Rules? What rules?

Why is it that I hear and read that Japanese always obey rules? Which rules? When? Where?

Its members adhered to the sacred rules of living in a Japanese neighborhood by handing out small moving-in gifts, exchanging greetings with the neighbors and, needless to say, properly sorting out their trash.

I have had a few neighbors give gifts when moving in---about once in a blue moon. Exchanging greetings? Maybe, but quite often it is sorta like Sgt Shultz and "I see nothing, nothing." OK, generally most people mostly sort out their trash most of the time except when they don't.

Anyway, the NYT has its typical article, this time on people suing to get rid of the yakuza in the neighborhood. The police, you ask? Are you insane?

The lawsuit was the first of its kind in Japan, where the yakuza’s offices tend to be out in the open. It shined a spotlight on how the yakuza — long considered a necessary evil, tolerated by, and sometimes politically allied with, the authorities — occupy a place much closer to society’s mainstream than its American counterparts do.