echavez510 comments

I'm glad Lawson went that far for it's reputation. Since it's received such negative press from actual consumers it's important to take extreme measures, because it's built up it's reputation through years of hard work. The regular Lawson customer wants to know that when they purchase a product there that it wasn't sat on by some idiot employee.

Lawson has it's reputation to keep up. It's easy to say, "It's just a prank, lighten up." It's brand image, and that is a very valuable asset, especially in a country like Japan.

I almost feel like it would be a good thing for Japan that it become less wealthy. For a country to be wealthy shouldn't be the priority of a people, but to live "happy and productive" lives is to me what's really important. Japan really gets some basics right. I mean where else can one walk down the street and not have to worry about being mugged and or harassed? I work in retail and see how common shrink is done by employees and customers, but because Japan has such a high trust culture they don't have to pay such costs in security and surveillance. Here in the US I need to pay a premium for living in a "safe" place where in Japan it is standard to live in a safe place. Personally I would say I don't really care that Japan is not an economic power. Who's to say that someday the USA wouldn't fall from being the number one economy anyways. For being such a small country and being the number two economy of the world for so long is a pretty amazing thing.

I understand it can be frustrating at first for foreigners, but when living in Japan I needed to understand that many Japanese people were just as naive about "foreigners' culture" as I was about Japanese culture.

These reactions toward foreigners are much more common in the outskirts of Japan rather than Tokyo, Osaka and any other "big" city.