Japanese street gutters are NOT this clean

While browsing the depths of the internet I came across images and articles about the clean gutters of Japan. Apparently they're so clean that koi spawn in their exceptionally clean waters. I explore this claim.

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[thomas]

I never thought I would enjoy watching a 10 minute documentary of Japanese city street gutters. Well done!

[AnthonyStJames-ynnr]

In the Philippines, I can tell you straight away that street gutter water in major cities will never be clean and could probably kill the Hulk. However, I heard from the generations of my grandparents that water in Malabon City (a city in northern metro manila where my grandparents come from) was clean back then that they actually saw saltwater fish swimming in the canals. Another beautiful place in Japan that always amazes me are the "Satoyama" areas in the country where I've seen documentaries of houses keeping carp inside their houses, where the water is fed through a canal. Nice video Greg, I'd love to see more great content.

[asdfghjkl]

From my knowledge as a Japanese, those colourful Koi (Nishikigoi) were created by selective breeding for decorative purposes. Natural Koi are single-coloured.
And as far as I know, Koi actually prefer to live in dirty water (idk about Nishikigoi tho), they grow up to a meter and there is no enemy against them in Japanese nature. I recently read news about Koi destroying the ecosystem because people released them into the water where Koi never existed before.

[tanon]

In Alberta, Canada we have man-made storm water ponds that function to hold overflow from intense storms. They are designed to naturalize and eventually function as urban wetlands. Unfortunately, people have decided they are great places to dispose of unwanted aquarium fish, such as gold fish. These things are invasive, aggressive reproducers and have become a threat to native species of fish and amphibians. It has become a monstrous task to get them out of the ponds before they destroy the intended biodiversity. One city resorted to poisoning an entire pond and starting all over again. Another had city workers use an enormous net to scoop up the fish. They got something like 5, 000 gold fish out of one medium sized pond. Now there is a campaign to teach people not to dump their pet fish in local ponds.

[Jordan-inJapan]

In rural Japan (at least where I live) the “mizo”, or irrigation-runoff canals are a central part of life for a lot of people. Well, the rice farmers most of all — they clean them out a couple of times a year, constantly adjust water levels, etc — but the surrounding community as well. We feel a kind of responsibility to keep them clean and sometimes report and even remove invasive species that can harm the rice crop. And on hot days kids play in them, and even catch fish and crayfish for fun. (The Cray fish are an invasive specie too, but they don’t hurt the rice so we let them be.😆)

In spite of the small amount of upkeep we have to do, I love having the mizo canal next to our house. Except that every time we have heavy rain and it threatens to overflow into our yard & house. That part’s kind of scary. ⛈

[Professorkek]

I rememeber being blow away by the water infrastructure when I visited. The "normal" gutters may not seem as impressive, but it's still much more pedestrian friendly, and often have flowing water. Coming from a drought prone area, in my mind, that's pretty beautiful.

[samuelj]

Just information for everyone, make sure you understand the difference between waterproof and water resistance. A good majority of phones have water resistance, Samsungs, iPhones, Pixels etc. Phones like that are not waterproof. The water resistance most phones have is a rating ip68 which means the device can be under water 1.5m deep for around 30 min before you have issues. There are only a very few amount of phones that i know of that are waterproof in which they can deal with water for a very long period of time.They can stay in water for a really long time but not forever. Water resistance will still keep water and dust out of your phone but you still void your warranty if you dip your phone in water

[aldin.]

I worked on declogging gutters here in the Philippines and I found out through my cousin living in Japan that the gutters there was almost crystal clear I didn't believe it till I saw this

And after working for about a year the gutters on the areas I'm working are all full of trash and can't remember how many dead rats I have found in it, there was even a time where there was a dead dog stuck in the gutters causing it to flood during heavy rain.

But theres also a lot of the times where we get a ton of coins in it that could actually buy you a meal if your lucky enough
One us was lucky to get a whole 100 pesos bill.

[mihomuffin]

When I lived in Tokyo in the early 90's many of the large cement drainage ditches/creeks had very large koi living in them, I could only think they had been released by someone that didn't want them anymore (just flushed them down the toilet when I was a kid in the states). As some were rather large and very colorful, I wondered how they compared to the multi million yen koi for sale on the roof tops of the big department stores

[famuel]

The spectacular thing is not that Japanese street gutters are so beautiful, but that no where else in the world could you place a decorative pool in this spot and have no one interfere with it with litter ect.

[OldMan_PJ]

I'm in a desert climate in the US, the street gutters have dead weeds and a mix of dirt and sand that runs off from yards when sprinklers turn on. Surprisingly, there's little to no trash but that's probably because most people stay indoors due to the heat. When I lived in Santa Clara, CA (1980's) I had a Japanese-American friend and her Dad had a 2-level pond in the back with koi in the upper pond and goldfish in the lower.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

News articles: In the city of Shimabara on Japan's Kyushu Island, the street gutters are so clean they are home to hundreds of koi carp!
LWIF: *Amazing, every word of what you just said...was wrong*

The NYC water drainage system isn't like Japan, but at least it's home to a group of turtles turned ninjas trained by a rat who both protect the city and further promote the city by spreading their love of NY-style pizza. Can't say the same about Japan

[etherdog]

Greg, I was truly shocked when you talked about the park (near the end) where people were keaving trash and they had to shut the water off because of it. That runs so counter to what we hear about how clean and responsible Japanese people are. What a great little quirky topic to cover! Now, if you can just discover why Japanese maps are all over the place with their orientations....

[gildedpeahen]

There’s little wee springs bubbling up where I live in Minnesota too-you can see the water coming up from the ground, disturbing the sand into little poufs, then flowing down the river bank through the forest into the mighty Mississippi…there’s also a place that has tapped a spring-and like you saw there in Japan-people come to fill up water bottles with the delicious, refreshing, and most importantly FREE spring water! 💙

[halashoib]

Your videos are not only very insightful, but also very calming and peaceful. I always look forward to watching your videos and they are the most enjoyable videos to watch whilst I’m working on one of my embroidery projects🥲☺️

[jbdeadangel]

Here in India, the street gutters mostly are so horrible that the water turns dark black during non-rainy seasons. Any habitat is almost impossible here.

[ToriTried]

Wow, this was extremely thorough and well researched. Thank you for working so hard on it 👍

[wumbowoody]

if you pause at 1:01, the fish in the top left looks really angry

[Micsma]

at the most, iphones are water resistant. IP68 for some common models. They're good for up to 2 meters for up to 30 minutes. This depends on the quality of the seal and such

[Mel-qrob]

in NZ we have wild koi living in rivers we wouldn't let kids swim in because they'd get sick from Ecoli or get gastro from all the cow poo that gets in there 😂
I don't know who on earth thought *wild* koi are sensitive, as far as I was aware they're hardy and survive nearly anywhere.