Garbage Enlightenment
世界を旅しているアキラさんとパトリックさんが戸倉上山田に来はりました。おサルの温泉(地獄谷）に行ったり、この上山田お神楽保存会の練習に一緒に行ったり、我が宿Ｃｈｅｆ武井のお料理を思い切って楽しんだり(一品一品写真を撮っていました！)、喜んでくれました。途中で、｢タイラー、質問があります。日本で、どこに探してもゴミ箱がないけど、どうして？」
行政では、外国人の観光客はどうやって呼べるか、色々と議論する。交通の便とか、看板の多言語化、パンフの作成などなど。
でも、もしかしたら、その以前の問題かもしれない。レストランで食事前におしぼりをくれるけど、食事中の為のなっぷきんはないとか、公衆トイレで手をふくタオルがないとか、ゴミ箱を探すのは大変など。交通便などはいいのですが、｢ゴミ箱いっぱい運動｣とかはどうですか？
とにかく、お二人の帰り、駅への送迎の途中でうちの近所のリサイクル場を案内しました。｢ゴミはこうやって細かく分別しないとだめなんだ。自分の店の前にゴミ箱を置いたら、皆の捨てられたゴミを結局自分で分別するようになっちゃう。だから皆はゴミ箱を置くのは嫌がる」と説明しました。
そして、もう一つの質問が来ました：「日本はゴミ箱がないのに、ポイ捨てられたゴミは見ない。不思議だ！」
ホームレスは少ないし、落書きがほとんどないし、地下鉄は変な匂いしないし、お店の従業員の皆が礼儀正しいし。これは日本の裏の魅力です。海外から来る皆は感じます。
Akila and Patrick are two young travellers making an extended trip around the world. They spent 3 days here at Kamesei Ryokan and thoroughly enjoyed Nagano. They spent a day at the monkey onsen at Jigokudani, accompanied me to my Okagura lion dance practice to see a very un-touristy bunch of locals at our weekly practice, and were mesmerized by our chef's traditional kaiseki-style meal. (I think they took pictures of every single dish!)
One time, they asked me, "Where are all the garbage cans in Japan? We can never seem to find a place to throw away our trash!"
It's funny how bureaucrats spend so much time on projects to increase the flow of foreign tourists -- improving the transportation, multi-language signage, more and more tourist brochures, etc., etc. Maybe it would be better to start somewhere more simple, like putting out more trash cans. Or providing towels to wipe your hands at public toilets. Or having restaurants provide napkins to go with your meal, not just the oshibori wet wipe at the beginning. More airports are great, but how about more garbage cans, too?
On the morning of their departure, on the way back to the train station, I brought them to our neighborhood's recyclng station, and showed them how all the recylables need to be sorted. I explained that if a business owner were to put a garbage can in front of his or her establishment, people would take advantage of it and throw all kinds of garbage into it. Then the owner would be stuck sorting through all of it. That's why no one wants to put out a trash can.
Akila and Patrick had a further comment: Despite the lack of trash cans, there's so little litter in Japan. How paradoxical!
Clean streets with not much litter, hardly any grafitti, few homeless people, subways that don't smell weird, polite service at stores -- these are the hidden secrets of Japan's attractiveness to the world. All of the foreigners to Japan feel and appreciate it, too!
Click here for the travel log of Akila & Patrickの旅ブログはこちら
Akila & Patrick's Japan foodie video, including highlights of Kamesei's kaiseki dinner
