This is a continuation of my diary from my RTW trip from November 2003.In Hong Kong I did not suffer from Barcelona Syndrome. At every turn I felt that where I was was where it was at! But since arriving in Japan, I’ve been beset by Barcelona syndrome at every turn.
Hong Kong was going to be a hard act to follow. It is just the ultimate city. Prior to arrival in Tokyo, I probably thought that Japan would be up to the job, or even a case of more of the same. A technologically advanced city. Amazing super-fast trains. Lots of people wearing funky Issey Miyake clothes and enjoying the fruits of the worlds second largest economy and highest personal disposable incomes.
Yet the dourness of the people on arrival in Tokyo was quite a surprise. Tokyo turned out to be the anti-Hong Kong! Out are the cheerful Chinese and in are the truculent Tokyoites. They really have been en masse, the most cheerless people we have yet come across.
This compared to the fact that they have the least reasons of anyone anywhere we have met to be fed up! The train from Delhi to Jaipur went through slums of Delhi… the kids playing in the sewage by the refuse tips were laughing as they played.
The tourist guides in Zimbabwe, facing fuel and food shortages and a 97% collapse in tourist numbers were relaxed and cheerful.
But Tokyo?; the city with the highest property prices and wages in the world, where unemployment hasn’t been over 5% since 1945 and the streets are even more awash with Mercedes than Hong Kong?… I did not see anyone smile the entire time I was there.
I know their rugby team undeservedly failed to get a point at the world cup, but come on, they didn’t do as badly as Namibia! Crack a smile somebody please!
Apart from the miserable residents what have I made of Tokyo? Well it is obviously a city that underwent a lot of growth in the 1970s in terms of property and infrastructure development. The buildings are smart and clean, as is the subway, but there is something dated in the tiling and the concrete style that dominates the architecture. Something very outdated about such a futuristic society that no amount of neon (I mean how 80s is the neon?) can conceal.
I know their rugby team undeservedly failed to get a point at the world cup, but come on, they didn’t do as badly as Namibia! Crack a smile somebody please!
Apart from the miserable residents what have I made of Tokyo? Well it is obviously a city that underwent a lot of growth in the 1970s in terms of property and infrastructure development. The buildings are smart and clean, as is the subway, but there is something dated in the tiling and the concrete style that dominates the architecture. Something very outdated about such a futuristic society that no amount of neon (I mean how 80s is the neon?) can conceal.
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