The lies nationalists tell are the same all over the world
It can’t possibly be near cherry festival time? It’s cold as Islamic hell still here in the continental US. Warmer than the worst of it, we hit -26 f one night here, and below freezing over a dozen days. We are still buried in snow, haven’t had more than a few days above freezing since thanksgiving the snow from which never melted.
I know Japan is on the oceans, but they also do get some continental breezes coming over? They can’t possibly be into spring yet? They are quite a bit north anyway. Seems so early, here it’s like may, maybe april with cherry blossoms, not sure like the pnw which maybe is more similar to japan.
It’s quite warm on/near the Pacific right now.
I don’t doubt some of this stuff happened, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of it is nationalist fear mongering. Just like the whole “tourists are kicking the deer” rumor where no evidence ever surfaced. Some nationalist Japanese really like to stoke the anti-foreigner flames.
But Japan truly does have an over-tourism problem so this could absolutely be justified.
They desperately need more immigration though, don’t they?
Maybe they could say “you can come to the festival, but only if you don’t leave.”
Fun fact about this meme:
Is from when the guy with the microphone tried to table legislation that would give immigrants a path to Japanese citizenship
They do but I don’t know if there is a significant conversion from tourism to immigration. I think most tourists are taking advantage of the weak yen, not trying to live there long term.
I was kidding, heh.
…They do need to get on that, though. My completely layman’s impression is that Japan has some cultural issues with immigration, but that’s becoming an existential issue.
Every South-West European country needs immigration, and practically they are facilitating it, but it doesn’t seem that the political speech is any different…
I wonder though. The ones running the governments, maximizing the revenues for them to spend, might want more of a population. They might need more rate payers as they borrowed (read stole) the pension contributions in excess of current pension costs over the decades, and now with more retirees, and that money they already taxed already spent, there is a shortfall they don’t want to pay back. They all want to default, and the right wing everywhere will try to in whatever ways they can first chance they get, and Japan is no exception.
The ones providing jobs likewise probably want a larger pool of desperate unemployed to keep wages down, so they don’t have to give back to workers some of which they took from to give to investors.
I wouldn’t take as gospel that we need more people, the ones telling us the way things are are the last ones we can trust, and that will follow from the west, to the far east here as Japan has the same dynamic the western nations do.
it does happen unfortunately, not only japan but chinese from china are doing this to taiwan, other asian countries and europe too.
As the article points out, we’re also in an election (voting is today (Sunday Japan time)) so the cynical side of me worders if the timing is coordinated since fear and “foreigners bad” are successfully distracting from actual issues of rising prices and stagnant wages leading to a lower quality of life
I live in the US and I have no idea what that’s like.
/s
Great insight.
I haven’t gone to a foreign country on vacation in a long time but… why the fuck would anyone behave like this? Even the ‘not my country, I am just a guest’ idea is bullshit. Sure tourists are there to have a fun time and would eat and drink more than they would at home but… shitting on the street? Really?
Look, the story is full of deceit. If crimes were committed, they would have called the cops, right? Or posted pictures and video. Of course they would have … unless the perpetrators were rich Japanese folk. This is common sense.
Mainland Chinese tourists are infamous for their lack of manners.
Indians also are famous for pooping and being unhygienic. Recently japan has allowed a lot of indian people to enter the country.
To be fair, it seems to say they were shitting in yards, not the street, so calm down.
The Japanese nation is homogeneous. They are not like the people in Europe or any other country who trash the ground. That’s why I love Japan.
Just don’t Google why there are no public trash cans in Tokyo
It really is just tourists that people are talking about whenever right wing lunatics talk about borders.
Tourists who can afford to fly on an airplane and therefore presumably understand how a toilet works are actually defecating in yards? I admit I didn’t read the article but it doesn’t pass my smell test.
Lots of narrative building going on in this thread. I’m in another comment chain where the case is being made that Japan has the best maintained and widely available toilets in the world and yet people are still choosing to break into homes to use the bathroom and defecate in the open despite this. Hard to believe anyone can genuinely buy this so one can only assume that the underlying intention is, rather than having a discussion in good faith, to pit this on one group of people while absolving the organizers of any accountability.
Which is their prerogative but it’s important that they acknowledge their bias. Japan is headed towards an alarming demographic collapse with 40% of its population being pensioners by 2046. Tourism is one of the few industries that will keep their economy and social services afloat, so I do genuinely hope they figure this out, for their sake.
You would be surprised what percentage of the world, even those with access to air travel, aren’t that familiar with a western or Japanese toilet. Now shitting on someone’s yard is a different issue all together but I’ve seen plenty of hotels with signage in the bathroom of how to use the toilet and specifying that you need to be in the shower when taking a shower.
Talked to a friend that lives in Japan and he was confused about the defecating thing but definitely corroborated the dislike for Chinese tourist groups.
