As the article points out, we’re also in an election (voting is today (Sunday Japan time)) so the cynical side of me worders if the timing is coordinated since fear and “foreigners bad” are successfully distracting from actual issues of rising prices and stagnant wages leading to a lower quality of life
I live in the US and I have no idea what that’s like.
/s
I haven’t gone to a foreign country on vacation in a long time but… why the fuck would anyone behave like this? Even the ‘not my country, I am just a guest’ idea is bullshit. Sure tourists are there to have a fun time and would eat and drink more than they would at home but… shitting on the street? Really?
To be fair, it seems to say they were shitting in yards, not the street, so calm down.
Mainland Chinese tourists are infamous for their lack of manners.
Indians also are famous for pooping and being unhygienic. Recently japan has allowed a lot of indian people to enter the country.
It really is just tourists that people are talking about whenever right wing lunatics talk about borders.
I don’t get it. I’ve never been on vacation, and people say that makes me “culturally stunted”, but then I look into visiting places, and see nothing but locals complaining about tourists doing the most horrific shit.
It would check out that imperial cultures think that pissing off locals is a culturally enriching activity, but I’m a better person than that.
I mean you could also just be a good tourist. Learn the language, understand the culture, be respectful. It really isn’t hard. Some of the most ignorant people I know are the ones who refuse to travel outside of their own bubble.
I’m gonna be real here, most of that’s great, but I ain’t learning Japanese to visit Japan, I’m just going to use a translator app and apologize
Sure, I definitely think key words and phrases is great. More than that is going above and beyond. People will appreciate the effort.
Yeah it’s surprising how well a few basic words go over while traveling. I try to learn greetings, excuse me and sorry, thank you, and maybe even “Do you speak English?” (although that’s probably the least useful one for obvious reasons).
If I’m feeling really motivated (which almost never happens) I’ll throw in numbers and a few basic verbs. Less useful these days with smartphones, but managing to get out something like “I want go [place]?” at least got people who could point you in a direction.
Yeah it really shows you put in the effort. Throwing your phone in someone’s face with a translation app open isn’t the most enjoyable experience but obviously needs to happen when the language barrier becomes too much.
Tourists who can afford to fly on an airplane and therefore presumably understand how a toilet works are actually defecating in yards? I admit I didn’t read the article but it doesn’t pass my smell test.
You would be surprised what percentage of the world, even those with access to air travel, aren’t that familiar with a western or Japanese toilet. Now shitting on someone’s yard is a different issue all together but I’ve seen plenty of hotels with signage in the bathroom of how to use the toilet and specifying that you need to be in the shower when taking a shower.
Talked to a friend that lives in Japan and he was confused about the defecating thing but definitely corroborated the dislike for Chinese tourist groups.
Lots of narrative building going on in this thread. I’m in another comment chain where the case is being made that Japan has the best maintained and widely available toilets in the world and yet people are still choosing to break into homes to use the bathroom and defecate in the open despite this. Hard to believe anyone can genuinely buy this so one can only assume that the underlying intention is, rather than having a discussion in good faith, to pit this on one group of people while absolving the organizers of any accountability.
Which is their prerogative but it’s important that they acknowledge their bias. Japan is headed towards an alarming demographic collapse with 40% of its population being pensioners by 2046. Tourism is one of the few industries that will keep their economy and social services afloat, so I do genuinely hope they figure this out, for their sake.
Maybe Japan could just, you know, erect public trash cans like so many other countries.
I’m not sure you solved the problem here?
To shit in?
I was amazed there weren’t public trash receptacles when I was there (I was only there for a couple days though, maybe I just missed it).
You didn’t. Japan doesn’t have public trash cans.
They haven’t since the sarin gas attacks when the gas bombs went off in trash cans.
Some people think the cost savings of installation, maintenance, and salaries are the reason they’'ve not returned
Yeah. So? Most reactions to terror attacks are very irrational. This is among them.
We don’t have bins in lots of train stations here for similar reasons. Doesn’t mean people are shitting on the fucking ground to make up for it.
“No trash cans?! Goddamnit, all I wanted was to throw my candy wrapper away but now I’m going to shit on the ground on principle”
Edit: changed my mind. While I don’t agree. This is not a bad idea.
Among them, “entering houses without permission to use the bathroom,” “break-ins,” “littering,” and people “defecating in private yards” and “complaining when residents catch them.”
