[astrange]

Japanese are more individualist than Americans. They just don't apply this to graffiti.

They do sometimes litter, throw up in the sidewalk after drinking, and don't wash their hands after using the train station bathrooms.

I mean, Tokyo isn't even that clean. I was just there and saw a rat on the sidewalk every night. They're like NYC and just leave commercial trash bags on the sidewalk instead of using trash bins. (Also frequently saw aggressive "no dumping" signs on the pile of trash bags. Not very high trust!)

[sho_hn]

I think by individualism what people usually mean is the general "me, I got mine" attitude & the idealization of not giving a care to what other people think, i.e. "do your thing". I lot of what happens in the East Asian countries from peer pressure/accountability is to be actively defied in the West, and particularly in America. Keeping things clean because otherwise you might get judged by someone else is almost an incentive to litter.

[inkyoto]

> They're like NYC and just leave commercial trash bags on the sidewalk instead of using trash bins.

You might have mistaken it with the organised rubbish collection. It is common in New Zealand where business owners pack up rubbish at the close of business in dedicated, pre-paid rubbish bags that they leave in the front of the shop. A garbage truck comes by later and quickly collects rubbish. The cost of the service is included in the price of the rubbish bag, and the garbage truck won't collect a random or unrecognised bag but people do not do that.

It also seems cleaner as rubbish bins require cleaning on a regular basis, and the bags do not.

[mitthrowaway2]

This is for certain what the GP saw.