When in Japan...

When in Japan, feel free to drop your phone and wallet on the street. You'll get it back no trouble. But lose your umbrella and I'm afraid it's gone forever, and whatever you do, don't get cancer. Well, that one's true anyway, but even more so in Japan.

With an inner-city population fast approaching 14 million people, millions of items go missing here each year. But a staggering number of them find their way home. In 2018, over 545,000 ID cards were returned to their owners by Tokyo Metropolitan Police  – 73% of the total number of lost IDs. Likewise, 130,000 mobile phones (83%) and 240,000 wallets (65%) found their way back. Often these items were returned the same day.

Lost umbrellas, on the other hand, are rarely retrieved by their owners. Of the 338,000 handed in to Lost Property in Tokyo in 2018, only 1% found their way back to their owner. The vast majority – about 81% – were claimed by the finder, which is a peculiarity in itself. 

Perhaps, then, honesty is not always front of mind. In fact, Japan has a complicated history with honesty, says Behrens. 

Take healthcare. Until 10 or 20 years ago, it was quite normal for doctors in Japan to withhold diagnoses from their patients. Instead, they would only tell their direct family. So, a patient would not know whether they had cancer, for example, let alone what their prognosis might be. “Japanese people believe you might lose the will to live, so immediate families try to present [the idea that there is] nothing wrong,” says Behrens... it leads some, such as Behrens, to believe that the Japanese aren’t fundamentally more honest than the rest of us.

“After the nuclear reactors at Fukushima failed because of the 2011 earthquake, the area was sealed off for months due to high radiation,” says Tamura. “The thefts only occurred because there was absolutely no one, no police force or anyone around to witness the wrongdoing.” Tamura describes the concept of hito no me; the ‘societal eye’. Even without a police presence, no theft will occur while there is hito no me. But left in a place where there is no one watching, thefts do occur.

On the one hand, there's the Doctor Who quote :

Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind.

But on the other, there's a different Doctor Who quote :

Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit, without hope, without witness, without reward. Virtue is only virtue in extremis. 

Does the law and influence of society make us more moral ? It would seem not - it only enforces arbitrary norms.

But on the other other hand, "seeking advantage" isn't the same as "fortuitously being rewarded". The Japanese don't get significant rewards for handing in lost property, which would seem it's more a case of "fear leads to kindness" here. Goodness in extremis is only the purest form of goodness, not goodness itself. Good actions are good actions regardless of why they were performed, but that doesn't mean the people taking them are fundamentally good. So the law can only make us do good things, not actually become better.

I don't like this.

On the nth hand, I remember playing a game called Black & White, which claimed (or at least used the slogan as a hook) that how you behaved as a virtual God would reveal your true character, since there were no real consequences to you regardless of how you acted. That always struck me as dubious. That I might enjoy reigning lightning bolts down on tiny little ragdoll-physics peasants doesn't mean I'd ever do it in reality, even if I had no fear said peasants could ever hurt me. Some things are fun because and only because they have no consequences, because they're fantasies.

Is a similar mindset at work when nobody's watching ? Do certain crimes now become - falsely but genuinely - perceived as victimless ? Or are people just a bunch of dicks ? I dunno.

Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

For most, losing a wallet or purse is more than an inconvenience. While smartphones now let us make contactless payments, hold our travel cards and help us to find our way home, there's still something reassuringly secure about carrying physical ID and bank cards.