ALAMINOS CITY, Pangasinan --- A young Japanese boy has touched the hearts of netizens when his photos were posted on social media showing him collecting trash like candy wrappers and plastic cups left behind by people on the beach in Alaminos City.
Alaminos City is famous for its Hundred Islands National Park which is now open to local tourists from Region1.
The young boy's initiative of cleaning the beach has earned praise from netizens as well as for his parents for raising him well.
The young boy is the son of a Dagupan city government employee who married a Japanese woman.
Hannah Galvez ,CEO and Founder of Olives, Inc. and of Olives Language School which offers online and onsite courses based in Tokyo , Japan, said that it is part of Japanese upbringing and early training in school for children to learn to clean their surroundings .
Japanese students clean their classrooms to learn discipline and also clean their schools to make them more responsible citizens.
“If you see things that are not right and may adversely affect other people, you have to do something. In Japanese schools, there are no janitors to clean the school. Everyday, the kids set a time to clean their room and whatever they used,” she added.
Galvez said there was also a Japanese man who went to Baguio City and started cleaning the streets.
“He tries to visit Baguio every year to clean," she said, adding that the man is not an ordinary person and actually owns a restaurant in Tokyo."
"It is such a shame to us locals that we let a foreigner set an example in cleaning our own area," she said.