The German highways are well-ordered, and most car owners line up and drive in order, without illegal occupation of emergency parking lanes. People's Vision

When pedestrians cross the street on the streets of Seoul, South Korea, right-turning vehicles will stop to let pedestrians regardless of whether there is a signal light or not. Photo by our reporter Chen Shangwen

The garbage thrown out by ordinary Japanese families is covered with yellow net bags to prevent the garbage from being touched by crows and wild cats. Photo by our reporter Tian Hong

The prohibition signs in Singapore's subways are marked with clear fine amounts. Photo by our reporter Yu Yichun

Singapore

"Soft and hard" to change bad habits

Our reporter in Thailand Yu Yichun

People's impression of Singapore is generally inseparable from the key words "beautiful and clean, harmonious society, orderly and polite", but these beautiful words are not achieved overnight in Singapore. In the 1960s and 1970s, littering, spitting, and queue jumping were also common in Singapore. In order to improve the social outlook, the Singapore government has been formulating and enforcing various laws and regulations for decades, and has been tirelessly carrying out social movements, which has brought about tremendous changes in the social outlook and completely changed the image of Singaporeans.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Singapore was rapidly urbanized, and residents who originally lived in rural areas became citizens living in densely populated public housing estates overnight. However, they still retain some rural life habits, such as piling up personal belongings in public areas, throwing garbage at will, spitting everywhere, etc. "In order to help citizens adapt to urban life and learn to live in harmony, and because Singapore was preparing to vigorously develop the tourism industry at that time, the "National Politeness Movement" covering China came into being in June 1979." Fu Qionghua, an expert in grassroots organizations and public management in Singapore, told our reporter.

The "National Politeness Movement" encourages people to adopt a more polite attitude and lifestyle. In addition to a lot of publicity on radio, television and newspapers, the organizers of the movement also repeatedly emphasized the importance of politeness through novel forms such as documentaries, ballads and songs, so that the movement can be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In 1982, Singapore gave birth to the first mascot ever to cooperate with social movements - the little lion "Sin Ya". This "politeness ambassador" has accompanied several generations of Singaporeans as they grew up.

According to the Straits Times, the politeness campaigns carried out in 1993 and 1994 reduced Singaporeans' "me-first" attitude. Singaporeans piled up fewer plates with food residue when eating buffets, and gave up their seats to the elderly and infirm more often. In 2001, the "National Courtesy Campaign" was replaced by the "Singapore Kindness Campaign" with similar goals.

Wu Yuanhua, a visiting professor at the Nanyang School of Public Administration, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, said in an interview with our reporter that it would not take several years to completely change the bad habits that citizens have formed over a long period of time. "Singapore has gradually "forced" people to give up some outdated habits by using both soft and hard methods. If it is purely based on persuasion, I am afraid it will not work."

Severe laws are the last link for the Singapore government to curb anti-social behavior. Gu Qingyang, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, told our reporter that Western media sometimes call Singapore a "finecountry", which ostensibly means "fine country", but in fact it is using another meaning of "fine" - "fine", to metaphorically use severe punishment measures by the Singapore government to stop uncivilized behavior.

However, Gu Qingyang believes that Singapore's law enforcement is standardized and professional, which makes the law produce a relatively good social effect. The general practice of the government is to first educate and persuade, and only after repeated persuasion is ineffective will the law be used. In January this year, the Singapore court issued the largest fine in history to a high-altitude thrower who refused to change his behavior: a fine of 19,800 Singapore dollars (about 90,000 yuan), plus 5 hours of community service. It turned out that between June 2013 and July 2014, the National Environment Agency of Singapore received five complaints from the man's residential unit about his high-altitude throwing behavior. After repeated education by his town council and non-governmental organizations, and repeated surveillance by officials of the National Environment Agency, the problem of throwing objects from high places still persisted, which eventually led to this "sky-high" ticket.

Fu Qionghua also showed reporters the civic ethics textbooks for primary and secondary schools in Singapore in the 1970s and 1980s. The textbooks, in the form of photos and cartoons, told Singaporean primary and secondary school students to develop good qualities such as patriotism, politeness, self-control, punctuality, and honesty. "Singapore has many laws regulating social order, such as the very famous Public Order Act and Environmental Public Health Act, but the most important approach is to shape personality and common values through education."

South Korea

Traffic police are scarce and law enforcement is very strict

Chen Shangwen, our reporter in South Korea

Foreigners who have been to South Korea generally have a good impression of South Korea's traffic order. People and cars do not fight, there is rarely "road rage", and they are courteous and orderly.

