Misplaced a wad of cash? In Japan, not to worry

Norimitsu Onishi NYT
Friday, January 9, 2004

TOKYO Anywhere else, perhaps, a shiny cellphone left behind on the back seat of a taxi, a nondescript umbrella left leaning against a subway door, a wad of cash dropped on a sidewalk, would be lost forever, the owners resigned to the vicissitudes of big-city life.

But here in Tokyo, with 8 million people in the city and 33 million in the metropolitan area, these items and thousands more would probably find their way to the Tokyo Police Department's lost-and-found center. In a four-story warehouse, hundreds of thousands of lost objects are meticulously cataloged according to the date and location of discovery, and the information put in a database.

Smaller lost-and-found centers exist all over Japan, based on a 1,300-year-old system that long preceded Japan's unification as a nation and its urbanization. More recently, it has apparently survived an economic slump that has contributed to a general rise in crime.

Consider that in 2002 people found and brought to the Tokyo center $23 million in cash, 72 percent of which was returned to the owners, once they had convinced the police that it was theirs. About 19 percent of it went to the finders after no one claimed the money for half a year.

Hitomi Sasaki, 24, sporting a suntan and a pierced nose, found $250 in a tray under a plant outside the restaurant where she works. "I always hand in something I find, like purses," said Sasaki, who had come to claim the money after waiting half a year. "I imagine that a person might be in trouble, losing money or a purse.

"I used to live in Chicago, so I can tell you how wonderful this is. Inside the center, I saw a woman come to pick up an umbrella today. Only for an umbrella. It's something almost impossible to imagine in other cities in the world."

Children are also taught from early on to hand in anything they find to the police in their neighborhoods. So most of the 200 to 300 people who come to the center every day take the system for granted, as did Tatsuya Kozu, 27, who retrieved his leather business card case the other day. "I'm glad," he said. "I just dropped by here to pick it up, since my office is nearby."

On a recent morning, shelves were heaving under bags containing lost items that spoke of the rhythms of commuting life: keys, glasses, wallets, cellphones, bags. A small bicycle helmet with "Suzuki" on it and a toy horse testified perhaps to a child's fickleness. Skis and golf bags attested perhaps less to misplacement than to an abandoned hobby; unclaimed wedding bands perhaps bespoke the end of something larger.

Other objects - wheelchairs and crutches - were harder to explain, though Nobuo Hasuda, 54, and Hitoshi Shitara, 47, both veteran officials of the lost-and-found system, had well-rehearsed lines.

"I wonder what happened to the owners," Shitara said.

Hasuda said, with a smile, "If they didn't need them anymore because they got better, it's a good thing."

One floor was a sea of umbrellas, which have the distinction of being the most commonly lost item - 330,000 in 2002, or 3,200 for every good rainfall - and, at a rate of 0.3 percent, the least reclaimed.

The low rate is an indication of how rapidly Japan has grown rich in the span of a few generations. "In the past," Shitara said, "one person barely had one umbrella, or a family had to share one. So your father scolded you if you lost an umbrella."

Everything changes. Hasuda remembered that at a local lost-and-found center decades ago people brought in cabbages, radishes, oranges and other vegetables and fruit they had found.

Because the products would spoil, the police sold them at a bargain to the finders. Nowadays, fearing contamination, the authorities immediately dispose of any food.

The item with the highest return rate - 75 percent - is the cellphone, which has flooded the center in the last three years. Owners typically call their own phones, or the center traces the owners through their subscription and sends a notification postcard.

The lost-and-found property system dates to a code written in the year 718, according to Hideo Fukunaga, a former police official who wrote a book on the subject, "Notes on the Law on Lost Property."

Back then, lost goods, animals and, mysteriously, servants had to be handed over to a government official within five days of being found. After a year, the government took over the belongings, though the owner could still reclaim them. The code stipulated that people had no right to keep lumber found adrift in a flood.

In the 18th century, finders were given more rights and were rewarded with a certain value of the found property. Finders who did not hand in objects were severely punished. According to Fukunaga's book, in 1733 two officials who kept a parcel of clothing were led around town and executed.

A new law was created in the late 19th century and then reformed, most recently in 1958. Currently, a finder must hand in an object to the authorities within seven days, or lose the right to a reward or ownership. In the case of lost money, if the original owner is found, the finder has the right to claim 5 percent to 20 percent of the sum, though usually it is 10 percent.

If the original owner is not found after half a year, the finder can claim the object or money. But most finders do not bother making any claims, and the objects and proceeds usually end up going to the Tokyo government. These days, the authorities are thinking of ways to update the system by creating an Internet listing of the items at all lost-and-found centers nationwide, or at least those in Tokyo. The system's survival, though, will depend less on technology than on simple honesty.

Last June, Tsutomu Hirahaya, 55, a photographer, found ¥13,000, or about $120, on a counter at a betting booth. He handed over the money to an employee and left his name and address. A few weeks ago, he received a postcard from the police informing him that the cash was his.

"I feel uncomfortable holding another person's money," Hirahaya said. "I think many Japanese people feel the same way and hand over something they find. I think among Japanese there's still a sense of community since ancient times."