I really don’t understand how a tourist can think any of this makes sense. Like, would they do this in their country too?
They played too many JRPGs and got the wrong idea
right like this is a whole new level of unhinged
China. These are China-nese tourists. They used to do the same shit in Taiwan before the government banned them.
I saw a mom put their kid on the trashcan so he could pee into a trash can. This was an indoor mall.
Tourists are usually mindful of the country they’re visiting, but then most Mainland Chinese are former farm peasants who suddenly got wealthy for some reason and live in big cities, so able to even travel abroad, but unfortunately have little to no understanding of etiquette and how to properly conduct themselves elsewhere.
about the damn unable to find the toilet: I’m sure some have trouble communicating in a foreign country, or worse, unable to comprehend symbology, they end up rolling back to default behavior by just squatting and dumping where they see as convenient to them.
It still feels weird though.
Farm peasants over here, know to shit in farm areas where it would actually serve as manure, rather than right next to the street.
I would also assume they actually dig before and cover later.farm peasonts that have always lived there at least for hundreds or thousands of years vs american farm peasants who have been there for like 320 years max, like peasant culture is more modern/new here than other countries
I am in India. I know people that live in farm areas or have lived there in their childhood (farmer relatives).
I’m pretty sure their culture is older than just 320 years, but they didn’t go around defecating on or next to the streets, which I can say because the streets were not full of human shit. Although there would be the occasional dog shit and then large piles of sun-dried cow shit (which would also be much farther away from the streets).Any civilisation that survives through enough disease outbreaks would have at least a rudimentary understanding of environmental cleanliness. If people are dirtying places despite that, then I consider that a reflection of accumulated malice.
My parents were shitting out in the fields in punjab growing up, or they claim at least lol
Weirdly, you don’t see that behavior from Chinese tourists in China. Well I did see one dude have hus toddler piss on the floor of a train because the bathroom was occupied, but he got yelled at, because in chinese culture, its considered disrespectful to piss on the floor. They even have a concept called “别他妈的往地板上撒尿”.
I don’t know, I’ve seen grown ups pissing in the park in Shanghai, not somewhere deep in the bushes but right beside the pavement and buildings. That was not indoors, at least
It’s a frequent issue in Hong Kong too where people from the mainland will just shit right in the street and walk away like its no big deal.
I was not aware that mainland China had designated shitting streets.
Huh
how do they wipe?
Oh they do wipe. They preemptively decided to shit in public.
It’s worse that they do wipe. They don’t take their tissues with them and drop it on their poop and the wind starts terrorizing the local people cuz that tissue becomes a moving bio weapon.
They don’t.
Really though people carry toilet paper in China because public restrooms don’t have it.
BS from a sinophobe
You’ve apparently never met Chinese tourists…
Like, would they do this in their country too?
Absolutely
I live in Wyoming, near Yellowstone. The shit tourists do would blow your mind. Chinese tourists are hands down the worst. Comically bad.
I had the absolute fortune to make my way through there at the end of last year. It was so bizarre to me that for the most part people are left alone to follow the rules with no oversight
And for the most part I saw everyone behaving well and not doing anything stupid; except the group of people trying to take pictures of a bison who was clearly unhappy about how close they were getting. He was grazing and would walk away a couple steps and they would follow. The boi was swishing his tail and showing what I saw were “leave me the fuck alone” signs and I had to at least shout to the people to leave him alone and they were fucking idiots. I was HOPING that they got charged and had some sense knocked into them
My partner and I had had discussions previously about what we’d do if something like that was about to happen and the kiddo in the car. If it’s just us adults then we’ll stay and watch the carnage but we’ll take off if they’re with us
Am also in Wyoming and can confirm.
Why would they come to the shithole US?
err… to “shit” of course.?
I felt bad you lost your own upvote, so have mine!
I was saving it for you.
There is no reasonable explanation here except inadequate availability of public restrooms for the amount of tourists.
That’s… not the problem. And even if it was, the solution is absolutely not “I guess I’ll shit in that guy’s yard”. Go into a hotel lobby or coffee shop or bar or whatever, ask for the restroom (use your phone as a translator if you need to, because that’s a thing now), and do it there.
Also, what exactly are you suggesting “the problem” is, then? Because based on the rest of the thread, it sounds like most of the people refusing to name the problem are quietly (or loudly) encouraging Chinese racism.
