LANGUAGE｜CULTURE
Why Japanese Fans Cleaning at World Cup Isn’t Normal Yet ‘Atarimae’
Japan, where everyone from children to company presidents cleans up
Published in
4 min readNov 28, 2022
When Japan stunned Germany in its World Cup opener, many news sources covered the behavior of the Japanese fans after the astounding match who picked up trash and left the stadium spotless. FIFA’s tweet went viral, and netizens loved this selfless act.
People Asked Why: It’s ‘Atarimae’ for the Japanese
Even after the devastating loss to Costa Rica, Japanese supporters didn’t skip this ritual, which made yet another round of news coverage. Journalist Sandra Gathmann went deeper and asked Japanese supporters why they cleaned the stadium. They casually replied,
because it’s ‘atarimae (nothing special)’!
A female supporter even answered it’s atarimae for her to leave the stadium cleaner than the way she found it before the game.
