No, I haven’t been caught doing anything illicit in a long time, except for that night a few weeks back involving the midget circus and the broomsticks.
But it’s nice to know that after nearly a year and a half in Japan, I can still milk my students for juicy tidbits of information. One lovely lady, who is a clothing boutique shop owner, the kind that sells $400 sweaters, provided some interesting information on the nature of stealing here.
It comes down to this: Japan is not only a great country to lose something, because you’ll get it back, but also to shoplift, because the first question the security guard asks you – even if the item has been rudely tucked into your waistband – is, “Did you pay for that?”
If you answer something to the effect of, “Oops, I forgot,” you march back to the cash register, slap down your plastic, tag the receipt and off you go, new item in hand.
This means that as long as you’re willing to lie, which shouldn’t be much of a moral dilemma if you’re willing to steal, you can attempt to pay for just about nothing here.
I’m curious to see if this is true. I mean, I don’t doubt the word of my student, but of all the cultural differences between Japan and America, this ranks fairly high on the WTF list. Taking the word of the suspected criminal at face-value sounds so… naive, but what if what we see as the suspected criminal is seen by the mall security as being higher on the social scale, and therefore must be given the benefit of the doubt?
So here’s the proposal: Since I would never condone stealing, if you’ve ever tried to shoplift, five-finger discount, lift, extended borrow, misappropriate, shrinkage, or whatever your favorite euphemism is, in Japann leave a comment on this entry and let me know how the experience went.
Any volunteers?
I sorta agree about this being a naive attitude, but, I would assume it’s appropriate to the culture. I know it’s a stereotype, but, I thought that Japan generally had less crime — a lot less — than the US does. If the people in that culture are so much less likely to try to take advantage of each other, then, it makes sense to be more trusting of suspected criminals. Plus… I mean, if they go ahead and pay for the merchandise anyway, it’s not like any harm has been done. In the US we charge people with attempting crimes even if they don’t succeed, but, that’s a philosophically hazy area.
(Why is it that your site never remembers my info? Is your cookie-setting browser dependent or something?)
crime: japan does have a lot less crime, but a lot more overt (albeit polite) racism. i can’t remember any specific examples offhand, but there are several recent and noteworthy cases where criminals who have committed heinous acts are let go with, at least by my american standards, with barely more than a slap on the wrist. non-white foreigner crime seems to be blown way out of proportion.
i’m not sure why this is. is it because of the origins of japanese common law? does jcl even exist? or is it something else entirely? i wish i knew.
cookies: i prefer homemade, but it may be the older version of MT i’m using.
lets go