Holy fuck, guy, it’s not racism against Chinese people. It’s frustration and irritation against tourists that behave heinously. Those tourists unfortunately happen to be predominantly Chinese. But if Americans or Russians or Brazilians or Indians were doing it, we’d all be having the same reaction. Stop borrowing outrage.
Either you have not read this comment section, or you are deliberately misconstruing it to feel more comfortable with yourself.
Elsewhere in this thread, it definitely sounds like that’s the problem? People are saying these are residential neighborhoods where the only public restrooms are in a park, and they were already packed and overflowing.
Even if that is true, how is “I will shit in this random residential yard” a reasonable solution to that?
It’s not, the reasonable solution is to provide more restrooms. But it apparently didn’t happen, thus the unreasonable solution.
They do
Maybe I’m too Usian to understand this but the article doesn’t call out tourists from any particular country. So it’s odd to me that China is being called out so much in the comments.
People know… If this news was from somewhere in Europe everyone would be blaming the Brits in the comments. It’s known…
I doubt it.
Americans and Brits tourists here in Europe do indeed have a certain reputation, but Chinese tourists have such a bad reputation that Brits and Americans are welcomed with open arms.
The biggest problem are the groups though. Any group is going to behave badly, nationality doesn’t matter. And that in combination with how different Chinese culture is in some aspects just has given them a bad reputation worldwide.
tourists shitting in the street is a “china bad” dogwhistle. i used to live near a tourist destination so i’m used to that blending in with my tinnitus
Seems odd to me as well. I feel like we need proof other than strangers on the Internet just making claims.
Strangers making claims on the internet is all this place is. There’s no “proof” needed or available here.
oh ok, thanks for deciding that for the rest of us. lol
China bad, even when it’s good.
Extreme mental gymnastics to twist literally anything . The US certainly isn’t innocent on this.
So obvious and absurd it has become a meme and something to ridicule.
Example
My impression overall here is that most tourists try to behave very well. I see people from my home country offer gentle gestures like carrying an elderly person’s bag up the stairs that they would not do at home.
The problem are the 3 fuckers among 10000 who behave like shit, and the fact that there are so many tourists especially in high season.
They do not “behave like shit”, they simply “shit”
Wouldn’t a bunch of porta potties solve this?
There are public bathrooms at the park. It was packed with tourists and their litter when I went in 2024 though.
As for the streets where people actually live, they shouldn’t need to have a bunch of ugly porta-potties occupying the streets in front of their home. It’s a place where people have always lived, not a place that exists solely to be a tourist attraction.
I guess I wrongly assumed all tourists would have the common sense to not defacate in someone else’s yard.
If the public bathrooms are already packed, and people are finding other places to go, there clearly aren’t enough bathrooms to manage the number of tourists. Temporary extra bathrooms like porta-potties are completely reasonable here. Surely they’re less of an eyesore than shit in a yard or street.
Your solution is to accommodate the tourist, the option the locals go for is less tourist.
How are the locals planning to accomplish that? Cutting down the cherry trees? Walled city?
There are public bathrooms at the park. It was packed with tourists and their litter when I went in 2024 though.
Soooo, the festivals are probably put on by the city or area. If the bathrooms at the park were packed, then the city and area should provide more porta potties. It’s kind of simple. The cities probably wanted the tourism, but are now realizing that it might not be worth it? That I get. The pooping thing though, that I don’t get.
To be fair, they might’ve been expecting the trash, but probably weren’t expecting all of the renegade pooping. Even at Ueno Park in Tōkyō, which is probably one of the most crowded places during sakura season, you’ll see extra trash bins, but not porta-poddies.
I also didn’t go to Arakurayama during the festival. I went in February, and if it was already crowded with literring tourists then, it must be awful during sakura season. Japan has been receiving record overtourism for the past few years (ever since re-opening in late 2022). I saw it mentioned on NHK News like almost every day. Yeah, they might be a little tired of the extra tourists now.
Someone shits in your yard and you’re going to set a porta potty out by the curb? No you’re not.
The city should
Not with Chinese tourists it would seem.
Some things are meant to be local and communal…just let it be.
Worth reviewing what type of sanitation services are available. If people are completely ignoring adequate public recepticles and bathrooms then that can be addressed a variety of ways but that seems relatively less likely in my opinion.
