I have read an essay written by Mr. Koizumi Yakumo, or Lafcadio Hearn, who was a nationalized Japanese citizen in the Meiji era. He wrote “Kaidan” based on old Japanese folk stories.
In the essay, he was surprised that his lost wallet had returned to himself during his trip to Japan. He wrote as follows; “What an honest people the Japanese are!”
It was a lucky case that the person who had found his wallet was honest and Mr. Koizumi might have lost his wallet in a station of a railway or a train car.
I am going to talk about the lost and found center of Futamatagawa Station of the Sagami Railways.
One day, one young man visited the center at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon and told a station employee that he had lost his smartphone.
It was careless of him to lose it many times, but fortunately he was able to get it back again.
A middle-aged woman came to the center at about 7 o’clock in the evening and told a station employee that she had lost her umbrella.
She said, “My mother, sister and I had bought the same umbrellas with different colors, so I wanted it back so much. Luckily, her umbrella returned to her.
Of the 28 people who visited the center on that day, 22 had their lost items returned.
About 5,000 lost items are delivered to the storage room of the center every month.
Among them are some unusual items, a loaf of fresh bread, a car key, a house key and a stick, socks and so on. I have heard that a cinerary urn had delivered to another lost and found center of Japan Railways.
Each lost item is packed in plastic bag with a tag. It contains detailed information such as where the item was found, what the item is and its characteristics.
Recently, an increasing number of wireless earphones are being delivered to the center. About 100 arrive every month.
The most common items are umbrellas. Sometimes up to 1,800 are delivered in a month.
Furthermore, all lost items are registered in a database so that they can be retrieved when there is an inquiry.
One of the station employees said, “Each item is very important to a customer, so we manage each one carefully to ensure there are no mistakes.”
I was impressed by kindness and sincerity of the station employees of the center.