Japanese fans are cleaning up the WC football stadium. They must do it at home, too

Putting one’s best foot forward when out and about in the world may well be a social virtue. But for the football fan — that boisterous archetype given more to exuberant displays of loyalty than to civic conscientiousness — it is often a spectator sport. Perhaps that is what makes the sight of Japanese football fans going around with trash bags, cleaning up after matches in the ongoing football World Cup, catnip for the internet. The heartening display of public-mindedness has, however, prompted a sharper conversation at home.

Some Japanese women responding online have wondered why such civic conscientiousness seems to flourish outdoors while domestic chores remain unevenly distributed. Among developed nations, Japan has one of the most inequitable distribution of unpaid domestic labour, with women carrying much of the burden. But the contrast is rooted in the same social code that produces such exemplary public behaviour — in the Meiji-era ideal of voluntary self-restraint and collective responsibility that shaped the distinction between soto and uchi, the outside and inside. Japanese social norms have long demanded greater responsibility towards guests, strangers, even rival fans, while the innermost circle, the family, absorbs whatever is left over. The stadium is soto. The sink is uchi.

Perhaps the debate is not really about where responsibility belongs. The fan who hunts down litter has already demonstrated admirable commitment to collective good. He only needs to extend it to the home. After all, the dishwasher is not an opposing team, and no one has ever been shown the red card for a little extra time in the kitchen.