Japan is a safe country, but it is true that only umbrellas are stolen?!

Japan is a country where the probability of being robbed is low, even if you leave your bag alone at your table while you use the bathroom. A country where a person who picks up a wallet containing a large sum of money will deliver it to a police box.

However, did you know that there is one item that is stolen quite a lot in Japan? Plastic umbrellas that are sold in convenience stores have a particularly high rate of theft.

In this article I will explain the psychology behind why Japanese people steal umbrellas.

Plastic umbrellas available everywhere

A sudden downpour… It’s a problem, isn’t it? Plastic umbrellas come in handy at such times. There are more than 55,000 convenience stores in Japan. You can buy umbrellas at each of them, so you don’t have to carry an umbrella with you in an emergency. They cost around 700 yen, so they are not expensive, but they are not cheap either. The big problem is that the plastic umbrellas that everyone has are almost always identical in design.

Umbrella stands at shop entrances are also problematic

Bringing wet umbrellas into the shop will make the inside dirty, so umbrellas are usually placed in an umbrella stand at the entrance before entering the shop.

Then, after shopping, customers leave the shop with their own umbrellas, but all the plastic umbrellas with the same design are often mistaken for each other so people can’t find their own umbrella! This is a common problem. Worse still, people take advantage of this situation by pretending to take an umbrella by mistake…

Japan is supposed to be peaceful, but for some reason only umbrellas are being stolen. The only way to prevent this is to make sure you know that your umbrella belongs to you. Put a sticker on it so that it stands out, and do not use plastic umbrellas that are hard to distinguish from others.

Don’t be too overconfident in Japan and make sure you take your own defensive measures.

ABE KENGO

• Japan
• japo
• safe