Japan, which was once "messy", why does everyone have a "cleanliness addiction" now?

People who travel abroad love to label various countries and regions after returning home, such as Dubai for local tyrants, Paris for romance and Britain for gentlemen. When it comes to traveling to Japan, most people will talk about Japanese cleanliness, and even make people feel that Japanese people are a little "small cleanliness".

▲ Clean streets in Japan

But what many people don't know is that Japan used to be synonymous with "messy". The city is full of stench, sewage and flies. This is a black history that all Japanese people are unwilling to mention.

Do Japanese people really love cleanliness since ancient times? Why did they suddenly make the city particularly dirty? How is the Japanese "national cleanliness addiction" formed now?

Geographically speaking, Japan is located on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean and belongs to an island country. Most of its climate belongs to subtropical monsoon maritime climate, so there is abundant rainfall.

Every spring and summer, warm seawater from the East Pacific brings abundant rain to Japan, which is beneficial to cleaning and purifying Japanese cities to a great extent. It can be said that typhoon and precipitation played the role of a free natural cleaner in this process.

▲ On the annual rainfall map of Japan, the rainfall of 800 mm is the lowest, but the annual rainfall of many cities in China is less than 800 mm (for example, Tianjin and Jinan are all around 600 mm).

The terrain of Japan is mostly high mountains and narrow plains, and most of the population is concentrated in the southeast coastal areas.

▲ There are many mountains in Japan.

In autumn and winter, although the northwest monsoon blows a lot of dust and various pollutants from the Gobi and desert areas in the western continent to the main island of Japan, it is difficult to invade the eastern coastal areas of Japan with concentrated population because of the blocking of Japanese mountains.

This enables Japan to maintain a clean urban environment in autumn and winter when precipitation is scarce. I have to say that God has contributed to the clean urban environment in Japan.

Japan is located at the junction of the Asia-Europe plate and the Pacific plate, which makes there are volcanoes all over Japan, the most famous of which is Mount Fuji.

▲ The beauty of Mount Fuji

▲ Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture, Kyushu, Japan is one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

Volcanoes and earthquakes have also created hot springs all over Japan. Some people probably speculate that there are at least 3,500 hot springs in Japan, which is known as the "country of hot springs".

▲ Monkeys in hot springs in Nagano, Japan.

Due to abundant precipitation and small temperature difference between day and night, most parts of Japan are sultry and irritable all the year round, so people naturally like to take a bath to keep fresh, and the scattered hot springs are their unique treasures.

▲ Japanese bath culture

Hot springs are rich in various minerals, which are of great benefit to human body. Under the joint action of various reasons, bathing has become an important part of Japanese daily life.

▲ A bathhouse in the countryside of Izu Peninsula in Japan was built in the Showa period, which shows that Japanese bathing culture has a long history and goes deep into the countryside.

Japan's bathing culture began in the Middle Ages and has been enduring for a long time. In medieval Europe, people from aristocrats to ordinary people did not bathe. They regard bathing as the root of depravity and disease, and would rather stink than take a bath. So that European perfumes have been carried forward since then, in order to cover up the stench.

▲ French King Louis XIV resolutely refused to take a bath.

It is also because the temperature in Japan is hot and humid all the year round, which makes garbage and food easy to rot and deteriorate, making infectious diseases and plagues frequent in Japanese history.

In order to effectively curb the spread of germs, as early as 1655, the edo government banned the dumping of domestic garbage into rivers and lakes, and adopted a series of measures to manage garbage disposal. At that time, the Japanese already had garbage sorting and recycling, and even specialized garbage recycling contractors and second-hand commodity transactions appeared.

Before Buddhism was introduced to Japan, Japan had its own local religion-Shinto. It is said that the founder of Shintoism was born in the ocean, so Shintoism takes cleanliness as its core.

▲ "Seeing God in the Moonlight Night" and "Shining God in the Sky" in Shintoism.

According to Shintoism, the evil and dirt in a person's heart need to be removed, and the filth of the body is only the external manifestation of the evil in the heart, so cleaning personal hygiene is to wash the heart, and cleaning is equivalent to practicing.

▲ Shintoism was built in the lake of torii.

So now, before paying homage to the shrine, Japanese people should first carry out a purification ceremony, that is, washing hands, gargling and bathing, because for believers, this means not only purifying the body, but also purifying the soul.

▲ Before the Shinto ceremony, purify the washing place.

Moreover, it is disrespectful to rush into the club without attending the purification ceremony. In ancient times, the shrine also played the role of a free bathing hall for Japanese civilians. On the one hand, you can keep clean without spending money, on the other hand, you can also participate in serious and sacred purification ceremonies. Why not? So at that time, civilians often took their children to the shrine to take a bath.

After Buddhism was introduced into Japan, it was naturally welcomed by the Japanese, because the requirements of cleanliness in Buddhism itself were not much lower than that in Shinto. The widespread spread of Buddhism has deepened the enthusiasm of Japanese people for cleanliness, and the trend of cleanliness has become more and more rampant.

At that time, due to the large number of religious believers in Japan, in the eyes of these believers, cleaning, keeping clean, and meditating and chanting Buddha numbers were all ways of practicing, so the streets and alleys of Japan were full of Japanese cleaning people.

▲ believers who clean the temple.

