"Shibuya to Hiyoshi on the Tokyu Line at Night- 1991"

Back in 1991, I carried a video camera with me nearly all the time. This video is of a nighttime trip I took from Shibuya to Hiyoshi on the Tokyu Line

It's only ("only?" Hmmm...) been a little over 17 years, but things feel quite different on the trains these days. No wonder, when you stop and realize that it's a different generation of young people on them - and the young people in this 1991 video are now middle-aged....

The sights and sounds of the trip will likely be familiar to anyone who used that line around that time (October 1991). Several of the windows were also open, which is quite rare now. People seem to like(?!) riding around in sealed boxes now - no mater how nice the weather is outside.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Last of a Long Day at the 1991 Tokyo Motor Show"

Watching only the edited set of videos I took on Saturday, October 26th, 1991, the four clips only amount to around 25 minutes, but if I add up the time I spent editing out those 25 minutes from the original two hours I took in 1991, it amounts to about the same length of time I spent with video camera in hand on the day itself in real time (all day that is). That, combined with watching the entire thing (a few times) intently, has brought the day to the forefront of my mind, and I remember the fatigue of the day. Tired here in 2009 from the editing process and remembering how it was to be banging around in 1991 in that crowded show all day (fun, but headache-inducing) leaves me feeling like I've now had quite enough of the 1991 Tokyo Motor show!

I might even have forgotten the headache, but there I am on the screen (not in the edited material posted to YouTube) taking a break in the middle of the day and telling the camera (and 2009 me) that I have a headache and I'm getting tired of the still photographers banging into me as they physically force their way to the front, while I'm trying to take video scenes.

Watching my 1991 self and the 1991 scenes and sounds; and then thinking about it, the specific memory of the headache (and escaping outside for a break) come back. The headache had three causes basically - 1) the incessant, competing, loud, and conflicting noises of the show, 2) being continually banged into as I attempted to hold the camera steady for video recording, and 3) the heat - the exhibition halls were overheated... no doubt for the many scantily clad show-women.

All-in-all, taking a good look at my 1991 material keeps leaving me with (among a flood of related memories) thinking of the following:

1) It's a different era! A seamless flow of time between 1991 and 2008/2009, but there is a great wall somewhere in-between now and then. Different clothes, different hairstyles, different feeling in the air, different thinking, and different this, that, and other things.

2) The "bubble years" are always portrayed on Japanese TV as something akin to "the roaring twenties" in the US, but for most people at the time, it was just news stories of excess on TV, and most people's lives were - shock & surprise - a carryover from a few years before. I have video of children playing in the street in the "shitamachi" area of town (sometimes/often radically-wrongly translated as "downtown" - a more accurate translation would be "low area of town" or "the far side of the tracks", "the poor side of town" etc.) and old 1950's style buildings, etc. What people don't seem to generally comprehend is that the plans laid in that era are what resulted in the modern Tokyo of today. So to around-20 people who say "I wish I could experience what it was like in the roaring 'bubble' years", I say "Take a look around - you've got it! They didn't then, but the results of their plans for shiny new structures and modern lifestyle have arrived! You're there! Now!"

3) The fragility of memory. After watching several 21st century fictional portrayals of the "bubble years", I had begun to see the era as having been (somewhat) that way. This has been the biggest surprise of all for me - since I was here for the entire time, I should know very well how it was, but it has taken watching hours and hours of my life then (recorded by me at the time), to bring back the authentic memories of how it felt and what the atmosphere was, and that atmosphere is radically different from what comes across in modern fictional depictions of the era on TV and in movies.

Number three in particular should give one cause to pause and think hard about... things - all things. If you can be pushed away from reality by fictional depictions of something you lived through (and should know as well as anyone), how can you correctly understand a reality you have had no proper exposure to?

4) From the evidence of young modern actors faultily attempting to portray young people of a different era, it would seem it's no easy task to comprehend how it felt to live in a particular era. (How I wish I had a time machine to go back and sample different eras! I would especially like to go back for photos of certain key events. Better yet, video! Actual video of ancient peoples - would they seem more familiar than expected, or more alien? Of course, to really do the job properly, you would have to be invisible. The sudden appearance of a biped with a picture & sound recording device wouldn't exactly be taken in stride....)

Derailing here... so I'll stop. Here's the link to the fourth & final (unless at some point I use parts of the 90 minutes cut out in editing) of the 1991 Tokyo Motor Show series:

And if you'd like to follow October 26th, 1991's Lyle through the day, here are five videos (the fifth one being a short clip of riding in a car that evening) that cover nearly the entire day. There's one gap between leaving Tokyo Station at the end of 1991-TMS #4 and getting in the car - maybe I'll get to that at some point.

