Re: Jimmy Kimmel Calls USA "Filthy And Disgusting" After Traveling to Japan: "We Are Like Hogs Compared to the Japanese"

On Thu, 04 Apr 2024 13:02:19 -0700
BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
 

In article <uumno6$p8sf$2@dont-email.me>,
  Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:
>

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said he's looking at America in a new
light after a recent visit to Japan.
>
The 56-year-old said his trip abroad made him realize that the U.S.
is unsanitary compared to the land of the rising sun.
>
"After traveling to Japan, I realize that this place, this USA
we're always chanting about, is a filthy and disgusting country,"
he said during his monologue on Monday night's episode of "Jimmy
Kimmel Live."

>
I agree with him. My trip to Tokyo was an eye-opener. I've never seen
a city so clean and beautiful with pleasant, polite, happy people
everywhere you go. Its only drawback was that-- of all the places
I've been around the world-- it's one of the harder cities to get
around and function in if you don't speak the language. I thought at
the time that if I spoke and read Japanese, I'd consider living in
Tokyo for good if I could.
>

One of my friends and his wife taught English in Japan for a couple of
years back in the early 80s. He assured me that it's really easy and
logical to get around in Japan via public transit, especially rail. I
don't think he had any Japanese when he got there, although they
certainly learned some during their two years there. Even years later,
he could recite all the stops between Tokyo and the city where they
worked, which was two or three hours away from Tokyo.
 

Coming back to the shit-pile Los Angeles has become in just the last
10 short years was very disheartening.
>
It's no surprise it would be especially noticeable to Kimmel, whose
show's home is in an old Masonic temple right across Hollywood Blvd
from the Chinese Theater and the Hollywood-and-Highland Complex,
where fentanyl addicts stagger around like WALKING DEAD extras, crime
is out of control, vagrants tents and trash mountains abound, and
dead bodies lying on the sidewalk are a routine occurrence.
>
Coming back to that from Japan would be quite a contrast indeed.
>

Kimmel went on to describe how he used to believe that while the
U.S. had "areas for improvement," it was mostly ahead in terms of
cleanliness compared to most of the rest of the world.
>
"I go to Europe, and there are dirt holes where plumbing is
supposed to be. I hold my breath, and I go, 'I'm glad I'm not one
of these people,' and then I go back home," he continued. Kimmel
went on to praise the cleanliness of the bathrooms in Japan.
>
"The bathrooms in Tokyo and Kyoto are cleaner than our operating
rooms here. Everywhere you go the bathrooms are clean, they don't
smell bad, they have those toilets that wash you from the inside
out," he marveled. Kimmel also joked that even truck stop restrooms
were "cleaner than Jennifer Garner's teeth -- the cleanest.
Beautiful."
>
"And it's not just the bathrooms," the host added. "People carry
their own trash. There are no garbage cans," Kimmel said,
mentioning the 1995 terrorist incident when a man put poisonous
sarin gas in trash cans.

>
Yes! I noticed that. I had to carry around an empty Coke can for
several hours because there was nowhere on the street to put it.
>

This resulted in the country removing public trash receptacles and
Japanese citizens adapting to dispose of their own garbage.
>
"They're like OK, no more trash cans, everybody clean up after
yourselves. And guess what -- they clean up after themselves! They
bring their garbage to their houses," he added.
>
"It's like the whole country is Disneyland, and we're living at Six
Flags," Kimmel said. "I've been home 36 hours, I have never felt
dirtier. We are like hogs compared to the Japanese. I can't imagine
what they must think of us. 'Oh, the garbage people. Yes, the
Americans. Garbage.'"
>
[NYC was much cleaner before several Demcorats were running it,
Jimmy-Boy.]

 There may be an easy solution to littering. Many years ago, when I was
just a pup, I remember an episode of Wonderful World of Disney where
they talked about the state of littering in some historic places and/or
national parks, perhaps Mt. Rushmore or Yellowstone. They had a little
jingle going as they showed these scenes and I still remember a snippet
of it to this day: "Litterbug, litterbug, don't you care? Making a mess
everywhere!" I don't think I've littered since I saw that, although
there were probably a couple of other moments along the way that
reinforced that. I just hold on to any litter I generate - or put it in
my pocket - until I get to a garbage can. I barely even think about it:
it's just programmed into my brain.
 I suppose you could characterize that as brain-washing and I suppose
it's true but it worked and I can't find anything evil in it, unlike
the sort of brain-washing/indoctrination so many schools do today.
 Why don't we do more of this? The world wouldn't suddenly be clean and
tidy overnight but it would probably clean up gradually if we were all
persuaded to litter less.