Especially with people breaking into homes to use the bathroom. Hard to imagine anyone resorting to this except out of sheer desperation, which would suggest that the number of people being invited over is simply too many for the infrastructure to handle.
If the infrastructure is inadequate to handle the volume of people then cancelling the event or limiting visitors is the responsible thing to do. It will come with an economic hit (I imagine quite a few businesses see increased sales volume during the festival) but for the dignity of both the tourists and residents it’s important not to stretch the existing infrastructure beyond capacity.
Would be interesting to hear what the tourists perspective have been over the past few years, especially if the issue got this bad.
You have never been to Japan, have you? If any country in the world has excellent public bathroom infrastructure, it’s Japan. Always clean, generally free, and within 1-2 minutes walking range.
The already existing infrastructure may be of good quality but it doesn’t really matter if the capacity isn’t there to meet the volume of people.
In fact, let’s agree that your point is true. Wouldn’t people want to use those immaculately maintained facilities and, if they aren’t, could it be because the wait is too long?
I have trouble buying a narrative that any person chose to skip over a widely available well maintained public toilet to break into a person’s home and use their bathroom. You should too.
I agree that most people wouldn’t opt for that, but most tourists also don’t behave like that. The vast majority behaves very well, they are somewhat aware of Japanese manners and try to adapt (sometimes in sweet, dorky ways, but who am I to judge, I probably look the same).
There are a few people who do this and they ruin the image for everyone.
The issue is not the infrastructure, really. It is excellent and in excellent condition, across the country.
Imagine you have perfect toilets, some even designed by star architects, free to use for everyone and clean. And some fucker just decides to take a dump in someone’s garden, for whatever reason. Is that the problem of the infrastructure?
Doesn’t matter how famous the architect who made the toilet was if there’s only one of them per 100 people at a tourist event compared to the one per 10 any other time of the year. I’ve seen lots of fancy toilets but none of them have been able to hold 10 butts at once.
Seriously though, Japan has the best toilet infrastructure in the world as far as I can tell, in terms of maintenance and quantity. Tourists don’t shit in people’s gardens in other countries as much, or at least it doesn’t get scandalized. I assume it doesn’t happen all that often here either, probably those were 1-2 cases that get hyped up. But toilet infrastructure is really the last thing you have to worry about.
Also, it’s not like all of a sudden 1000 people spawn in the same spot and all have to take a shit within the next 2 minutes. I expect tourists, especially adults, to be able to plan their dumping schedule at least 10 minutes ahead in regular times. If there are a few emergencies, the Japanese toilet infrastructure can accomodate for them. There are not 1000 emergencies at the same time. Just walk for 2 minutes or across the street to the next convenience store and take a shit there.
Other than that, the star architect toilet tour through tokyo is one of my recommendations for friends coming to visit. It’s really an experience!
For whatever reason? What could possibly be the reason? If the toilets are as remarkable and pristine as youve shared, it’s hard to imagine any reason someone would choose to do that. Unless you’re saying the tourist is doing it out of spite which still leaves us with the question of why.
I imagine China doesn’t have the infrastructure Japan has and they’re simply doing what they’re accustomed to doing when travelling their own country.
You genuinely think a person would forgo a functional (let’s take udon’s word for it - world class) toilet to break into someone’s house in a foreign country just to use their bathroom? That doesn’t seem like a stretch to you?
Yards very often don’t have to be broken into. You can access the yard by walking into it from the street.
Like I said, if they’re accustomed to bad infrastructure, why would they expect it elsewhere?
Besides that, tourists often travel in group. Even the best infrastructure can’t accommodate a large bus of tourists are once. I’ve been to Japan, the more touristy places actually have signs specifically addressing the Chinese on what not to do, so it does point at it being a larger problem there.
Bro has never been here and thinks he can make a reasonable argument
Feel free to make a counter argument based on your personal experience, if you actually have one. What would be the reason?
The infrastructure aren’t inadequate, tourist are entitled.
That’s not the first time Japan people have problem with tourists
Hard to imagine entitlement leading someone to break into a home in a foreign country to use a toilet though, right?
Ho man you’ll be surprised. At the start of the 2000s there was a a French YouTuber that give tips on how to « get » Japanese girl… the tips ? Rape, post on YouTube.
lol… wtf
