The people, gadgets and Japan's other side.

What I've noticed is that in the western world, there is a heavy emphasis on the individual person and what they can achieve, while in Asia there is a strong group emphasis in everything they do. Obviously this is just a generalisation, but from what I see day to day, they spend almost their entire lives in contact with their friends. Near my university is a sort of tiny community centre run by students. After school kids from 5-14 years old come and play with each other till late at night. By the age of 10 they own mobile phones and as soon as they hit 16 will be spending 95% of their time together, whether at school or going out. The 5% of the time they are apart is spent mailing and calling each other. My friend said he would spend on average $150 a month on mobile expenses. The other night I chose the worst hour to travel home. Remember those youtube videos of people getting pushed into the trains like sardines? That's actually a daily occurrence here. So I got on my rapid express train, got sandwiched, and suffered for 30 minutes till the next stop. The funny thing is, they are so cooperative during the whole squishing process, while they maintain their composure and carry blank looks on their faces. I'll admit, I was in sheer pain because I got stuck in an awkward position, but everyone else was calmly text messaging or reading a book. I am however proud to announce that I have mastered the art of standing without holding onto the railings even when the train isn't that packed. It is an essential skill, how else would I mail my friends while fixing my hair and changing songs on my iPod?



While on the topic of trains an convieniences, as requested, I'll do a quick review of my mobile and Suica card. The mobile costed me 80 dollars without contract. It's prepaid so I buy prepaid charge cards when I need them, while 300 yen (4 dollars) is deducted from my balance each month for unlimited email. The Japanese don't use sms, rather they use email from their mobiles. So there is no character limit, and images can be attached for no cost. When exchanging contact details, you need to provide your name, number and email address. Since it's troublesome, the phones are equipped with infra-red devices to beam across details. For 80 dollars, my phone has everything a premium model has back home, with the addition of 1-seg tv! 1-seg is Tokyo's mobile broadcast of all local television stations. It's really clear and includes things such as program guides and program information. It's sort of like mobile digital television. I don't know about you guys, but I reckon that's almost too cheap. The other awesome gadget to make my life here easier is called a Suica card. It's used to travel on Japan's massive rail network, as well as the bus network. The card uses wireless technology and has a stored-value, so you just tap it at the ticket gates, like myKi, ez-link and Octopus. Mine is pictured above, and the writing all over the top is my commuter pass allowing fixed cost travel along my route of choice (shiki to ikebukuro along the toubu-toujou line and then to tamachi along the yamanote line). It ended up costing 9,650 yen or about 120 dollars monthly with student discount, which is pricey but so much cheaper than what I was expecting. Whenever I venture outside my route, it calculates the cheapest fare for me, utilising the free stations on my route. My suburban line has 4 platforms and a choice of local, semi-express, express, rapid-express, express for employees and special-express services. EACH service departs roughly every 5 minutes. The yamanote circle line which is like Melbourne's city loop (except there are like 40 stations) has 4 platforms and departs from each one roughly every 40 seconds during peak-hour and every 2 minutes at other times. Each train is about 18 carriages long, so you can't actually see the other end of the station. And yes, each and every train gets thoroughly stuffed and compressed nicely. It's also notable that they line up like school children in 3 neat lines outside the door, and move to the side to let other's off first. The stations are usually built inside shopping centres, which are really big since there are around 16-30 platforms above ground and another 5 or so subway lines. As a result, it takes on average 40 minutes to find your friends when meeting at one of the 16 different station exits. And while the train network is awfully efficient, I still find myself walking about 4 km a day!



This is the imperial gardens in Shinjuku, which has now become a homeless community. Japan's economy which was already in recession was hit really hard during the recent economic meltdown. The people here have a lot of pride, and you don't see them going round begging for money, or even collecting it, and unlike Singapore they can't go round selling tissue paper either since it's always given away for free on the streets. The community is also strangely clean, with a designated washing area and shared recreational space. During the day a lot of the smaller 'tents' get packed nicely away while they go about some sort of daily life. They are also very passive, and not scary, which makes sense since they were probably average salary men who suddenly lost everything. What concerns me is that such a wealthy government isn't doing anything about it. I guess it's only Australia which provides things like Centrelink.