Trash collectors in samurai costumes yesterday took to Tokyo’s streets, theatrically wielding garbage tongs and flicking litter left from an evening of Halloween revelry into wicker baskets on their backs.
Dressed in hats and boldly patterned black-and-white tunics, the group, known as Gomihiroi Samurai, or trash-picking samurai, has attracted a large fan base since it formed in 2006, with nearly 800,000 followers on video-sharing platform TikTok.
“If people are paying attention to our performance because they think it’s fun, they might as well start paying attention to the trash problem itself,” said a member of the group, Keisuke Naka, as he cleared the area under a large sign reading: “No Littering.”
Photo: Reuters
While Japan is famed overseas for its cleanliness, that image is only partly true, added Naka, a trash-picking samurai for seven years, as he gathered empty beer cans, plastic bottles and cigarette butts in a district known for its nightlife.
Occasions such as Halloween leave a lot of trash, as street drinking has become common in bustling areas and tourist spots, Naka said.
Residents of the area say the trash-picking samurai have made a difference.
Naruhito Miyasaka, a college student who grew up and lives around the area where Naka was collecting rubbish, said the trash problem had previously been so bad that people might see rats scampering amid the garbage at night.
Junya Kakihara, a restaurant owner, said the performances led him to pay more attention to the problem.
“I tell people not to litter when they are about to do so,” he said.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
RSS