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We dare Tokyo’s pigeons to crap on us because we think it’ll make us rich【Experiment】

Casey Baseel Apr 7, 2019
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Will our crap investments make us filthy rich, or just filthy? Read on to find out!

As we mentioned recently, in Japan there’s said to be a connection between poo and luck, which stems from the fact that the Japanese word for feces, fun, sounds almost exactly like the one for good luck, un.

To test this theory, we had our reporter Momo buy some lottery tickets after she had the misfortune of seeing an unflushed turd in the office bathroom. The results were mixed, but it wasn’t until after we’d performed the experiment that we noticed a problem with our methodology. See, the complete phrases from which the poo/luck belief connection comes are “fun ga tsuku” and “un ga tsuku,” which mean “You’ve got poo on you” and “You’ve got luck.” Since Momo merely saw the poo, it’s only logical that she didn’t boost her luck to a significant degree, and obviously a more scientifically sound experiment was called for.

Rather than traumatize Momo again, though, we instead foisted the assignment off on another of our writers, Ahiru Neko, and sent him out to the streets of Tokyo with the order not to return to the office until he’d been crapped on.

For his test site, Ahiru Neko chose the spot directly underneath a lamppost right outside Gotanda Station, in the south part of downtown Tokyo. Whenever Ahiru Neko walks past this particular section of the sidewalk, he sees it speckled with pigeon poop, and sure enough, the birds were out hanging out on the pole and power lines above again on this day.

▼ We did, at least, give Ahiru Neko a company jumpsuit so he could keep his own clothes clean.

After a few minutes, one of Ahiru Neko’s feathered assistants felt the call of nature, wriggled its hindquarters, and dropped a liquidy load…

…only for a gust of crosswind to blow it away before it could fall on our reporter. The waiting game restarted, and this time the creatures were far less cooperative in moving their bowels for our stationary staff member, even as he tempted fate by turning his unprotected face towards the avian anuses above.

Finally, a second mierda missile began hurtling towards him…

…and this time, it splashed on his shoe.

▼ No, Japanese birds aren’t so tidy they have pixelated poo. That’s a censor mosaic.

However, we weren’t sure that a bit of turd splatter on your shoe really counts as “having crap on yourself.” So just to be sure, we had Ahiru Neko hold his position. Now, though, it seemed like the pigeons were mocking him, or perhaps silently judging him, like this one who flew down to the pavement to give him a hard look.

▼ “Dude, you want us to do what to you? Pervert.”

Thankfully, less prudish pigeons prevailed, and finally, finally…

…one of them took a crap on Ahiru Neko.

▼ The poo actually landed right on the logo of our Japanese-language sister site, RocketNews24, which makes us think this particular pigeon is not a fan.

Now with technically two poo spots to draw good luck from, Ahiru Neko felt that he shouldn’t squander this double-dose of auspiciousness on something as mundane as lottery tickets. Instead, he decided to dabble in a little securities investment. He whipped out his phone and fired up the iClickCFD app from online investment service GMO Click Securities, and our boss, Yoshio, did the same.

▼ Remember, Yoshio doesn’t have any poo on him, so this should allow us to isolate the poo’s level of effectiveness.

The app lets you make CFD (contract for difference) investments. In simplified terms, a CFD investment is a contract between a buyer and seller where, should the price of the asset increase within the contract time, the buyer makes money. Conversely, if the asset price goes down during that time, the seller earns a profit.

Making sure to initiate their investments while the poo on Ahiru Neko was still fresh, both of our reporters invested 60,000 yen (US$540) in crude oil, with Ahiru Neko selling and Yoshio buying.

Then, after taking one last look at the Tokyo sky to see if any other pigeons might be willing to bless Ahiru Neko with even more luck, they went home.

After letting their investments gestate for a few days, Ahiru Neko and Yoshio once again loaded up the iClickCFD app to check on their investments, where they found that Ahiru Neko had lost 1,571 yen (US$14.15)…

…while Yoshio was up 1,503 yen.

But how could such a thing be possible? Does this mean that generations of Japanese folk wisdom are wrong, and the fun/un connection is nothing more than Japanese punnery run amok?

We don’t have enough data to answer those questions definitively. What we can say, though, and with absolute confidence, is that if you’re unlucky enough that your job requires you to spend the day waiting around for birds to crap on you, you’re also unlucky enough that you should never, ever engage in any financial activities with even a hint of risk to them.

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s been crapped on by multiple birds, and never had any good luck come out of the incidents.