Tokyo — THIS story begins with a crime.
Under normal circumstances, there is no reason anyone would want to steal my bike. It's a basic get-around-town model that cost $150. It was the biggest bicycle a Japanese department store carried and it's still too small for me. The chain grinds on every rotation, although that may have to do with the fact that I leave it out in the rain and the bike is now covered in rust.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday March 30, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 0 inches; 35 words Type of Material: Correction
Crime in Japan: A Column One in Wednesday's Section A about the recovery of a stolen bike in Japan said that Japanese police officers do not carry guns. They carry small pistols when on patrol.
It has a bell but no night light as required by Japanese law -- which, as you'll see, is a misdemeanor that the Japanese police choose to enforce.
But the guy who stole my bike from outside a Tokyo train station one recent Saturday night wasn't looking for anything flashy. He was drunk -- it was payday and he had over-celebrated. He had slept well past his stop and was kicked off the last train of the night at the last station on the line. It was a crime of necessity: Steal the wheels or walk.
My bicycle was available because I never lock it. Not even when I'm leaving it outside a busy train station overnight.
This is Japan. Nobody steals your stuff here. Safest place in the developed world. You can look it up in the guidebooks.
It's a silly stereotype, of course. Tokyo's crime rate may be much lower than that of Los Angeles, but that doesn't mean it's free of petty thieves (or robbers, killers and gangsters). But live here awhile and enough anecdotal experience piles up to feed complacency. I've been chased by people who want to return a dropped coin. I've left my cellphone in a park, come back the next morning, and found it on the bench where I'd set it down.
Having moved to Tokyo from London, where your cellphone wasn't safe in your pocket, I found this amazing. After a short time in a low-crime society, old habits changed. I would leave my briefcase unattended on a train, for example. And I stopped locking my bike.
I left it unclamped outside stores and restaurants, the lock wrapped uselessly around the bar under my seat. I'd leave it out all night in the driveway, unchained. One summer vacation, I left all four family bikes sitting unlocked in the driveway for three weeks.
So I was more embarrassed than angry when I went back to get my bike that Sunday morning and found it gone.
No kidding, I hear you saying. But I was so surprised I thought the ever-efficient Tokyo bicycle attendants might have impounded it for not being parked in a designated bicycle rack. Tokyo is awash in bikes, and despite long rows of parking stands at every station, there are never enough spaces.