The concept of cleanliness is deeply rooted in the hearts of Japanese people. Even in Japanese, beauty means cleanliness. It can be seen that in the Japanese thinking, cleanliness is beauty, and uncleanness is filth, which shows the importance of cleanliness to the Japanese.

However, it is such a nation obsessed with cleanliness. Modern history has also experienced a dirty history that is unbearable to look back on.

After Meiji Restoration, Japan established a large number of factories because of learning advanced western technology. On the one hand, it has greatly developed Japan's economy and gradually joined the ranks of great powers, but on the other hand, it has also greatly damaged the environment.

When the black smoke from the factory spewed out of the chimney, the pure land of Japan gradually became smoky. At that time, Tokyo became a famous "fairyland" city (the smog was too serious).

▲ The face of heavily polluted Tokyo.

With the development of cities and the gradual explosion of population, when people's living habits can't keep up with the rapid economic development, the traditional clean culture in Japan has also been seriously damaged.

At that time, the streets of Japan were full of garbage and dust, and even it was difficult to find clean water in many places, and the Japanese who were busy developing the economy had no time to take care of it.

Before World War II, Japan was ready to change the image of a "dirty and messy" city, but the war delayed the time to solve these problems.

After the end of World War II, Japan's economy was dragged down by the long-term war of foreign aggression. After the war, Japan devoted all its energy to vigorously developing its economy.

Although through continuous efforts, Japan finally surpassed Britain and Germany by 1968 and became the second largest economy in the world, but it also paid a high price. The environmental problems before World War II have not been alleviated, but have become more and more serious and even terminally ill.

With the rise of economic level, the Japanese began to have enough money to go out and see the world, but at this time, the Japanese are famous all over the world because of unsanitary and low quality.

So that Europeans at that time could not help frowning or covering their noses when they saw people with Asian skin color on the street or heard English with a serious Japanese accent, and their disgust was unreservedly expressed on their faces.

▲ garbage by the river.

Due to serious environmental pollution, there were "four major public hazards in Japan" in Japan at that time, namely Minamata disease, Minamata disease, four-day asthma and pain.

These four public nuisance diseases seriously affected the life and health of the Japanese people at that time, and became the high price paid by Japanese citizens for the national economic development.

Being sick is not the most horrible thing, but the most unbearable thing is the "fly disaster" that happened in 1965. Because there was too much garbage at that time, flies lacking natural enemies flourished in Japan. how much is it? At that time, the local Japanese hung up a dress and soon it was full of flies.

Japanese people close the doors and windows two hours before cooking every day, and then use pesticides to kill flies indoors. After cooking, they must cover the pot at the first time and then eat quickly. At this time, people are completely racing against flies when eating.

▲ Pupils who deal with flies after class

The serious public hazards caused by environmental pollution have made the Japanese unbearable, and the Japanese government can no longer remain silent.

1970 in the 64th provisional parliament, Japan promulgated a series of laws, such as the Law on the Prevention of Marine Pollution, the Law on the Prevention of Atmospheric Pollution, the Law on the Control of Odor, the Law on the Control of Noise, the Law on the Prevention of Water Pollution and the Law on the Protection of Natural Environment. Because this congress is mainly about the control of environmental hazards, it is also called "public hazard congress".

▲ Japanese slogan against public hazards

In the 1970s, the Japanese government began economic transformation, shifting its economic focus from heavy industry to high-tech industry, and closing and relocating a large number of heavily polluting enterprises, thus greatly improving the environmental pollution problem.

Later, under the impetus of a series of encouragement measures by the Japanese government, the Japanese gradually returned to the traditional state of "national cleanliness addiction".

Due to the tradition of national cleanliness addiction and the lessons brought by serious environmental pollution in modern times, the Japanese love for cleanliness has reached the point where people and gods are angry.

In Japan, hygiene education is an important course in schools. Japanese children have to receive strict cleaning education from an early age and carry out cleaning activities in all aspects of their lives. For example, before going to school and returning to the classroom in the morning, you should change your shoes in a unified way and pat the dust on your body.

▲ Japanese students receiving health education.

Not only that, Japanese people have to learn to classify garbage seriously and rigorously since childhood. At present, China has just begun to gradually implement garbage sorting. Just dividing garbage into four categories has made many people feel collapsed, and some areas in Japan actually divide garbage into more than 20 categories!

It is conceivable that Japanese students educated in such an environment will basically consciously protect the hygiene of personal and public environment after entering the society. After all, if you don't follow strict hygiene rules, you will not only face people's eyes and disgust, but also face high fines.

▲ Cleaning station in Japan

But unlike the clean streets in Japan, there are few garbage cans on the streets in Japan. Friends who travel to Japan for the first time may face collapse because they can't find a trash can on the street, and become messy in the strong wind with the garbage they need to throw away, completely forgetting whether they appreciate cherry blossoms, red leaves or snow scenes.

What kind of operation is this? It turns out that Japanese people always bring their own garbage bags when they go out, and then take the garbage made outside home for sorting.

This makes it unnecessary for Japan to set up trash cans on the streets, so trash cans are basically rare on the streets of Japan.

▲ Street View of Tokyo, Japan

In short, the Japanese "national cleanliness addiction" is now world-famous, and that "messy" black history has finally been washed away.