We head to Japan for today’s blog. There were two interesting articles over the last month or so about crime fighting ideas in Japan. The first was about Aya Tsukioka, a Japanese fashion designer that has designed clothing and accessories to hide your stuff or yourself from criminals. The NY Times had an article about her. Once you get to the page, you can also click on “Slideshow” under the Media box on the left. It shows her vending machine dress and manhole cover purse.
JapaneseDesignerThe other article was in the Associated Press. Takahashi, a Japanese games developer, released a cell phone application called “Anti-Groping Appli” in 2005, and it is now No. 7 in the top 10 cell phone applications list compiled by Spicy Soft Corp. The program displays increasingly threatening messages on the cell phone along with a warning chime. The messages range from “Excuse me, did you just grope me”, to “Groping is a crime”, to “Shall we head to the police?”
You can see this might be a popular program when you read that 1,853 people were arrested in Tokyo in 2005 for groping passengers on trains. This is sort of ironic, given the Japanese politeness in society. Given the jammed trains, I guess many Japanese men figure they can get away with something in those circumstances.
I went to Japan in the late 80’s, and really enjoyed my visit, despite the language barrier and the near impossibility of a Westerner to read the Japanese lettering. I passed through Shinjuku station in Tokyo, which was at the time the most crowded station in the world. I was going against commute flow and was literally like a salmon swimming upstream. Really a weird feeling to move against the mass of humanity.
Two things that stick out about my visit were the surgical masks and airline boarding. I don’t know if it’s still as common now, but back then most people who were sick wore surgical masks to avoid contaminating others. It was a little strange coming from the US where everyone coughs and sneezes everywhere, but it was no big thing in Japan. The other thing I noticed is that the airplanes boarded entire planes in about 5 minutes. Nobody brought massive luggage onto the plane, and it was amazing what a difference that made. Of course, lost luggage was probably much less than in the US.
We had sold some equipment for use at Misawa AFB in Northern Japan, and I flew in to do startup and test. I was met at the airport by one of the interpreters that worked for the Japanese contractor. They said later they were surprised when I arrived, as they were expecting an older gentleman, and then I show up in my late 20’s. Misawa is a small town, with just one hotel. The rooms were pretty compact compared to western standards, probably about 6’ x 10’ or so. You had your bed, tiny bed, tiny bathroom and a TV. In the morning, the dining room always asked “American breakfast?”, and then gave you eggs, toast, ham. I think they figured all Americans wanted the same. I told them “Japanese breakfast” one morning to have something different. I think it was okay.
At the end of the visit, the contractor took me and two other american techs, plus our three interpreters, out to sushi. It was my first time eating Japanese. I took a piece of raw red tuna, put it in my mouth, and almost threw up. It was all I could do to keep a smile on my face and then dump it into my napkin when no one was looking. Ended up trying to stick to the vegetables and rice.
My other food mishap was in Tokyo. I had tried some curry beef or chicken at one of the train stations and it was really pretty good. So in Tokyo, I ordered it a neighborhood restaurant. Well, apparently it was like the US, where the food in the train stations and airports is the generic watered down version, and the local restaurant has the authentic stuff. I took a few bites of the curry at the local place, all the sudden my stomach started calling up the fire department. I ended up eating just the rice and about two glasses of water, then stopping at a local 7/11 type place to get milk to try and calm my stomach.
