In the United States today, letting a six-year-old walk three blocks to the park alone will get the police called on you for child neglect. Parents wait in ninety-minute lines of SUVs outside schools to pick up their teenagers. Now stand on a residential street corner in Tokyo at 7:45 a.m. A group of six small children approaches. The oldest is maybe ten years old. The youngest is a six-year-old first grader. They wear bright yellow safety hats and neat leather Randoseru backpacks. There is not a single parent walking with them. They walk in a tidy single file along the green painted safety lane on the side of the road. They hold hands when crossing small alleys. The older children constantly look back to make sure the little ones haven't stumbled. At the main intersection, a retired grandfather wearing a neon green volunteer vest stands holding a yellow handheld stop sign. As the children approach, oncoming cars come to a complete, gentle halt ten feet back. The children cross, turn toward the waiting drivers, bow their heads in unison, and say: "Arigato gozaimasu!" The drivers smile and wave back. This is not a fairytale. This is every Tuesday morning in every neighborhood in Japan. A society has truly made it not when its wealthy citizens drive armored tanks, but when a six-year-old child can walk a mile through a major metropolis protected by nothing more than a yellow cotton hat and the watchful love of an entire community.