Despite the fact that Japan’s World Cup match isn’t until Sunday in Qatar, Japanese supporters have already left a lasting impression on soccer fans everywhere. Fans are seen tidying up after themselves in a video uploaded to Instagram by influencer Omar Farooq and taken at the end of Qatar’s opening match against Ecuador. When the game was over and everyone had left, Farooq was startled to see that it was Japanese supporters who remained to make sure the stadium was orderly and clean.
Farooq is astonished to see the fans collecting the rubbish that was left behind in the aisles and placing it in garbage bags before making sure that everything is spotless. In Japan, people are educated from a young age that they are required to clean up before leaving a location, and this kind of behavior is considered to be the norm.
It is a cultural norm in the country that is founded on respect, and it carries over quite well into any environment. “Someone convince me that this is normal. The Japanese fans decided to clean the stadium. It’s not even their match,” yelled Farooq in the video that has now gained widespread attention. “When I asked them, ‘Why are you cleaning something not related to you?’, the answer was, ‘Japanese never leave rubbish behind us. We respect the place.’”
Following this, Faaroq is shown giving some of the fans hugs, showing them the sign for respect, and telling some of the supporters that he really appreciates them and their culture. Over 11 million people in Japan have watched the film, and many of those viewers have shared their own personal stories. Commenting underneath the photo, the user @ny diary yuko discussed their own personal story of growing up in the area “When I went to school over 40 years ago in Japan, our teachers repeatedly mentioned to us ‘to leave the place cleaner than when we came’ whenever we went to school trips. It was normal custom even at home, and my mom always had few garbage bags with her wherever she went to use when no garbage cans weren’t available.”
After their victory over Germany, the Japanese team left their locker quite clean. They had the clothing folded and stacked, and they had also folded some origami on the table.
This is how the Japanese national team left its locker room after beating Germany this morning 👏
— Joe Pompliano (@JoePompliano) November 24, 2022
(📷: FIFA) pic.twitter.com/rZrSpl4jMb
This is not the first time that Japan has left a lasting impression on the rest of the globe with its goodness and allure. Even after a very disheartening semifinal loss to Belgium in the World Cup, they made sure the stadium was pristine, exactly as they had done throughout the entire competition.