What I learned walking around Tokyo

Brendan: That’s crazy right?
Jeroen: Not really

Observation 1: Techniques pioneered at airports - currently the most fashionable testing ground for new forms social division and behavior control - are popping up in the real world.

Japan used to be a haven for smokers. Cheap prices, very little social stigma (as long as you’re a man), ample street-side vending machines for the kids. But something has changed. Outside the major train stations in Tokyo, smokers are now segregated into special smoking districts. To make matters worse, they are surrounded by elaborate diagrams that deliver guilt trips like, “Where does the smoke go? Only the person producing it is unconcerned,” “You tossed your cigarette out the window. You looked like you were fleeing the scene of a crime,” and (my favorite) “A lit cigarette is carried at the height of a child’s face.”
In the most dramatic cases, though, smokers aren’t even allowed fresh air. They’re crammed into little, frosted glass death chambers, as in this one I found outside the Roppongi Hills center.

I once heard a passionate, defiant smoker talk about how the smoking sections of airports were actually good, because they offered the chance for people with little else in common to get to know each other, and bond through a shared hobby/addiction. Maybe this is true, and for the sake of my smoking friends I hope so, because they are being rounded up, and sooner or later may need to defend themselves.

Observation 2: The future will be cute and comfy.

When I left Beijing, the Motorola Razr was reigning mobile phone champion. It was an unavoidable presence in restaurants and clubs, and a pink version had just been released, apparently in the hope of attracting female buyers who were turned off by the cold, Alien aesthetic of the black and silver versions. My friend even had his stolen by a girl he hooked up with. Everybody knows that Japan leads the world in personal technology, so when I got to Tokyo, I expected to see the next Razr. And maybe I have, but it’s different than I guessed.

Instead of continuing the tradition of metallic angularity that signifies ‘modern’ in many places, the phones here are more and more soft and colorful. They’re usually made of plastic and, compared to the enormous mini-computers that many of China’s businessmen carry, look a lot like toys. 5 years ago when I lived here I had a too slim silver phone that I thought was very stylish and was hard to use. Now it seems like silver has been removed from the pallet and the phones are thicker. A friend told me that she thinks Japan hit the ceiling in terms of outward displays of technological advancement and the designers are now pursuing a new form of progress - less flashy, more comfortable and intimate.

Observation 3: Contrary to its image, politics in Japan is not only for conservative old men.