[Post from keitai]
As I was walking around the Imperial Palace today, I was behind two chaps as pictured, who were slowly cycling along. On the back of their jackets it says,「マナーから、ルールへ。」and underneath 「千代田区」, which I guess translates to around ‘From manners to rules’ and underneath ‘Chiyoda-ku’. I could be wrong, but I see this being one of two things – either they support everything ‘from manners to rules’, or they’re going to make manners the rules. Some kind of day-glo behaviour police. The second line means they either work for that Ward office, or that’s their gang chapter. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.
Hiya,
They are the tobacco police! Look out if you are a smoker who walks at the same time. It used to just be bad manners to smoke while you are walking- but nobody told anybody, so that didn’t mean anything. Now it is something like a traffic ticket to smoke while walking or even to discard of cigarette butts in some unapproved way- I forget. It’s not officially an anti-smoking regulation, but legally more of an anti-littering rule.
But, you know how much effect it has had around Tokyo!
Nice! It’s always faintly sad to watch smokers in Chiyoda-ku now, huddled against the elements in doorways, off public walkways. How long till Starbuck’s coffee drinkers suffer the same fate?