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Westerners come to Tokyo and say: “The Japanese are so clean! They pick up trash out of pure civic virtue!”No, we do not.We pick up trash because of terror.Tokyo has almost zero public trash cans. You carry an empty coffee cup in your backpack for seven hours not out of love for the planet, but because if anyone in your neighborhood sees you leave it on a bench, your social standing is permanently liquidated.Japan is not powered by morals. Japan is powered by mutual assured surveillance.Everyone is watching everyone. Everyone is taking silent mental notes. The punishment for breaking the rule is not a fine. It is the unspoken consensus that you are now untouchable.You think we leave streets spotless because we are angels.We leave them spotless because we are terrified of each other.
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