It is often talked about by visitors how clean and how honest they find the everyday Japanese. Business can get a bit murky sometimes, but out on the street there are a lot of good well meaning people around. Friends have told me about how they had passports returned that had been left on a bus, and handbags returned with everything intact.

I just went down to the local Family Mart and picked up some supplies. An hour later I happened to go back to the same store because I had bills to be paid. It wouldn’t be a conbini without being able to pay your electricity, phone, gas and taxes all in the one place, right?

As the girl behind the counter was serving me she reached under the counter and pressed a buzzer. I was starting to think, “Is this a hold up?”, when I realized a queue was forming and she just wanted to get some help with serving for the other customers.

Then she said to me, “You are the guy that just bought the purin right?”. I said “yes, sure”. to my surprise, she went to a cabinet opened it and produced a 1,000 Yen note. “you dropped this when you came in before so here you go!”. Wow, I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t remembered dropping any money, but this is definitely good honest service.

Thanks Family Mart. Have you ever had anything returned that you thought would never come back?

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