Opinion

A Trusting Society

By GWEN ROBINSON

Whatever foreigners think about the various aspects of Japanese society, there's one thing they invariably all admire: the remarkable honesty amongst ordinary people. Perhaps there is no other country in the world where you can drop your wallet in a busy street or leave your briefcase on a crowded train and recover it within days, contents intact. I've done both, and both times have recovered my belongings. I heard recently of an even more gratifying experience. A friend lost his entire month's pay in an unmarked envelope on a crowded railway platform. He recovered it hours later from the rail station office.

Many Japanese would not express surprise at these tales ― it's more normal to recover lost items than not. Consider the reports of lost items, including jewelry and cash, handed into public offices like koban. The staggering recovery rate in Japan surely puts every other country to shame. In London, it's not uncommon to chain your bicycle and come back to find that someone has detached the entire bicycle frame, leaving you only the wheel and chain!

Almost every expatriate I know in Tokyo has a lost-and-found miracle tale to tell. Why do I say "expatriates"? Sadly, because they're the only ones who seem amazed by such displays of scrupulous honesty. Foreigners are also the only ones to express surprise at seeing stores with little or no precautions against shoplifting and expensive cars, empty and idling in the street, their doors unlocked, key in the ignition.

I suppose one negative aspect to such grassroots honesty is that people can be lulled into a childlike state of trust and naivety. After living a while in Tokyo, I began to feel silly locking my door. I'd leave my bicycle unlocked. Perhaps this trusting environment makes Japanese tourists easy targets when they travel overseas.

Ironically, this grassroots-level sense of honesty is possibly to blame for the spread of large-scale corruption at higher levels. People simply trust too much. Last year's scandal over the massive bribes taken by a top health ministry bureaucrat is a case in point. Politicians, including former prime ministers, have been accused of corruption on a far larger scale. But politicians have a reputation for unscrupulous tactics; what shocked society most about the recent scandals is that bureaucrats are supposed to be above the grimy world of corruption. People trust them.

The recent revelations at least seem to have provoked refreshing new signs of public anger. It's also encouraging to see citizens' groups demanding explanations from local governments for their hefty entertainment expenses.

Bureaucracy and academia have always been highly respected sectors in Japanese society. That view is clearly changing. But so, too, is the incidence of theft and petty crime in Japan, which is rising slowly but steadily.

Could it be a sign that Japan's famed honesty is breaking down? Not according to police, who often attribute the increase to the growing presence of foreigners in Japan. As offensive as it may sound to foreign ears, the most telling support for that conclusion comes from the longtime expatriate community in Japan, many of whom can no longer leave their bicycles unlocked and loudly blame immigrants for it.

Shukan ST: April 4, 1997

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