There are few cars in South Korea? Absolutely not. South Korea has a population of 51.5 million and a car ownership of 20 million. The capital city of Seoul has a lot of cars and people, and the traffic pressure is particularly high.

When South Korea hosted the Olympic Games in 1988, 3,879 Seoul citizens formed a reporting committee and took to the streets where traffic was mixed. The enlightenment movement of "consciously abiding by traffic order" officially began. In 1999, facing the situation of a surge in private cars, serious traffic congestion, and a sharp increase in traffic casualties in South Korea, the government began to implement detailed control.

Such control, first, the rules are detailed, and second, the punishment is severe. Detailed aspects, such as how ordinary vehicles enter and exit parking lots, how to overtake, which lane to take, who should have priority, and even how to pass when facing temporary construction obstacles, have all been clearly stipulated.

The intensity of the punishment is indeed unprecedented. In August 2013, a traffic accident occurred near a service area on a highway in central South Korea. A car driver suddenly stopped in the lane due to an argument, and a 5-ton truck following behind failed to brake, causing 5 vehicles to collide in succession, and the truck driver died on the spot. The court ruled at first instance that the car driver was at fault for 75% and the truck driver was at fault for 25%, but the car driver appealed. The second instance court held that the car driver's fault accounted for 90% of the entire accident and should be given a heavier sentence because his behavior was retaliatory driving and was the main cause of the accident. He was sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

In South Korea, any traffic accident involving cars, motorcycles or pedestrians is considered to be at fault, even if there is no evidence of fault. Drunk driving is considered to be a violation of the blood alcohol content of 0.05% or more. Different amounts of fines will be imposed for different alcohol content, with a maximum fine of less than 3 million won (about 16,500 yuan). Those who drive drunk more than three times or refuse to take alcohol tests may be sentenced to more than one year and less than three years in prison and a fine of 10 million won.

The improvement of South Korea's traffic control equipment system has also played an important role in regulating traffic order. The National Police Agency of South Korea said that electronic monitoring devices are mainly divided into vehicle monitoring and prevention purposes. At present, China has installed about 140,000 monitoring devices. According to statistics, from January to October this year, in the 125 hit-and-run fatal cases in South Korea, all the drivers have been arrested. Traffic police are rarely seen on the streets of South Korea. The intelligentization and popularization of traffic signal control and road electronic monitoring systems have played a key role in "the vastness of the sky net". With clear regulations and strict accountability, the orderly and courteous style of traffic in South Korea was finally formed.

Germany

Property strictly controls the phenomenon of disturbing residents

Feng Xuejun, our reporter in Germany

In Germany, the reporter witnessed a small incident. A father and son each took an ice cream cone and walked on the bustling streets of the old city. Suddenly the little boy fell and the ice cream ball fell to the ground. The father looked at his tearful son and took out a pack of tissues. The reporter thought the father was going to help wipe the dust off the child, but he handed the paper towel to the boy and said, "Go and wipe off the ice cream on the ground." The boy also retracted his expression of wanting to cry, carefully wrapped the ice cream ball with the paper towel, and threw it into the trash can next to him. The father did not comfort the child who fell down at the first time, but asked him to clean up the dirty road surface, and his tone of voice was unquestionable. The reporter still remembers it vividly.

"Foreigners often ask me why Germans are so observant of social order." Eckhard Pleele, scientific co-director of the Berlin Institute for Philanthropy and Civil Society in Germany, jokingly told reporters, "Parents and teachers regard discipline as an important part of educating their children and teachers educating their students. A father's strict precepts and deeds will definitely cultivate his son's sense of public morality. And the public morality of the entire German society is cultivated by many such "fathers."

Historically, there were more than 300 small principalities distributed on the land of Germany, each with its own laws and management systems. As history develops, the small principality no longer exists, but the model of small-scale "management units" has been preserved and evolved into various association-type management organizations in German society today. These management organizations have also played an important role in the establishment of social morality.

