On trash, sizes, and recycling

One of the things that our group noticed right away is how clean public spaces are.  I have seen a piece of litter here and there, but very, very little.  What is even more remarkable is that there are very few public trash cans.  They were removed after the gas attack in the Tokyo subway in 1995.  When we have found waste receptacles, they look something like this.

As the pictures show, people have to separate their trash into the correct recepticle: cans, plastic bottles, and paper.  The purple container may be for things that can be burned, and then there is a smal trash can next to the recycling for what is left over.  What struck me is that this is a very different sense of shared public space from what I saw in India.

When we walked through the Shinagawa neighborhood, it was garbage day, but in reality, garbage pickup happens almost every day because different days are designated for different types of recycling and trash.   

Last night we went to a Softbank Hawks baseball game in Fukuoka, and in my head I was picturing the parking lots around Jack Trice Stadium after an Iowa State football game.  Yet, at the end of the game, the fans carried out their trash to the trash cans and huge trash bags that attendants were watching over.  Certainly not all of the trash was carried out, but a significant portion of it was.  As we walked out at the end of the game, the stadium looked almost as clean as when we arrived.

One more recycling story and a comment on sizes.  One evening when we got done a little early, three of our group went to Asakusa to check out some small shops and a temple.  We stopped at a McDonald's to get something to drink.  I ordered a large soda which is the glass on the left.  Someone else ordered a medium soda which is the glass on the right.  In the States my large would probably be classified as a small.  Drink sizes in general are smaller here, which is not a bad thing.

When we were done with our drinks, the ice went into one waste container, the paper cup went into another, and the straw and lid went into another.  Fortunately there was a gentleman ahead of me who I saw get rid of his glass, so I knew what to do.  As I dumped my ice and sorted my trash, in my head I could imagine all the complaining that Americans would do if they were asked to sort their trash this specifically.  But Japan proves that it certainly is possible.

A Japanese neighborhood

For our trip, we all read J-Boys by Shogo Oketani about life for a young boy in Tokyo in the late 1950s and early 1960s.  It would be a great book to use with middle school students.  As part of our trip, we spent Friday morning with the author walking around the neighborhood where he grew up.  The photos below are from that walk.

The view from the subway entrance where the author met us.

It was garbage pickup day, although because of recycling, everyday may be some garbage pick up.  The recycling is very specifically sorted into different types.  The netting over the bags is to keep the crows from tearing open the bags and making a mess.  Pretty ingenious, but I don't think it would stop raccoons.

Some of the houses on our walk had small gardens like this one behind the wall.

All of the garages or parking spaces were tiny by our standards and all of the garages were extremely tidy and organized.  Many of the homes had vehicles parked in the garage because travel by subway and bus is so much more convenient.

Several of the houses had these sorts of potted gardens arranged in the available space.

At several of the corners, these sorts of mirrors were mounted so that drivers and pedestrians could see what was coming from the other directions.  None of these side streets were very wide.

This was the only empty lot that we saw on our walk, but across the street in the exact same space are three homes and another building.  In the book, the main character talks about playing in empty lots after school, and Shogo said that during the time the story was set, there were many more empty lots in the neighborhood.

This dilapidated building is an example of what the houses in this neighborhood would have looked like in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  There were a few examples of these style homes still standing, but not very many.  All of the more recent houses are multi-storied, while all of these appeared to be single story.

These two pictures are of a parking lot in the neighborhood.  The rates are 100 yen for 20 minutes from 8 am to 8 pm and 100 yen for 60 minutes from 8 pm to 8 am.  The maximum amount for the day is 1500 yen or about $15 dollars.  Keep in mind that this is a residential area, not a downtown commercial district.

We made a short stop at this Tendai Buddhist temple, Yogyukuin Temple.  I have more photos of this temple, but I am saving them for a later post.

This is the cemetary at the back of the temple.  A cemetary like this would not be found at a Shinto shrine, because Shinto focuses on life and the living.  Buddhism addresses what happens after death, and so funerals and burials are the taken care of by Buddhism.

We stopped for a short visit at the author's home and were able to ask some questions and share our thoughts about the book.  The two dogs are rescued, which seemed appropriate as the little brother in the book wanted to save a stray puppy.

On our way to lunch, we passed by a couple of neighborhood shops.  The shop with the blue awning is the tofu shop, and a tofu shop had important part in the beginning of the book. 

How to grow tomatoes in a very small space.

After lunch and on our way to back to the subway, we stopped at the neighborhood Shinto shrine,

We also passed another tofu shop that was open.  The owner, there in the doorway, told us that he gets 95% of his soybeans from the United States.

In the book, the main character describes in detail the tofu shop owner bringing the tofu out of the cold bath that it is kept in while waiting for customers.

Another important part of the book are the visits to the public bath house.  This is the local bath house.  That's the author in the lower right hand corner.

And then we were back to where we started.