Posted on 08/17/2011 1:33:35 PM PDT by Justaham
Japanese citizens have shown incredible honesty in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that brought the country to its knees.
It emerged yesterday that the Japanese returned almost $78million in cash found in the quake rubble.
In the five months since the disaster struck, people have turned in thousands of wallets and purses found in the debris, containing nearly $30 million in cash.
More than 5,700 safes that washed ashore along the coastline have also been hauled to police stations by volunteers and rescue crews. Inside the safes officials found about $30million in cash. In one safe alone, there was the equivalent of $1,000,000.
Other contained gold bars, antiques and other valuables. Japan’s National Police Agency said nearly all the money found in the areas worst hit by the tsunami has been returned to its owners.
Most people kept bankbooks or land rights documents with their names and addresses in their safes.
At one point, there were so many safes handed in to police that they had difficulty finding room to store them. Even now, Koetsu Saiki, of the Miyagi Prefectural Police, said a handful of safes are handed in every week.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
We saw that in New Orleans didnt we?
What's the difference between America and Japan?
Yeah. The homeys “turned it in”..into more bling.
Shame is still in vogue in Japan.
Watch one episode of Hardcore Pawn and you will know what would happen in Detroit or an major city in the US, if something like this would happen.
There is hope for mankind - at least in Japan.
Oh yeah and they’d act the same way in Philadelphia, Detroit, and Baltimore.
My daughter lived in Japan for many years, she said you could forget valuables on trains or in stores etc. You could come back hours later and the item would be where you left it. Very, very honorable people.
Talk about positive culture. This reminds me of the story from about a decade ago when the power went out in large parts of New York. There was no rioting. People simply walked home or went to cafes or sat in the park until the power went back on. Compare that to London or some of the other riot cities. If you teach values, people will do the right thing. I’m sure many of those Japanese had lost everything in the earthquake and needed money. Yet they realized that the money belonged to someone else who probably needed it too. Its that community spirit that needs to be taught.
But our culture has become so "advanced" in its consideration of the individual, that many people would now consider someone with this level of honor a "loser", instead of seeing someone who lacked this strength of character as the loser.
The culture. We just aren’t the same.
Used to be that way in a lot of the middle east also.
http://www.khou.com/news/Dallas-cops-keep-2000-found-by-honest-teen-121630009.html
Dallas cops keep $2,000 found by honest teen .
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/r/18750457/detail.html
Homeless Man Finds, Returns Woman’s Lost Wallet
http://articles.boston.com/2010-12-15/news/29288050_1_wallet-brian-christopher-holiday-spirit
Man in need finds wallet and moral compass
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2011/jul/29/man-finds-wallet-makes-womans-day/?partner=popular
Man finds wallet, makes woman’s day
This would never happen in most cities of the United States.
Robert Sobel: Panic on Wall Street, a History of America's Financial Dissenters (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 116.
“Shame is still in vogue in Japan.”
But we have more diversity /s
Yes, it was exactly like that in New Orleans.
In Joplin, however, there actually were many instances of people being honest. Funny about that.
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