Japan Is a Safe Country

They say that Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. 

But just how safe is it?

Well, take the adage about how it's possible to leave your camera on a park bench in Tokyo, and still be able to find it the next day at the local police station. 

Was that ever true? And could that possibly be true in this day and age? 

The answer, friends, is a resounding yes… and yes. 

Allow me to back that up with a story that just took place the other day. 

Find My iPhone? Probably at the Police Box!

Friends were visiting the Kansai area, and we stopped by a sake brewery in Kobe before heading to the train station to go back to Osaka. While on the train en route, one of our friends realized that her iPhone was missing. She hurriedly searched through her bag and the surrounding area, but to no avail. The husband then opened his phone and instantly tracked her iPhone, showing that the phone was at the station we’d just left. 

We exited the train at the next station, and just after boarding a train in the opposite direction to go back, the Find My iPhone map updated and now showed that the missing phone was at the local police station. 

A phone call to the police precinct and a quick visit to the local koban, as the police box is called in Japanese, and within half an hour of the phone going missing, we had retrieved it and were back on our way to resume the day's itinerary. 

Both of our friends were very impressed that something like this could happen in Japan, shaking their heads and insisting that it never would happen back in the US. They remarked about how much of an honest, kind and polite society Japan is, and how much people here respect one another. 

Personal Safety & Responsibility in Japan

I can't guarantee that, in every instance on a self-guided tour of Japan, an item that goes missing will 100% for sure end up at the local police box. But that is always the first place to start when searching for an item. 

Ironically, in the taxi to the previous attraction earlier that afternoon, I had just suggested to our friends to always get a receipt for the taxi when exiting, just in case you leave something by accident in the taxi. My explanation was that the driver will not take the item, and if you call the taxi company in time they might even have the driver come back to where you are and drop it off (or they’ll have it at lost & found, or at the local koban). This exact scenario happened to me just a few weeks earlier in Kyoto. 

As we progress through the 21st century, Japan is starting to see changes as a society. The influx of both foreign labor and inbound tourists has created some element of change in Japan, to be sure. But that's not to say that it makes Japan any less honest or reliable. Just that, a foreigner finding a random item on the street in Japan might not know what to do with it, whereas any Japanese person would know to take it to the local koban. 

This rule of thumb was true when I first visited Japan back in the 1980s. On a high school trip in Tokyo, one of our group members found a wallet on the street near the Sensoji temple in Asakusa. Our Japanese teacher, a native of Japan who’d moved to the States, said, “okay gang, let's go to the police station and have a little cultural experience.” 

The student who found the wallet filled out some paperwork, gave his name and phone number back in the US, and the police advised that if the owner of the wallet did not retrieve it within 30 days, they would send the wallet to the student and his family in the us. 

It is great to see that, despite something's changing in the world, many of the great things that make Japan an amazing place to visit and to live have really not changed. 

People still go out & about alone well into the nighttime in even the biggest cities in japan, and have no fears about personal safety. People carry with them large amounts of cash and other valuables and don't even think twice about it. 

The only downside to this is that it has caused some Japanese people to have a fear of traveling abroad, because of Japan's position of relative safety as compared to the rest of the world. 

But that's a small price to pay, really, isn't it. Japanese people are very proud, and rightly so, about the aspects of safety and honesty in their society. 

Takeaways for Your Japan Trip: Safety and Lost & Found

As you can read into it by now, there are a few things that this means for your upcoming trip to japan. 

• While you'll want to take the normal precautions as you would in traveling in any city in the world, your trip is extremely likely to go smoothly, safely and without incident

• Should you find that something of yours has gone missing, the first place to check is with the local police box, or “Koban” (Google Maps lists these)

• If you do happen to find something on the street or in any public area, please take that item to the local police box and file some quick paperwork while you're having a nice chat with the local boys and girls in blue 

Japan is a great place to visit. 

It is stories and features such as these that make Japan even more attractive to visitors from around the world.

I, for one, am thankful for living here in Japan.

Until next time, happy travels!