Nippon - II
Posted on May 23, 2010
Filed Under Blog, Satya Speaks
Nippon - Part II
Super fashion Society
In most places that I have travelled to, I have found people and their dressing as an engaging piece of information. You need not go searching for it. It is in your face. It is inescapable.
Tokyo appeared to be a super fashion conscious society. Of course, what one would expect in a super-developed economy. While women are always well-dressed in most parts of the world, Japanese men too seem to be spending inordinate mindshare on looking good. A significant percentage has their heads well curated. I am told Venuezuela beats most countries when it comes to women’s fashion. Am waiting to get there some time and see. But, it might not be an exaggeration to say that the Japanese well-dressed girls make Indian girls look like simplicity personified !
Bullet Train – A Ride
One key task that we had chosen was to board and experience a bullet train. GP and I managed when we took the day off to go visit Mount Fuji at Hakone. The experience from inside the train is similar to our own Shatabdi. However, when got down and saw another ‘Shinkansen’ (Local name for the bullet train) go past in the station, we saw what it meant. It was like a tornado through the platform in a micro-second. We managed to not get blown along by the tornado!
Pin Drop Silence
The city came across as a city of pin-drop silence. No one speaks in any place. They are pre-occupied in their hand-held devices playing games etc,. No honking on the streets. Very few car for a city of this size. No shouting / fighting / backslapping on the streets. Of course, I was suffering from the chaos-index back home.
Density – People and cars
Tokyo is a 20 million population city. I reconfirmed this fact when I did not find as many people as I should have. On day one, I attributed it to that being a Sunday. But, I have not found enough people at all over the past week to reflect the population density that we have heard about.
The other thing that I found missing was cars. Or parking lots. In a place like Delhi or Mumbai, there are cars every where and we find roads once in a while. In Tokyo, I kept searching for cars on the roads. No where. The public transport is amazingly well networked and is super efficient. Delhi Metro can get to Tokyo of today if Mr Sreedharan continues at the helm for the next 10-15 years with the same amount of funds and execution mandate. Nowhere was the station more than a few minutes of walk. We did not have to hire a cab even once for our city trips.
Just one illustration – the Chairman of a company with a multi-billion dollar market-cap and his entire senior management that we met travelled by local metro to meet us for the dinner. And we too travelled the length and breadth of the city on metro while visiting their offices / businesses. Incidentally, the VP in this company owns a Lexus. Of course, I did not venture to ask which car the Chairman owned J
Smoking and Mobile
Every society has some things that are strange to a newcomer and almost inexplicable. One such thing about Japan pertains to the way they view smoking. You find people smoking anywhere and everywhere. It is not disallowed anywhere. So, you find them smoking inside a train (air conditioned), in a five star hotel, in buses, in offices. In fact, the places where smoking is not allowed is mentioned specially. I am told by local friends that Japan is a smoker’s paradise.
On the other hand, mobile usage is disallowed in public transport. Prominent posters urge you to keep the phone on silent mode and not to disturb other passengers by speaking. Can u imagine that I put my ultra-modern Nokia on speaker mode in India since it does not work otherwise J (Nokia, Listening ?). No wonder, Nokia is not doing great business in this far eastern country !
Palika Bazaar and Pahar Ganj
We are experts at finding the place for the best deal, as Indians. We were successful here too. We found the local version of the Janpath or fashion street or Palika bazaar. We put our best Karol Bagh skills of negotiations to work for us. In Tokyo, these markets go by the name of Akihabara and Ueon respectively and managed to grab a few things for the kids so that we get our entry back into our homes with little negotiation.
Sayonara
Satya
Comments
Interesting!
Visited any schools Satya?
Smita
Hi Satya,
There was a time , i always used to check ur blog often to see if u have posted something. Now I dont need to check as U have learned well how to use facebook to keep ur friends and followers update with ur postings. Nice.
Ur Japan happenings and observations are making me fall in love with Japan. Its like I am watching Japan sitting here through ur eyes. Great.
Satya , ye pata karo naa….please…
wahan Indian IWSB MBA’s ke liye jobs hain kya ??
Please…
Harish Lunani