How is the beach where Japanese people who had a BBQ left all their garbage behind, or bottles and disposable bento boxes laying around the streets, or mountains where there are whole areas filled with garbage you can see when hiking, whatever the reason and means, something positive?
We could do this all day, because it seems that you are missing the point. It is not all that clean and hygienic as other people seem to extrapolate. Japan has a lots of other issues that has been discussed in other areas of HN. I wish I had the link to a particular comment from a Japanese guy who told us just how misaligned our ideas of Japan (idealized view) and reality are.
With respect to the person who said that Japan has a culture of excellence, and said how Japanese people clean their desks: well, so do many Eastern Europeans (at least in my country), our cities are clean, and we do have companies here that put emphasis on efficiency and safety, but I would not say that we have a culture of excellence, or even dare to make assumptions about millions of people like this one: "that’s why even executives will clean up their desks and offices, something Americans wouldn’t even know how to start".
> How is the beach where Japanese people who had a BBQ left all their garbage behind, or bottles and disposable bento boxes laying around the streets, or mountains where there are whole areas filled with garbage you can see when hiking
The commenter above claimed that, without providing any proof, in an attempt negate the comparatively higher standards of general hygiene in Japan that many visitors can immediately see.
Does a single tree in a desert make it a forest?
Does a single dead tree in a forest make it a desert?
Is Detroit an equally desirable place to live in as San Francisco?
Why is comparison suddenly such a hard concept to grasp?
I provided clear examples that when nobody cleans up, Japan is pretty dirty in such places which basically proves my point that Japan is mostly only clean because you have millions of people who clean stuff every single day as their full time job.
How is cleanliness and hygiene, whatever the reason and means, something negative?