Free Lodgings at McDonald's
Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.
Not only is McDonald's Japan a place for great health food, its also a great place to take a nap when you are plastered from a late nights work wrestling with your boss. There always seems to be folks sleeping in McDonald's over here.
And what do folks do over here when they don't have a Mc Dees handy? They sleep *anywhere* and *everywhere*...
Poll: Do you find people sleeping out n about where you live?
-Always
-Sometimes
-Never
Larger photos in my previous McDonald's Japan article.
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I only see homeless people sleeping in public.. this is in Ohio. It's too bad.
Also, I think your link to your site isn't right. The page it shows is some sort of buxom figurine.
Myself: Back when I had a roommate, I once lost my key and she was out for the whole night.
I couldn't reach the superintendant and didn't want to pay over $100 to call a locksmith after hours. So I went to a 24-hour internet cafe and bought the gamer's all night discount (you get to use internet all night for $10) and tried to snooze in my booth.
I still felt really tired when my time ran out at 6am. So I took the bus line that ran the city's lenght, which is about 1 1/2 hours long, and slept on there. Lots of people fall asleep on buses so I didn't look like a bum.
I guess I could have just fallen asleep anywhere in Japan and not pass for some total weirdo.
The DannyChoo link isn't about sleeping-- Is the blogger suffering from sleep deprivation?
In Minnesota? No, not much sleeping outdoors right now. Generally, the corporations don't work people so hard they die of exhaustion.... yet.
Only homeless here in Dallas, and they get arrested for the pleasure.
Do politicians count?
I'm sorry, Mr. Choo, but how long have you been living in Tokyo? You've never heard of マック難民？
It's been discussed quite a bit in the media lately (actually, since last year). These people mostly ARE homeless and they got to Internet cafes or McDonalds or coffee shops for shelter at night.
When you go to McDonalds, you can just order a coffee (100 yen) and then stay in the restaurant as long as you want.
When you go to Wikipedia (JP) and look for マック難民、it gives you the entry for ネットカフェ難民, but Google (JP) has several references to the term.
I used to work for a Japanese company that has a factory near Manila. There had a big room on the top floor where about a hundred young Japanese and Filipino engineers sat before their PCs- not in cubes, but at long tables such as you might find in a cafeteria.
At lunchtime the room lights would be turned off and all these people would nap for an hour- sitting up, in front of their PCs.
This actually seems kind of sad. It's amazing that Japanese people tend to live so long yet work themselves to exhaustion. That juxtaposition is quite odd.
Murray@8: read Rollo May's Courage To Create. Working yourself to exhaustion and then taking small respites and catnaps is how many geniuses found their epiphanies.
I was once walking home at about 6am when I saw what looked like a mannequin lying on the pavement by the entrance to King's Cross Station. I was about to kick it, then I realised it was a completely naked man, painted all over with silver body paint, and sleeping. He'd obviously missed the last train!
I wish I'd had my camera.
People do fall asleep in London (contrary to what the article says), but typically only on buses or trains, and normally only people who've been partying all night. The Circle Line is good for this :)
I imagine that what's impressive with public sleeping in Japan is that you don't wake up to find all your belongings stolen, unlike the people who pass out on the L train in NYC.
Germany: Sometimes
Sleeping in buses or trains, naps on park banks (or parks in general, lakes, beaches) are certainly nothing out of the ordinary here in Germany. Sleeping in restaurants (or malls, or shopping streets) not so much.
This obviously only applies to adults, children can sleep wherever they want to :)
It's funny you should post this. Thursday night I saw a guy dead asleep at Viva (Mexican restaurant.) I thought it was so odd, I was guessing he worked there because the employees didn't seem to concerned about him. People sleep at my job all the time. I work at a hospital and a dozen different clinics and it's not unusual to see people dozing while waiting to be seen or waiting on a family member. It's normal to see people sleeping in their cars in the park. I used to see people sleeping on the bus (not so sprawled out and still positioned so they wouldn't get robbed) and homeless people sleeping in the library.
It rains pretty frequently in my home state of Oregon, deterring public sleeping. Also, in America we don't consider sleeping in public to be a safe endeavour. Hence, it is generally left to those who have no other options. Sleeping on public transportation is pretty normal, as are college students sleeping in the libraries of colleges and universities. Sleeping in public libraries is generally against the rules, resulting in eviction from the premises. Airports one of the few places that you will commonly see normal people sleeping in public, but the are such a limbo of time, space, and place (in the anthro/sociological sense) that no one seems to notice.
