Awhile ago, about a month I guess, my bike got stolen (second bike in 8 months, so don’t believe people if they say there’s no crime in Japan as I’ve now officially been robbed more in Japan than in San Francisco and in FAR less time) so, needing a bike to get to work I just went out and plopped down another $120 or so on a new bike. My old bike was crappy anyway and I figured the cops wouldn’t have much chance tracking it down, especially in a very short time frame, so I just went ahead with a new bike.
This morning I got a call from the police (if this ever happened to me in America I might shit a brick, but here in Japan I was just wildly curious) and it turns out they found my old bike and wanted me to stop by the station to pick it up. I told them I could do it around 5pm today, around when I’d be coming home from work. Apparently they’re out on patrol at that time, and he told me he’d get back to me.
a few minutes ago I got a call from the officer saying he’d just gone ahead and dropped the bike off at my apartment and there was no need to stop by the police station anymore.
Well hot damn, not only did they prove they weren’t utterly incompetent, but they went the extra mile (actually, literally about a mile from station to my apt) and dropped the bike off for me.
I’m a bit awestruck, honestly, saved me time (and right-after-work-time too, which is super valuable as I’m always tired as hell and just wanna get home) and was just all around nice. I NEVER got that in my dealings with cops in America.
Just had to share. Overall Japanese cops are reasonably useless, but by the gods are they nice! So yea, Sawada-san, I tip my hat to you, thanks man
I have a friend who somehow left a camera bag, with expensive camera and lenses, in a big Tokyo subway station. I think he was in Hiroshima or somewhere like that for a month and had gone to Tokyo to sightsee. Not only had somebody turned in the camera bag with camera, but when the lady he was staying with called the lost and found office or whatever, they shipped back the camera bag to him, just to be nice.
That attitude the police have extends well into most other areas of Japanese culture as well. The retail store staff impressed me the most, it was almost as if they came in that day specifically to wait on me, the complete and total opposite of what you’d get in the US.
they have a word for it that I always forget, it basically translates to being two-faced, but without the negative connotation we have for two-facedness. There’s a work personality, and a normal personality that most japanese have (much more extreme than what you might see in an American) and when in the work personality they’re all about service. I’ve had a bar owner run around the block looking for me and a group of (japanese) teachers that were trying to find her place
I live in Toyama, which is a “city” of about 420k people. It’s quite spread out, though, so it never really feels like it’s actually that big (not that 420k is that big).
ETA: Oh and Troy, you don’t have to pretend you don’t know me
