Abunai, yo!

During our time here, Mark and I have noticed that many people have a preoccupation with avoiding danger. Before summer vacation began, my teachers and I went on an after-school walk in the neighborhood surrounding our school, searching for "dangerous places" (this was the extent of the explanation given to me, I'm sure a much more comprehensive one exists...but you get the short version a lot when you've only been learning Japanese for a few months). Lots of things are regarded as "abunai" (dangerous); in fact, when adults are telling kids to stop doing something or watch out for something, sometimes they will just yell "abunai!" However, we've also noticed that the Japanese idea of what constitutes danger doesn't necessarily line up with the American one. This came to our attention during a school field trip. Mark and I both got to attend a Seiji Ozawa concert in Mito with our fifth graders. There were more kids than seats on the bus to the concert, so lots of the students stood in the aisle, city-bus style. A few of them held on for dear life when we turned sharp corners, but many of them viewed this situation as a chance to practice gymanstics techniques or show off their pull up skills. The whole time, as I sat in my (safe) seat, I thought "what if we were in a wreck?!? Don't the teachers know how DANGEROUS this is? This would never fly in America!" As soon as I got home, I asked Mark "on the bus, did your kids..."; before I could finish my sentence, Mark knew what I was asking about. His school's bus situation had been the same, and he'd had the same reaction.
This got us talking about what is deemed dangerous in Japan versus what is deemed the same in the States. Here's what we've observed in our short time here (by the way, I don't mean this in an ethnocentric vein. One perspective makes more sense to me, based on my cultural background, but I realize that Japanese people are probably totally puzzled by American ideas of what constitutes danger. I'm more interested in what these assumptions say about our cultural values). Okay, here's the list:
What's dangerous in Japan:
* Going to the beach after "Ocean Season" is over--even though it's a holiday weekend, the water is the same as it was all summer, and the weather is hot and gorgeous.
* Driving after drinking one drop of alcohol--Japan has a zero tolerance policy. People seem to abide by it, probably keeping the late-night taxi industry in business.
*Any kind of information, such as addresses or phone numbers, being made available (teachers have to be REALLY careful with student info).
More interestingly, what's NOT considered dangerous:
*Flippy bars, complete with running-start ramps, on the kindergarten playground.
*A front-seat passenger holding a baby in his or her lap--no seat belt.
*Letting elementary kids have their own box cutters in their desks.
*High schoolers checking e-mail on their cell phones while riding their bikes to school next to heavy traffic.
*Kids passing out from heat in school assemblies or during sports festival practice.
*Driving way over the speed limit around a (truly) abunai curve near our house. We've witnessed one accident there, and I'm surprised we haven't seen more.

I'm still thinking through what all this means, and we're still collecting observations for our list. If you've visited Japan or lived here and would like to share a tidbit, please do!