I don’t get it. I’ve never been on vacation, and people say that makes me “culturally stunted”, but then I look into visiting places, and see nothing but locals complaining about tourists doing the most horrific shit.
It would check out that imperial cultures think that pissing off locals is a culturally enriching activity, but I’m a better person than that.
I mean you could also just be a good tourist. Learn the language, understand the culture, be respectful. It really isn’t hard. Some of the most ignorant people I know are the ones who refuse to travel outside of their own bubble.
I’m gonna be real here, most of that’s great, but I ain’t learning Japanese to visit Japan, I’m just going to use a translator app and apologize
Sure, I definitely think key words and phrases is great. More than that is going above and beyond. People will appreciate the effort.
Yeah it’s surprising how well a few basic words go over while traveling. I try to learn greetings, excuse me and sorry, thank you, and maybe even “Do you speak English?” (although that’s probably the least useful one for obvious reasons).
If I’m feeling really motivated (which almost never happens) I’ll throw in numbers and a few basic verbs. Less useful these days with smartphones, but managing to get out something like “I want go [place]?” at least got people who could point you in a direction.
Yeah it really shows you put in the effort. Throwing your phone in someone’s face with a translation app open isn’t the most enjoyable experience but obviously needs to happen when the language barrier becomes too much.
You’re good at congratulating yourself too.
Among them, “entering houses without permission to use the bathroom,” “break-ins,” “littering,” and people “defecating in private yards” and “complaining when residents catch them.”
I really don’t understand how a tourist can think any of this makes sense. Like, would they do this in their country too?
They played too many JRPGs and got the wrong idea
trashy chinese tourists, i have heard over the years the ones from china are especially bad, and very feral.
China. These are China-nese tourists. They used to do the same shit in Taiwan before the government banned them.
I saw a mom put their kid on the trashcan so he could pee into a trash can. This was an indoor mall.
Tourists are usually mindful of the country they’re visiting, but then most Mainland Chinese are former farm peasants who suddenly got wealthy for some reason and live in big cities, so able to even travel abroad, but unfortunately have little to no understanding of etiquette and how to properly conduct themselves elsewhere.
about the damn unable to find the toilet: I’m sure some have trouble communicating in a foreign country, or worse, unable to comprehend symbology, they end up rolling back to default behavior by just squatting and dumping where they see as convenient to them.
It still feels weird though.
Farm peasants over here, know to shit in farm areas where it would actually serve as manure, rather than right next to the street.
I would also assume they actually dig before and cover later.usually its very unsanitory to shit in your crops, because you spread bacteria that is more harmful other people. its different from a cows dung feces over humans. E-coli being one of them, thats why they use manure of herbivorious animals over carnivores/omnivores, meat eaters have more potential to have parasites too, in the old ways. but they use synthetical manufactuered fertilizers to avoid the problems altogether.
What about herbivorous humans :P
Yeah, despite the older traditions, it is nowadays not recommended to shit directly in the crop area. And turns out traditions of a time only work at that time and place, which might depend upon other, seemingly unrelated traditions.
But it would still be better off under the soil than on a paved street.
I guess I understand another reason for that in China. Because most of them ate some sort of meat, shitting in the fields might have ended up being a bad practice.
But still, what’s up with shitting on the streets? Did they somehow just rely on the dogs to clean up the streets?
farm peasonts that have always lived there at least for hundreds or thousands of years vs american farm peasants who have been there for like 320 years max, like peasant culture is more modern/new here than other countries
I am in India. I know people that live in farm areas or have lived there in their childhood (farmer relatives).
I’m pretty sure their culture is older than just 320 years, but they didn’t go around defecating on or next to the streets, which I can say because the streets were not full of human shit. Although there would be the occasional dog shit and then large piles of sun-dried cow shit (which would also be much farther away from the streets).Any civilisation that survives through enough disease outbreaks would have at least a rudimentary understanding of environmental cleanliness. If people are dirtying places despite that, then I consider that a reflection of accumulated malice.
My parents were shitting out in the fields in punjab growing up, or they claim at least lol
Most probably they did.
Weirdly, you don’t see that behavior from Chinese tourists in China. Well I did see one dude have hus toddler piss on the floor of a train because the bathroom was occupied, but he got yelled at, because in chinese culture, its considered disrespectful to piss on the floor. They even have a concept called “别他妈的往地板上撒尿”.
I don’t know, I’ve seen grown ups pissing in the park in Shanghai, not somewhere deep in the bushes but right beside the pavement and buildings. That was not indoors, at least
its probably farm people vs city people, the latter has more etiquette than the rural folks. alot of rural chinese suddenly became RICH overnight, so they havnt adapted to proper etiquette.
It’s a frequent issue in Hong Kong too where people from the mainland will just shit right in the street and walk away like its no big deal.
I was not aware that mainland China had designated shitting streets.
