowded. No cops anywhere in sight; the lifeguard was there, but hidden from view and totally unobtrusive.
I drank a can of ice cold beer that I bought at the corner liquor store a block from the beach. Just one can. No one said a word about it.
The children went in the ocean and I kept an eye on them. Everyone was well behaved on the entire beach. No loud radios, drunks, bums, or slobs. No trash. No one allowing their dog to run around unleashed and harass people.
An 8-ish year old girl shows up with a 2-ish year old looking child, probably siblings. The 8-year-old wraps the child up in towels just like a Japanese mother would do, to keep the sun off the child's skin. I looked closely to see, yet no parents are in sight. The older child places the younger child in an inner tube and they spend several hours floating around and enjoying themselves. Another Dad and I take turns keeping an eye on the nearby children, but they never need to be admonished, playing respectfully together and laughing. When I go in the water I leave my valuables in a waist pouch on the beach, with no fear at all that anyone would steal anything.
We all wash off at the public beach shower and walk home. Stopping for ice cream along the way. At 5PM, a friend of my 9-year-old rides her bike home, about a 15 minute ride to the other side of town.
Admittedly, it's not exciting like Tokyo and I hope you are still awake. If you read between the lines, you may understand how this vignette represents a very particular way of life in many respects. It would be easy to contrast this to my experiences in America, many of which were good as I lived in San Francisco, a most beautiful part of the world.
There's more to this letter, but in each paragraph, there's a list of mundane everyday things that are done in civilized, sane countries yet they cannot be done in the USA anymore.
The USA the freest nation on earth? How wonderful it is to be overweight, drugged out, addicted to TV and seeing the world through rose-colored glasses.
