Japanese Man Picks Up Trash In Singapore Because He Likes Our Country

Alright, Goody Feed colleagues. I would like a show of hands how many of you had picked up litter recently.

A: Huh, why? Just let the cleaning auntie do it lah!

B: Ya lor, otherwise we pay them for what!

C: I’ll get the maid to do it.

Boss: Pick up litter? Got time go write more articles!

But while I’m disappointed in my imaginary colleagues, there is someone out there who cares about our country’s trash problem…

And he isn’t even from Singapore.

Toshi, The Hero We Don’t Deserve

In a Facebook post by Ivan Choong, he shared that he found a man doing a thing that basically nobody does in this country: picking litter.

Ivan got curious and asked him why he was doing that.

But as it turns out…

The guy is Japanese and had been here for about two months staying in a hotel. Next week, he is going home, but he likes S’pore because it’s very green and clean, so he helps to pick up the litter.

The post went on to get 17k reactions, 916 comments, 8.7k shares and appeared on AsiaOne.

Toshi-san… Thanks for inspiring S’poreans to do better!

Keeping Things Clean Is Part Of Japanese Culture

This isn’t the first time Japanese tidiness went viral on the news. Japan fans cleaned up the stadium after a World Cup match, and the national team left the locker room pristine.

Japan is, of course, also known for its clean culture.

But let’s talk a little bit more about the problems.

Oh yeah, it’s real serious garbage talk here.

Post Going Viral Makes Me A Little Sad

You see, it’s the fact that a simple act of cleaning up gets so much attention, when it should be common sense.

The real problem isn’t the lack of a system. S’pore does in fact have one of the better garbage disposal systems on the globe. But our country is artificially clean because most of our own citizens don’t have a culture of cleaning up.

No matter how good our recycling system is, recycling in S’pore is still pretty much non-existent.

I think with how clean our country is, we’re too complacent with the system and it somehow gave us an excuse to produce more trash.

It’s the culture of consuming more and producing more garbage without thinking about the consequence. Got money means you do whatever you want with it right?

We’re a throw-away nation who consumes too much and pretend to be clean because we paid some foreign worker to clean it for us and take credit for their cleaning work. Consuming too much and throwing away perfectly usable stuff is why freegans exist.

But what do I know, I’m just a writer who likes to complain and cry too much.