mission.japan

There’s a particular glove I pass by almost every day. It’s a heavy winter mitt, black with fuchsia trim—whether it’s left or right I can’t remember. The first day I saw it, it was in the middle of a tiny road that ends at the main north-south road to the west of Tsushima Mall. The next day it was on top of the low concrete barrier that separates the road from a small parking lot to the north. And it’s been there, unmoved and unchanged, for the last several weeks.

In general, “finders keepers” doesn’t really apply in Japan. This is a good thing, since if you happen to lose your wallet with all of your cards and possibly several hundred dollars worth of yen, there’s a surprisingly good chance it will be returned without any losses (and there are plenty of stories to back this up). It also means you can unintentionally leave your wallet in your bicycle’s basket for an entire day outside your apartment building and expect to find it there later, untouched (this one comes from personal experience).

In winter, this cultural phenomenon means that gloves, hats, and even jackets become impromptu decorations for the utility pole nearest to where they were found. It’s natural in Japan to assume the owner will eventually come looking for the missing item, so often someone will go to the trouble to make sure it’s in some visible yet out-of-the-way place. Except that for small things, like gloves, the owner sometimes doesn’t come back. So the item stays in the same place for weeks at a time.

Matt has a similar story about a pair of slippers outside his apartment building that has literally been there since before they arrived last year. No one uses them, but no one moves them because no one is the owner. They’ve been lost, never to be found.