'cause people need a place to go
I prefer to sleep in corporate meetings.
New Orleans: in parks near the Quarter
Albuquerque: more or less everywhere. The most notable was either the remains of an encampment in the bosque by the river, or the two homeless people nesting against the wall of Fairview cemetery
Internet cafes are ok, but I prefer karaoke boxes. Or, of course, capsule hotels.
That's what the morning commute is for in NYC. ipod + subway + Bach's solo cello concerto = sleep.
Don't ask me how we know when our stop is. Once you master that, you're a real New Yorker.
You see it all the time at casinos in Louisiana. People take the shuttle bus in from hours away and then, if they run out of money too early in the day, they curl up in chairs and even on tables in halls and such. Strangest thing I have ever seen.
Here in southwest Florida, the only people u sleeping in public are old guys who fell asleep in a chair while their wife was shopping. At the mall. At the department store.
You often see hispanic construction workers laying down in the shade but they usually see to be talking to their buddy at the same time, so not sleeping, resting.
Other than that, in this area, you don't see it.
It's true. When I lived in Japan, we would stay out on weekend nights in the city in Tokyo, but if you accidentally miss the train you have to wait until about 5 or 6 am to start your way back home. I'd sometimes sleep in manga cafes, or love hotels if I had the money, but I often just zoned out in a mcdonalds for a couple hours.
A surprising number of people sleep in public at on my uni(appalachian state) campus, anywhere the least bit quite and you will find half a dozen students passed out in chairs.
I usually spend an hour or two every day asleep in a coffee shop or when the weather is nice on a bench.
@#2 POSTED BY SEKINO , FEBRUARY 14, 2009 5:33 PM
The thing about sleeping sitting down is the most you can do is rest your eyes and mind and not much else.
If you're sitting down your body has to work harder to pump blood from the bottom of your legs to the rest of your body. Lying down to get real rest is the way to go. Even better, do a "power nap" by having your legs elevated.
Here in NYC there are 24 hour laundromats and it's fairly common to see the homeless there.
And as #18 (JJASPER) points out, sleeping on he subway going to/from work is very common.
Oh, almost forgot. I grew up right next to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn and I knew more than a few folks who would sleep on the beach after a party or a bender.
Ahh, NYC!
That's amazing, how can they fall asleep on asphalt/scooters/benches? My back would kill me.
I'm lucky if I get 6 hours a day (night-worker), but my brother can sleep anywhere. The most memorable has been the times he falls asleep standing up, leaning on a wall. Also at the wheel of the car, quite terrifying.
I guess it's a question of trust, although if they're homeless they don't really have a choice.
In Denmark the weather is seldom nice enough for outdoor naps
I see homeless people sleeping in the subway benches every day, especially now that it's got quite cold. (I live in Paris, France). They seldom get disturbed, but it happens. We also have night buses, about the only warm place you can get to when the subway's closed and you have nowhere to go. (As a consequence, I try to avoid taking night buses...too many drunk people, things can get nasty).
I see people sleeping in comfortable sofas and overstuffed chairs in coffee shops and book stores (like Barnes&Nobles, Starbucks, etc.) And people sleeping in the local library.
Most managers in McDonalds would wake people up and ask them to leave. Same with most restraunts out here in California.
@JJasper: One I was asleep on the District Line (London Underground). I woke to find someone shaking my shoulder and saying "excuse me mate, isn't this your stop?". I heard the "This is Earl's Court" voice, yes, it is my stop! I ran off the train just as the doors were closing.
Then I wondered how the hell some random guy knew what my stop was. Creepy.
this was one of the first things i noticed during my 10 months in tokyo. i have spent quite a few early morning hours in mcdonalds in shibuya because it was too expensive to take a cab to itabashi-kuyakusho-mae. i could never figure out why the trains, at least the major ones like the chuo-sen and the yamanote-sen didnt just run all night. i hated always having to decide to call a night out early and go home at last train or have to battle it out until 5 or 6am in a karaoke booth with friends. going to bed at 7am really messes up your schedule. there seems to be really no stigma attached to sleeping in public, pretty much anywhere. it probably doesnt help that you can drink tons of alcohol at any time of the day or night either.
on another note, when i was visiting kyoto, osaka and once in fukuoaka i slept in an internet cafe and they provided pillows and blankets, the only catch that it was really really uncomfortable to sleep in a little booth or in an office chair. the one i stayed at in fukuoaka was big enough to lay down in and had cushioned floors.