Huh
why is there a poop deck on ships if not for pooping
how do they wipe?
Oh they do wipe. They preemptively decided to shit in public.
It’s worse that they do wipe. They don’t take their tissues with them and drop it on their poop and the wind starts terrorizing the local people cuz that tissue becomes a moving bio weapon.
i dont think they do.
They don’t.
Really though people carry toilet paper in China because public restrooms don’t have it.
BS from a sinophobe
You’ve apparently never met Chinese tourists…
Like, would they do this in their country too?
Absolutely
I live in Wyoming, near Yellowstone. The shit tourists do would blow your mind. Chinese tourists are hands down the worst. Comically bad.
I had the absolute fortune to make my way through there at the end of last year. It was so bizarre to me that for the most part people are left alone to follow the rules with no oversight
And for the most part I saw everyone behaving well and not doing anything stupid; except the group of people trying to take pictures of a bison who was clearly unhappy about how close they were getting. He was grazing and would walk away a couple steps and they would follow. The boi was swishing his tail and showing what I saw were “leave me the fuck alone” signs and I had to at least shout to the people to leave him alone and they were fucking idiots. I was HOPING that they got charged and had some sense knocked into them
My partner and I had had discussions previously about what we’d do if something like that was about to happen and the kiddo in the car. If it’s just us adults then we’ll stay and watch the carnage but we’ll take off if they’re with us
Am also in Wyoming and can confirm.
Why would they come to the shithole US?
err… to “shit” of course.?
I felt bad you lost your own upvote, so have mine!
I was saving it for you.
Oh you! 😘
right like this is a whole new level of unhinged
They do
There is no reasonable explanation here except inadequate availability of public restrooms for the amount of tourists.
That’s… not the problem. And even if it was, the solution is absolutely not “I guess I’ll shit in that guy’s yard”. Go into a hotel lobby or coffee shop or bar or whatever, ask for the restroom (use your phone as a translator if you need to, because that’s a thing now), and do it there.
Also, what exactly are you suggesting “the problem” is, then? Because based on the rest of the thread, it sounds like most of the people refusing to name the problem are quietly (or loudly) encouraging Chinese racism.
Holy fuck, guy, it’s not racism against Chinese people. It’s frustration and irritation against tourists that behave heinously. Those tourists unfortunately happen to be predominantly Chinese. But if Americans or Russians or Brazilians or Indians were doing it, we’d all be having the same reaction. Stop borrowing outrage.
Either you have not read this comment section, or you are deliberately misconstruing it to feel more comfortable with yourself.
If you’re a guest in a country, don’t be a shithead.
If you and your countrymen are consistently shitheads to another specific country and their citizens when a guest in said specific country, they’re liable to start changing things to discourage you from coming in the first place, or even make rules to discourage you from visiting in the first place. You are a guest. Fucking act like it.
The sakura festival went of without a hitch for decades. This is a recent development that came with Chinese tourists beginning to go to the festival a lot more. When you are a tourist, the onus is on you to do some prep work and understand any preparations you should be making. Shitting in someone’s yard is indefensible; a reasonable preparation for the festival is “take a shit at your hotel before going to the festival”. I do not understand why you find this hard to parse.
It’s not prejudice. It’s common sense and actuarials.
For the record I am neither Chinese nor Asian, but I assume this is just active voice for dramatic effect.
This isn’t some novel phenomenon special to Japan. Seasonal local festivals that attract many times the local population happen everywhere. At first there’s trash everywhere and general chaos.
Local government and event organizers adapt and improve infrastructure. Or they throw up their hands and say the tourists are impossible to manage.
In the modern day, they monitor social media and predict crowd sizes based on impressions and engagement. They respond with increased infrastructure that includes trash and bathrooms. That’s actuarials.
Common sense is that tourists don’t shit in yards without extreme circumstances forced upon them.
dude its not racism chinese tourist on bad behaviour has happened for the last 10 years and documented on the news for that long, its chinese tourists from china. nobody said british, canadian or even uk chinese people.
Elsewhere in this thread, it definitely sounds like that’s the problem? People are saying these are residential neighborhoods where the only public restrooms are in a park, and they were already packed and overflowing.
Even if that is true, how is “I will shit in this random residential yard” a reasonable solution to that?
or break into japanese households to use thier bathrooms.
It’s not, the reasonable solution is to provide more restrooms. But it apparently didn’t happen, thus the unreasonable solution.
Maybe Japan could just, you know, erect public trash cans like so many other countries.
To shit in?
They haven’t since the sarin gas attacks when the gas bombs went off in trash cans.
Some people think the cost savings of installation, maintenance, and salaries are the reason they’'ve not returned
Yeah. So? Most reactions to terror attacks are very irrational. This is among them.
We don’t have bins in lots of train stations here for similar reasons. Doesn’t mean people are shitting on the fucking ground to make up for it.
