No Looting in Japan

[Hornett]

I found this article this morning and though it does not proffer any explanation, it points out that there is no looting in the Japanese streets after the earthquakes and flooding.

Why is there no looting in Japan? – Telegraph Blogs

In New Orleans there was looting on a massive scale.
In Haiti there were street gangs raping and pillaging.
It seems that for every natural disaster a demonstration of how ugly humans can treat each other follows.
But not in Japan.
Very interesting.

My gut reaction is that Japan has:
1 Strong family structure
2 Low unemployment
3 A very strict penal system that does not tolerate unlawfulness.

What do you say?

 

[Indy_Guy_77]

I found this article this morning and though it does not proffer any explanation, it points out that there is no looting in the Japanese streets after the earthquakes and flooding.

Why is there no looting in Japan? – Telegraph Blogs

In New Orleans there was looting on a massive scale.
In Haiti there were street gangs raping and pillaging.
It seems that for every natural disaster a demonstration of how ugly humans can treat each other follows.
But not in Japan.
Very interesting.

My gut reaction is that Japan has:
1 Strong family structure
2 Low unemployment
3 A very strict penal system that does not tolerate unlawfulness.

What do you say?

Forgot to add in that it's just not cultural to "buck the system" in any way.

 

[grimor]

They're too busy trying not to be dead to loot.

I would say that they aren't brown enough to loot... but I wouldn't want to make a racial comment. I'm sure right now their justice system would be pretty swift in dealing with looters, if they live long enough to make it into court. I haven't seen any pictures of military in the streets with weapons though.

Theirs no honor in stealing in a disaster.

 

[melensdad]

The Japanese culture is simply different than our culture, they don't even think of the type of lawlessness that we can think of. Their people respect each other. The looters in New Orleans respect nobody, not even themselves, and clearly not store owners, authority figures, etc.

Let me ask this, why didn't you hear of looting in the rural parts of Louisiana or Mississippi where there was also massive Katrina damage? Why didn't we get reports of looting in Mobile, AL or Biloxi, Mississippi which were also heavily damaged? What about Metarie, Louisiana, any looting reports there?

Could it just have been the culture of New Orleans?

 

[VUPDblue]

They're too busy trying not to be dead to loot.

I would say that they aren't brown enough to loot... but I wouldn't want to make a racial comment.

But you did. That's not tolerated. You'll be taking a little break from INGO for a bit...

 

[singlesix]

I hope this continues. It would be one good (if you can even seek good in an event like this) in an otherwise terrible situation.

 

[eldirector]

They are certainly a very different culture (than us, anyway). Much more "social", with a very strict sense of morality and rules. Yeah, a gross over-generalization, but you get the idea.

Their crime rate is orders of magnitude lower than ours on a normal day (1.3 robberies per 100,000 Japan vs 233 per 100,000 US as an example). Even if looting was rampant by Japanese standards, it wouldn't even hit levels of a normal day in the US.

 

[mrjarrell]

The Japanese have a sense of shame and honour. They'd never think of looting, like that which occurred in New Orleans. Looting is cultural, as melensdad points out. There was no looting in my old hometown of Gulfport, MS, and it was hit head on by Katrina.

Everyone in Japan is getting behind their neighbours, and the media is helping out. Saw this earlier..

Yariv Hastilow in Ibaraki says: "The commercial TV channels in Japan have recently restarted advert breaks, but instead of the usual adverts for consumer goods, they are showing ones for helping your neighbours, recycling, reading books and being polite. Very refreshing."

 

[Mike_Indy]

I would agree with those that have already pointed out the penalty is more harsh there. It also brings shame to the family, which is a big deal in their culture. Family (as well as community) means more, in general, in their culture. Part of the US issue is the decline in family values and increase in individualism.

There are pockets of communities like that in the US. But, I don't think you could say we are typified by it any longer. Definitely not in the urban areas.

 

[jeremy]

I would venture to say that it is not approved by the Yakuza...

