Dear MEL Topic Readers,
What Japan can teach us about cleanliness
What should children learn in school? Among
the things that Japanese students learn in schools, such as math, history, and
science, they also learn how to work as a team member, behave themselves in a
group, and clean the school themselves, including toilets. And those social
skills and manners seem to be retained much longer than knowledge from textbooks.
That might be one of the reasons most places in
Japan are clean even without garbage bins or street sweepers, unlike busy
streets in China where there are more trash bins than utility poles. Indeed,
Japanese people are very sensitive about how they are looked not only by their
friends, peers, and neighbors but also by others on the train, in a coffee shop, and
in a football stadium. Throwing trash away in public places is regarded as very
unruly in the country.
Another reason Japan is so clean and
organized seems to come from spiritual wellness, whether by religious teachings
in Buddhism or Shinto or social practices. In Japan, it is not uncommon to see
residents not only sweep the streets of their neighborhood but also nearby clean
nearby parks voluntarily. No wonder they can manage to sort a dozen types of
household garbage and put them out on scheduled days.
Enjoy reading the article and learn how a
clean country is established and maintained.
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