Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

I am an east coaster.

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Music Blog / RYM / Last.fm / Qwertyy's Journal of Music Reviews and Other Assorted Ramblings

Zhanteimi

Life in Tokyo....that's a big question, and since everything here is normal to us now, I'm not sure where to start.

Tokyo is a very safe city with regards to crime. Random violent crime is almost unheard of, unless some crazy guy drives his van into a group of people then gets out and starts stabbing people randomly.

A lot of Tokyo is not skyscrapers, though. Only the immediate areas around major train stations, like, for example, Shinjuku:



Notice how quickly smaller buildings take over. And see all those trees? Yeah, there are tons of amazing parks in Tokyo, many of them land that used to belong to daimyos and are now semi-public property (you have to pay a nominal fee to go in).

Rent is ridiculous, especially in places right around major train stations. Think Manhattan. We, of course, don't live in those areas, since we have a large family.

Street names...Tokyo is an old city with many winding back streets hardly big enough for a passenger car to go down. Those kinds of "streets" have no names, so it's almost impossible to get directions from someone by word of mouth. You've gotta look at a map or have navi on your smartphone. Only the arteries of the city have names, and yes, since the names are Japanese, they can't be a tongue-twister!

White gloves...some taxi drivers still wear them, but most don't. I think that was a thing. But you know what they do wear white gloves for?



This is why I cycle to work.

Tokyo is a great city, very interesting with lots of things to do...but the city closes down every night. The trains stop, so this encourages people to go home. Tokyo is both very modern and very traditional...and very weird! For example, these two things are right next to each other:



&



where you can see these kinds of girls every Sunday

Lisnaholic

Thanks, mordwyr, that's a very good summary and some nice pics. I see what you mean about the mix of high-rise, low rise and parks.
You can learn a lot about a city from a good map, and (thank you, Google) I see that Tokyo is a complicated place, but with a lot of variety too. Koto-Ku looks pretty nice, for example; it's pronouncable, has lots of water and a big park - just the sort of breathing space you need after those packed subways and shopping alleyways, I should think!

In Mexico, they don't do a very good job of designing cities; they use a grid system for the streets, then sell every square inch off to developers. Typically, you get a dusty square that passes for a park every twenty blocks, and sidewalks so narrow that there is space for utility poles, or pedestrians, but not both. Downtown it's difficult to move around, and in the suburbs people walk in the roads.
The extreme is Mexico City, which has some of the worst urban probs in the world.

P.S. Those fashionable girls look very strange, but happy enough. Two of them look like they're wearing chrome cylinders instead of shoes!

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Kedvesem

Hmm.

This is quite difficult for me to answer, as I have lived in Japan for over 25 years. This is what I know best, despite being a "gaijin". When I arrived in Japan so long ago, the number of foreigners was still low enough that strangers would try to sneak a little touch of my sister's blonde hair.

Now it is not so extreme, of course, but the stares still happen. Yesterday, even, as my darling and I were walking back to the station, a girl stared at us to the point she stepped on her own dog.

People here will stare, even now. They point less, but it still happens. The "gaijin da!" (it's a [derogatory term for] foreigner) still follow us everywhere. But for the very reason that we are foreigners, we will get excluded. There are still many places that will not rent to foreigners. And this is legal. It's simply the way it is.

Japan is definitely, as Mordwyr put it, a place of contrasts. Despite the exclusion and despite the fact that being foreigners means we will always be outsiders, the busybodies of the neighbourhood always watch us. Like hawks. They know and comment on, say, the amount and type of trash we throw away in a given week. They know what sort of juice we drink. This, too, is the way it is.

If you don't mind institutionalized discrimination and the close observation of strangers accompanied by being ignored for being foreign, it's actually cool. I don't mind these things, so I have happily lived here for 25+ years. Many foreigners I know, however, find that these things gradually weigh on them, and eventually they become bitter toward Japan.

Lisnaholic

"Gaijin da!" Well, you've taught me some Japanese, Kedvesem. Thanks! Sounds like you have adapted well to the in-between status of being both a foreigner and a local.

Of the things you mention, the two that surprised me most were the legal discrimination against renting to foreigners, and the spying of the neighbours.

I'm also a gaijin da; here they say "gringo", though to their credit, never to my face. (Instead, I hear the mechanic out the back calling, "The gringo's here to collect his car!") In fact I'm jolly well British, and many Mexicans have quite a high regard for Brits; at school they learn about the industrial revolution and their own Spanish heritage, which makes them pro-European.

^ This really struck a chord with me, Kedvesem! I've been in the same Mexican city for about 24 yrs, and not being a particularly sociable type, I like the way that being a foreigner allows me to maintain a certain distance. As a foreigner it's understandable if I leave the party early or indeed, don't bother going.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Lisnaholic

This always struck me as a good thread idea that is rather under-utilised. It's a great way to get the max out of the internet and is an anthropologist's dream: you can ask-and-answer with an actual native about the bizarre rituals and inexplicable mysteries of some exotic foreign country. That's why I'm posting this question this morning:-

Who is voting for what in Iowa, and why is it important?

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Plankton

It's one of the most influential caucus's in the electoral process based on past results.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucuses

Why the race for the presidency begins with the Iowa caucus

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See location...

Frownland

They're the first to vote, making it the first time people make their voice heard outside of polls, and traditionally the neofascist that wins Iowa is later elected president.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Lisnaholic

^ Well that turned out to be weirder than I imagined! Thanks.

As I understand it, any regular registed voter can take part, but they have to be sufficiently commited to hang around for sometime in a conference hall and stand in a designated place to be head-counted as supporting one guy or other as a Presidential candidate. Is that right? Do you think a guy can go stand in a Dem caucus one night and then in a GOP caucus the next night? I presume America will also be watching for how many people total turn up at the Dem meetings and how many at the GOP. That's an important indicator too.

EDIT: Thanks for that extra info, and classic Frownland slant !

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Frownland

They have a closed primary, which means that you have to register as a member of the party that you caucus with. I think most Americans will just look at the headlines and say "whelp, Iowa said x".

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.