I've yet to see this in southern Kagoshima. There may be a few people starting to doze off in the local Joyfull shops, but shortly thereafter they collect their things and exit.
I'm afraid this would Not work in the Boston McDonalds. I mainly find the homeless taking over the indoor ATM machines. After you pull money, they actually ask for money. Its unreal.
Public sleeping is also very common in China. What's most surprising is that people will sleep in amazingly uncomfortable or noisy places. I've seen people snoozing while curled up inside a steel box, stretched out on hard concrete, or sleeping upright on a parked bicycle right next to blasting traffic.
A German guy in Shanghai has a web gallery dedicated to photos of this:
http://www.sleepingchinese.com/
@ Xaxa, # 29 - He probably sees you frequently if you take that train to work every day at about the same time. You get to know your fellow commuters eventually, if only by sight.
People in Thailand will sleep anywhere, anytime - even on the job. I'll often see department store workers slumped over their glass cases, snoozing. Hate to wake them up to buy something.
My favorite is the truckers, who are sometimes forced to park their rigs and line up outside Bangkok and wait to enter the city at a certain time. They'll sling a hammock on the undercarriage and catch some Z's before hitting the road again.
There's also the construction laborers and factory workers, crashed out in the backs of pickups as they roll down the highway.
One time I saw a slaughterhouse worker sprawled out on top of a load of butchered pigs. The porkbellies were jiggling around, and the dude looked mighty comfy on that mountain of meat.
And this is in busy traffic, with roaring diesels and ear-splitting motorcycles zipping around.
Thickdot@10 Working yourself to exhaustion and then taking small respites and catnaps is how many geniuses found their epiphanies.
I am reminded of reports of San shamans dancing till they bleed from the nose to achieve altered states.
They miss the last train home this is what happens. Guess capsule beds are too expensive
Colleges usually have a lot of people sleeping in public.
yeah. nobody sleeps in public in america unless they have nothing to steal, AND don't mind being written on, having refuse placed on them, etc.
The only time this doesn't apply would be maybe an air terminal, cruise ship or some other place where every person is carefully & constantly observed.
I grew up in Sakai City, Osaka prefecture. The McDonald's ('Makudo'-as I grew up calling it.) near my house had signs on the wall stating a 30 minute time limit and I remember seeing it being reinforced a few times. Maybe things have changed since leaving. Side note: I do remember people sleeping at 'Mos Burger' and 'Lotte Burger'.
Same deal here in Seoul. It's especially common on the metro, but the jjimjilbang (they call them saunas, but they're more like bath houses) is, in part, a public-sleeping institution: pay your minimal, no-time-limit entrance fee, stash all your stuff in a locker, and you've got your choice of dozens of mats on the floor. Budget travelers often use them in lieu of hostels.
My coworker from Columbia last year, on the public sleeping phenomenon: "You do that where I come from, you wake up naked!"
Or not at all.
Sinthea @39:
Yeah, when I lived in Kansai, Lotteria was the burger chain to sleep in.
That or Namba station.
HAH! Talk about westernization!
Is it sleeping in public if it's your car?
On interstates and highways in the US, out in the Great Plains, late at night you can find truck stops and rest stops full of vehicles - mostly semitrailers, but also cars/vans/SUVs all parked with people sleeping in them. While driving from the Midwest to the West Coast "straight through", my family has gotten onto a country highway and pulled over for a nap.
That link, though... what strikes me isn't so much the sleeping-in-public part, but the amazingly uncomfortable positions some of those people are in!
I spent 4 months in Osaka (target of the Tokyo-jin abuse above) and the McDonalds were always full of semi-drunk party-goers at night. I of course was one of these a few times, and McDo's is a great place to unwind, have a メガマク (Mega-Mac, a huge 4-tiered burger) and sober up.
I used to sleep anywhere and everywhere when I was at highschool. A chair. A desk. A floor under a table. A gym bench. Anywhere.
... I still passed everything but gym. I lost a lot on homework and class participation, but I rocked the tests.
i publicly sleep on the DC metro and buses. :) i have all my stuff with me when i go home from college on the weekends. i find that i can especially get away with it if the train is crowded.
Don't ask me how we know when our stop is. Once you master that, you're a real New Yorker.
Bah! This lifelong Angeleno has no trouble waking up for his subway stop in the morning. Basically I know because there's a really big stop just before mine where half of the train leaves.