A Cell Phone and an Umbrella

A true story

If you haven’t heard of an act of honesty lately, then you better hear this. While staying in Japan as a foreign student last 2004-2006, a number of experiences left me with the impression that Japanese people would leave seemingly lost items where it is – untouched. Well, the owner might come back and get it. Like I did when I left a paper bag of souvenir items in a pizza parlor, like my Thai friend who forgot her parcel in a bank, and maybe like that owner who left his or her mobile phone in a bank-teller-machine ( I saw the cp, but I left it - untouched!)

But of all the experiences, this one tops it all. One rainy day, on our way to the university, near a dormitory where all residents were Japanese, my friends and I saw on the side walk a cell phone with an umbrella carefully placed over it, apparently to protect it from the pelting rain. Puzzled, we all bent down and peered at the phone. My Spanish and my Yemeni friends suggested to get the phone, find out who the owner is, inform her or him that his or her cp is on the street. Or just turn it over to the office, I piped in.

However, my Thai friend said, “No, don’t get it. You know how Japanese people are, they don’t touch anything not their own. You see maybe somebody dropped his or her cp then a Japanese passed by, saw it and since it was raining, put an umbrella over it. So, just leave it there.”

We bought her story. The next day, the cp and the umbrella were still there. On the third day, the umbrella was neatly folded and hung on the sidewalk railings but the cp was no longer there.

I believe the cellphone owner came back and took only his or her cp - and left the umbrella.