The most typical example may be the community residents' self-management committee. In larger residential buildings, residents usually vote to elect a building manager and several directors to establish a "residents' self-management committee", and all residents are members. The property company holds regular meetings with the members of the self-management committee to communicate on some community management issues. The reporter himself has felt the restraining power of the residents' self-management committee. One of the reporter's neighbors often turns on a high-power stereo to play rock music at 3 a.m., and the reporter's several communications have little effect. In desperation, the reporter complained to the property. A week later, the reporter ran into the neighbor in the elevator, and the other party apologized sincerely, and there has been no disturbance in the middle of the night since then. Ulrike Sarau, the person in charge of the property, told reporters that the property immediately reported the complaint to the self-management committee. The self-management committee conducted a special "squatting" investigation, caught the neighbor disturbing the residents in the middle of the night, and took out the residents' regulations to educate him seriously. However, the neighbor was still arrogant. The self-management committee reported the situation to the property management, and the property management immediately contacted the neighbor's landlord to report the situation. Several parties jointly sent a "warning letter" to the neighbor, stating that if the neighbor did not consciously abide by the residents' regulations, the landlord had the right to take back the house without paying liquidated damages and "kick him out of the neighborhood." This time, the neighbor finally behaved.

Currently, there are about 590,000 registered associations in Germany, and more than 50% of Germans are members of at least one association. There are many types of associations, such as women's associations, animal protection associations, community self-management committees, etc. Most associations contribute to a certain cause. Each association has its own management charter and urges members to strictly abide by it. "The law stipulates what should not be done, and the association is like a "father" around you, reminding you what you should do. With these active associations, the law can be well protected. And this is an important factor in promoting society to abide by public order and social morality." Plyler emphasized.

Japan

Throwing the wrong garbage may result in a prison sentence

Our reporter in Japan Tian Hong

For foreigners who have just arrived in Japan, throwing away garbage may be the first problem they encounter. Japan's garbage is divided into three categories: combustible, non-combustible, and resource garbage. Among them, resource garbage is divided into paper, plastic, glass, metal, etc. Although there are slight differences in the regulations on garbage classification in various places, the basic classification is more than 10 types. Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture, which was famous for mercury pollution in the 1950s, classified garbage into as many as 24 types in order to rebuild an environmentally friendly city.

In Japan, garbage classification is common sense that should be learned in kindergarten. When applying for residence procedures in Japan, you will receive a "Life Guide", which has a special chapter on how to throw garbage. The Japanese government has passed legislation to clarify the responsibilities of the main body of each link from the generation to the recycling of garbage. Commodity producers should reduce excessive packaging, and retailers should be responsible for the recycling of large items such as home appliances. The law has clear sanctions for littering. For example, the Waste Disposal Law stipulates that those who randomly discard waste may be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of 10 million yen (about 519,000 yuan); if the person who randomly discards waste is a company or a corporate entity, a heavy fine of 300 million yen will be imposed.

For daily public behaviors such as dumping garbage, the key is to rely on self-consciousness and supervision by residents' self-governing groups. The town committee is a self-governing group for grassroots public affairs in Japan, similar to China's neighborhood committee. Not long after the reporter settled down in Japan, a neighbor who claimed to be a member of the town committee found the reporter and said that according to the rules of the town, the reporter should participate in the rotation of the community public garbage collection station, otherwise he must apply to the sanitation department for a set of garbage collection boxes to be placed at the door of his house. Some bachelors in the community are unable to catch up with the rotation because of business trips, and even pay someone to take the shift for them.

In order to integrate into the community as quickly as possible, the reporter decided to take turns. A few days later, the reporter received a color-printed duty list in his mailbox, which listed the duty dates of each household.

The garbage bins are usually closed, and only opened on the day of garbage collection. The person on duty needs to open the garbage bins, put the folded garbage bins in place, and be responsible for cleaning the garbage station. Early in the morning on the day the reporter was on duty, the neighbor aunt taught the reporter how to open the password lock of the garbage station and how to put seven or eight garbage bins for different purposes. In order to prevent crows and wild cats from fiddling with them, the garbage bins should be covered with net bags. Finally, the reporter was told that after the garbage sweeper collected the garbage, the garbage station should be flushed with water, the rejected garbage should be returned to the original owner or taken home, and the duty list should be sent to the family on duty next time. Sure enough, I found rejected garbage with yellow labels affixed by sanitation workers several times on duty. Basically, it was caused by the wrong date of garbage disposal or wrong classification. But as a foreigner, where can I find the original owner of the garbage? So I could only take them home and throw them away next time. Once, a neighbor lady came to my door with a bag of garbage in her hand and pointed at the Chinese printed materials inside and asked me why I didn't sort them according to the regulations. Although I found out that it wasn't thrown away by me, I was still shocked and sweated. From then on, I was more careful to "sort" the bottles and cans.

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