Honesty in Japan

Assalamualaikum, Konnichiwa and Hi,

Another intermission entry before I continue to DisneySea part.

I know that most of us know that honesty is veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery well-practiced in Japan. But I also know that maybe some of us feel a little bit sceptical about it. Is it true?

I want to share you something, that I could say one of the real event than can only happen if everybody is honest enough. I honestly can say that maybe in my country, this thing will never happen, yet. Maybe someday insyaAllah. Malaysia boleh!!! insyaAllah.

Do you see what I see??

As you can see from the pictures above, they parked their strollers together with their belongings. In an open area!! Even though you can see many staffs were there, but as a normal human being, of course sometimes things are out of your sights. I can say, if we do this in some other country, to be fair, my country, some people may even pretend that the strollers are theirs and take it together with the bags. But, I did not see that happen here. Even at night, it was not too bright, and there was only one staff, a parent came and search for her stroller (she actually rented the blue stroller from Disneyland) so there were many strollers that look alike, and still, she only took hers, after looking at it one by one. I mean, if there were things stolen, of course people will not dare to put their belongings there right? So, when honesty become a lifestyle, we trust each other more.

Another one happened when we were waiting for our bas from Osaka to Mount Fuji. When we were at the bench, waiting, my sister's wallet (with the passport and all those important documents) fell out of her bag. We did not realize about it even the fact that I was the one who sat behind her. We were so exhausted maybe. Then a staff at the station suddenly saw the wallet, and immediately brought it to us. Very very very grateful for that.

Maybe it's true when some say that, when you receive your balance after payment in Japan, and you try to recalculate whether it's enough or not, it's actually a rude gesture for Japanese, because for them honesty is a must, and recalculating in front of them is like telling them that 'I don't really trust you". But I'm not sure if this is true or not. Anyone can answer that? After all, sometimes, especially for a budget traveller, it's not that we don't trust, we just want to make sure everything is still in budget, ahhahahahhaha. *joking*

I did not mean to say that nobody in my country was honest enough. No. I know and believe that many are. Just that, through my experiences and others, there were cases where we actually tried to trust strangers around us, and we were being betrayed. Honesty and trust are two things that come together.

I'm not in a place where I can say about other countries. Maybe other countries also have this honest society. It just that I don't have the chance yet to see other country, so I just share my own experience first. Hope that I'll have many more chances to travel around and witness more and more kindness and honesty, even in Malaysia, my beloved country. And I also can't say that Japaneses are 100% honest. Maybe there are few who not, but I can tell you, most of them are.

p/s: I'm not sure if the staffs marked the stroller whenever somebody parked there, but through my short observation, there were none. But, if there is, and you know, you may share the info here in the comment ^_^

I pray that kindness and honesty and humanity will keep growing stronger in our society, in me, in everybody and our future generations. Japaneses are human, and we are human too. We can if we think we can, and put efforts on it. InsyaAllah. May Allah help us all ^_^

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

~William Shakespeare~