“No trash cans?! Goddamnit, all I wanted was to throw my candy wrapper away but now I’m going to shit on the ground on principle”
My cat when I don’t feed her on time
Trash cans against littering, public restrooms to relieve themselves.
Not really too hard of a concept to grasp.
I was amazed there weren’t public trash receptacles when I was there (I was only there for a couple days though, maybe I just missed it).
You didn’t. Japan doesn’t have public trash cans.
I was pretty confused about what to do at one point. I bought a water from a 7/11 while walking around in Tokyo and didn’t know what to do until an old lady it a subway market (also kind of wild) took it, washed it, and put it in her backpack when I gestured for the trash.
I always had a backpack with me so I kept trash in that and put it in hotel bin when I went back to hotel.
Smart. I stopped there at the end of the trip, and I figured Japan would be the least of my worries, so I was under prepared for this issue.
I’m not sure you solved the problem here?
Which part of littering wouldn’t be solved by trash cans?
Edit: changed my mind. While I don’t agree. This is not a bad idea.
Maybe I’m too Usian to understand this but the article doesn’t call out tourists from any particular country. So it’s odd to me that China is being called out so much in the comments.
People know… If this news was from somewhere in Europe everyone would be blaming the Brits in the comments. It’s known…
I doubt it.
Americans and Brits tourists here in Europe do indeed have a certain reputation, but Chinese tourists have such a bad reputation that Brits and Americans are welcomed with open arms.
The biggest problem are the groups though. Any group is going to behave badly, nationality doesn’t matter. And that in combination with how different Chinese culture is in some aspects just has given them a bad reputation worldwide.
Seems odd to me as well. I feel like we need proof other than strangers on the Internet just making claims.
Strangers making claims on the internet is all this place is. There’s no “proof” needed or available here.
oh ok, thanks for deciding that for the rest of us. lol
tourists shitting in the street is a “china bad” dogwhistle. i used to live near a tourist destination so i’m used to that blending in with my tinnitus
China bad, even when it’s good.
Extreme mental gymnastics to twist literally anything . The US certainly isn’t innocent on this.
So obvious and absurd it has become a meme and something to ridicule.
Example
“Foreigners” - I highly doubt this is a general foreigner problem. Must be uncivilized countries only. 99% of tourists knows how to act in another country.
uncivilised countries
What do you mean by that?
Americans and indians.
ah, so plain old racism, as I suspected. 🖕 Bigots Fuck Off 🖕
Americans probably
Starting to sound like a dog whistle to me
That’s exactly my thought tbh, hence asking them to explain themselves
Americans will presume brown people, brown people will assume Americans
My impression overall here is that most tourists try to behave very well. I see people from my home country offer gentle gestures like carrying an elderly person’s bag up the stairs that they would not do at home.
The problem are the 3 fuckers among 10000 who behave like shit, and the fact that there are so many tourists especially in high season.
They do not “behave like shit”, they simply “shit”
Wouldn’t a bunch of porta potties solve this?
There are public bathrooms at the park. It was packed with tourists and their litter when I went in 2024 though.
As for the streets where people actually live, they shouldn’t need to have a bunch of ugly porta-potties occupying the streets in front of their home. It’s a place where people have always lived, not a place that exists solely to be a tourist attraction.
I guess I wrongly assumed all tourists would have the common sense to not defacate in someone else’s yard.
There are public bathrooms at the park. It was packed with tourists and their litter when I went in 2024 though.
Soooo, the festivals are probably put on by the city or area. If the bathrooms at the park were packed, then the city and area should provide more porta potties. It’s kind of simple. The cities probably wanted the tourism, but are now realizing that it might not be worth it? That I get. The pooping thing though, that I don’t get.
To be fair, they might’ve been expecting the trash, but probably weren’t expecting all of the renegade pooping. Even at Ueno Park in Tōkyō, which is probably one of the most crowded places during sakura season, you’ll see extra trash bins, but not porta-poddies.
I also didn’t go to Arakurayama during the festival. I went in February, and if it was already crowded with literring tourists then, it must be awful during sakura season. Japan has been receiving record overtourism for the past few years (ever since re-opening in late 2022). I saw it mentioned on NHK News like almost every day. Yeah, they might be a little tired of the extra tourists now.
If the public bathrooms are already packed, and people are finding other places to go, there clearly aren’t enough bathrooms to manage the number of tourists. Temporary extra bathrooms like porta-potties are completely reasonable here. Surely they’re less of an eyesore than shit in a yard or street.
Your solution is to accommodate the tourist, the option the locals go for is less tourist.
How are the locals planning to accomplish that? Cutting down the cherry trees? Walled city?
Someone shits in your yard and you’re going to set a porta potty out by the curb? No you’re not.
The city should
Not with Chinese tourists it would seem.