 

[SSGSAD]

OH NO, it cannot be !!!!! It has to be, because, there are NO EVIL GUNS, over there ..... ( forgot the PURPLE) .....

 

[LEaSH]

I've never been to Japan (yet).

I think there are values in that society that once were more prominent in ours.

Honor, integrity, the forethought of having shame for one's actions, these thing probably play a part on individuals' actions. Who's to say it wont get worse if/when resources run out and the Japanese act on primitive survival mode? It's far from over.

Do you see so many people wearing face masks? The surgical type? Those are worn to protect others from the wearer's germs. They've been wearing them long before the disaster. It's a thing that people do if they feel ill or contagious to prevent spreading their own germs.

That's a good indication of a culture of responsibility.

 

[Hornett]

Good point about the rural areas of Louisiana.

I think that there would be low natural disaster looting in any rural area.

 

[snowman46919]

Since no one else has brought it up, let us also consider how swiftly and in an uneducated manner that the media will swoop down on a story to get footage and publish before they have any real harden facts.

 

[Duncan]

The Japanese have a sense of shame and honour. They'd never think of looting, like that which occurred in New Orleans. Looting is cultural, as melensdad points out. There was no looting in my old hometown of Gulfport, MS, and it was hit head on by Katrina.

Everyone in Japan is getting behind their neighbours, and the media is helping out. Saw this earlier..

Hummm YOu could be right .. so let me see ... we droped the bomb and defeated Japan . After we conquer them we give help them set up a government and free them back to themselves .
When a disaster strikes here we rob and pillage each other .
When a disaster strikes THERE they help each other .
We started out as a Christian nation - as espoused by the founding fathers .
They had the Bushido Code .

Nagasaki looks like this :

Detroit looks like this :

Detroit's Ghetto

So these questions beg :

Who has progressed the most since WW II ?

Does culture matter ?

Does race matter ?

Does a nation with the majority of the people being of the some race matter ?

Who survived the war the best ? The victor or the vanquished ?

I could go on and on .. but I think you get the picture .

thanks
Duncan

 

[cbseniour]

Go HOrnett, you got it right in the first post.

1 Strong family structure
2 Low unemployment
3 A very strict penal system that does not tolerate unlawfulness.

 

[Bazooka Joe]

I found this article this morning and though it does not proffer any explanation, it points out that there is no looting in the Japanese streets after the earthquakes and flooding.

Why is there no looting in Japan? – Telegraph Blogs

In New Orleans there was looting on a massive scale.
In Haiti there were street gangs raping and pillaging.
It seems that for every natural disaster a demonstration of how ugly humans can treat each other follows.
But not in Japan.
Very interesting.

My gut reaction is that Japan has:
1 Strong family structure
2 Low unemployment
3 A very strict penal system that does not tolerate unlawfulness.

What do you say?

You forgot their religion. One thing that our country is not big on anymore.

 

[Mike_Indy]

"Who has progressed the most since WW II ?"

Japans debt is roughly 200% it gross output. They are in an even greater debt crisis than we are at this time. Hard to believe.

Japan is doing some things right, culture being one that has some good things. But, they're not perfect.

 

[ArmedProgrammer]

I don't know that it's religion. They are not overly religious (at least in our sense of the word). Our deep South is way more overtly religious than any large scale thing I saw over there. Honor and shame, YES. Strong families YES. Sense of community YES. That's where my bets would be. As a society, they are being tested now like they were in the past. So far, their reaction to the situation does them credit.

Just saw Mike_Indy's point above - agree entirely. Governmentally they've got challenges.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

The same cultural mores that the Japanese have developed to let them live cheek-by-jowl for centuries help create the cultural attitude that makes it difficult to change course when a particular approved course-of-action is not working out. "Face" is important, not only in matters of family honor, but in a reluctance to admit mistakes and a tendency to downplay disasters. Japanese fiscal and industrial policies that created the boom of the 70s-80s couldn't be sustained and created a huge recession in the past two decades which they are still struggling to overcome.