While driving to work recently, I noticed an object fall from the roof of a car heading in the opposite direction. The windows on the other car were all rolled up, so quite obviously the object hadn't been tossed by the driver. It couldn't be trash.
Even though I was running late for work (it was about 4:40 a.m.), I did a quick u-turn and went back to see what the object was. It was a Louis Vuitton billfold. Had the driver of the other car been driving sensibly I likely could have caught up and handed the billfold back to the owner. But the driver was ripping down the road like a bat out of hell, and had since made a turn. I quickly gave up on that plan of action. I opened the billfold to see if there were any sort of identification inside. I noticed a student ID from a junior college, and also noticed 6,000 yen in cash. The owner must have placed it on the roof of the car and forgotten to retrieve it before speeding away.
What to do with it? I was already running late. Take it to Tokyo with me and then turn it in to the police when I got finished, probably about 8 or 9 o'clock that night? Or take it to the police right away in order to put the owner's mind at ease? From past experiences I knew that filling out all the paperwork would take up at least 30 minutes at the local police box. Mess around too long and I would end up paying large truck expressway tolls to Tokyo out of my own pocket.
I took it to the police box.
Nobody was there, however. So I picked up the phone receiver outside the police box door, a direct line to the main police station. I thought at least I would let them know the wallet had been found and would be turned in later. The owner was certain to call them. I wanted to make sure she knew it was safe and intact. Just then, though, a patrol car pulled up. The two officers manning the police box had been out patrolling. I told them what I had found and we went inside to do the paperwork.
Besides the 6,000 yen I had initially spotted, there turned out to have been an additional 42,000 tucked away somewhere. One of the cops pulled it out. Grand total: 48,667 yen. Nice little chunk of change. Her driver's license was also inside, so contacting her was going to be a simple matter for the police. No chance that I could exercise my claim to the total amount several months later. As I had expected, the paperwork took about half an hour.
As soon as I picked up the billfold and noticed the person on the ID was Japanese I immediately thought, "Judging by past experience, I won't get so much as a simple 'Thank you' for this...." You see, this wasn't the first time I had found a wallet in Japan. It was the fourth.
In Japan, the person who finds and turns in money has a legal right to receive a portion of it. The policeman said between 5% and 20%. 10% is the norm. When you turn in the money and fill out the paperwork, you receive a receipt for the wallet and all its contents. The only way the owner can retrieve the wallet is to come to you, pay the bounty, and get the receipt from you. He then takes the receipt to the police station and gets his things from the Accounting Section.
I'd lke to have an extra 5,000 yen or so. But I don't want it in the form of a statutorily mandated expression of gratitude. I also didn't want to make the owner have to go to the trouble of trying to catch me at home. When doing the paperwork, there is a small section on the form where the person who found the item can sign away his rights to the money. That's what I did. Not my rights should the item go unclaimed, but my right to collect the bounty. Four times I have found people's wallets. Four times I have willingly signed away my right to 10% of the money.
There won't be a fifth time.
Why won't there be a fifth time? Because my supply of the milk of human kindness has just about dried up. When the police hand over the goods, they always inform the person of the name and contact information of the person who did them a good deed. Care to guess how many have ever bothered to call and say thanks?
One.
One person out of four. One man called to express his gratitude in very polite Japanese, and to insist on giving me the money I had turned down when I turned in his wallet. I refused, and he sent my family a nice box of cookies anyway. The other three folks? Nothing. Not a word. Like it never happened.
Have you ever encountered folks who think Japan is a society where manners are extremely important? Folks who plan to come to Japan and who spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about saying or doing something that might give offense to a Japanese person? Tell them not to worry so damned much. In Japan, one only need be polite to and considerate of those one knows in a personal or professional capacity. Don't give strangers a second thought. If a stranger does you a kindness but you know you'll never be put in a position to face him, don't give him a second thought. Take it for granted and march right along.
Oh, I fogot to mention something....
The one person who called to say thanks and who sent cookies...he wasn't Japanese. He was an exchange student at grad school, a man from China.
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