"Tokyo Auto Show - 1991 #1" (I misnamed it; it should be "motor", not "auto")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k_lOBIPTag

"Tokyo Motor Show - 1991 #2"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLa8lm7c9TQ

"Tokyo Motor Show - 1991 #3"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RcBrhe7PXc

"Tokyo Motor Show - 1991 #4"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkseeKkARE

"Driving in Tokyo - October 26th, 1991"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAl7QM3z-V0

And here are some still photos from the 2003 and 2005 shows:

Tokyo Motor Show - 2003 (a couple of photos at the top & one at the bottom)
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/Random02.html

Tokyo Motor Show - 2005
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/MtrShw05_1.html
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/MtrShw05_2.html
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/MtrShw05_3.html
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/MtrShw05_4.html
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgb/MtrShw05_5.html

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

PS - Valentine's Day in Japan - when women give chocolate to men. I considered posting some pictures of stores selling chocolate, but then I thought "Naw - why do that? It's just a local way of handling a foreign import."

"Cars, Cameras & Models - More of 1991 Tokyo Motor Show"

I thought I would wrap up the subject of the 1991 Tokyo Motor Show with a third edit of the material I took that day, but after editing another five-and-a-half minutes out of the next (around) forty minutes of tape, I decided that was long enough and I'll have to edit one more to wrap up that topic. The video is here:

Incidentally, have on-line videos been playing well for you over the past week? I've been experiencing what looks like a slowdown, probably due to excessive demands being maid on the servers. I read somewhere that something like fifteen hours worth of video is uploaded every ten minutes, or something like that. It's amazing the system works at all with that much material constantly pouring into it! Still, I wonder if the slow results are from my provider's servers, or the servers on the other end.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Grueling Commute in Tokyo"

The daily commute started fairly normally, but then got "fun" on the second train. As I walked into the train, near the front of the wave of people, two determined gorillas took up position directly under the hanging straps near the opposite door. As the twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or however many people (unwillingly made into canned sardines) behind me pushed me into the gorillas, they braced themselves and - doing a good imitation of the Berlin Wall, steadfastly guarded enough empty space in front of them for four people to stand with ease.

And there we were - lots of sardines smashed up against me, driving me into the pair of gorillas, who then looked over their shoulder's at me from time to time with "Why are you touching me...?" looks. For thirty minutes they pushed back mightily - defending that poor, vulnerable empty space - and for thirty minutes, we bipeds-turned-into-sardines behind them, suffered. As the train rolled towards its rendezvous with train number three, I contemplated the pleasant idea of the two of them getting run over by a large, heavy, speeding truck....

Pulling into the transfer station, I expected the two gorillas to also do their best to block people from getting off the train and proceeding to the stairs, but once the doors opened at the station, they turned into regular bipeds. It may be that they were trying to keep a meter of space between themselves and a woman against the far door, lest they be accused of improperly touching her, which is a life-ruining, jailable offense now. Meanwhile... their actions meant that the women in the sardine pack behind them were being smashed that much more tightly between different men. Myopic vision - such a horrible thing. Probably a very large proportion of the suffering in the world is due to someone's bloody-minded myopic vision.

Train number three.... Fun-fun-fun. As I climbed the stairs to the platform, I heard an announcement saying the train was behind schedule, but I didn't think too much about it, since there are so many trains in the morning, the schedule doesn't matter too much so long as they're running. But... as the train came in and I merged with a line (the platform was completely full and people pushing onto the platform from the stairs forced me into that action), I noticed that the train was unusually packed and would likely require a little muscle to get onto.

Crossing the threshold from platform to train, it wasn't as bad as I expected, but the train didn't get under way right away, as it usually does, and as it sat there at the platform (waiting to take on more bipeds in order to take some pressure off of an overloaded train behind it I imagine), more and more people forced their way on-board.

Looking between a couple of heads back towards the platform, I saw four High School girls standing between the lines of people waiting for the next train (and this is the difference between a couple of decades ago and now - many people don't even attempt to get on a really packed train now), staring back at the tightly packed people in the doorway with wide-open eyes and open mouths. I couldn't help but smile at their reactions. It must have been their first experience at a Yamanote Line hub station during the morning crush-rush. They seemed particularly impressed with a nicely dressed young woman who forced her way on, and they kept looking down at her shoes only half on the train - no doubt wondering what would happen to her nice shoes when they were caught in the closing doors. (Incidentally, that's no big deal - the doors have rubber edges and don't press hard enough to break bones or do any serious damage to shoes, etc.)

The train did eventually get under way however, and by then, a few more people had forced their way aboard, so the woman on the threshold who was only half-way in the train, was now fully aboard (behind the newcomers). It was just like the old days in the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line express trains, crowded to a point that's strangely less stressful than when the density is less, but people are still bumping into you - and I suppose "bumping into you" is the key there. When it's really tightly packed, there is no bumping into anyone, since it's just one huge mass of people, so when the train lurches, the crowd inside moves as one - individual will has nothing to do with it.

Further down the line, I realized that I might miss my connection to the next train if I didn't move down the train to a door nearer the upcoming stairs at the (next) transfer station, so I got off (without much trouble, surprisingly) and walked down the platform. As I got in line again to re-board the train, I realized (with a slight sense of alarm) that I might not be able to get back on. The train wasn't sitting around waiting this time, so I began pushing, backing towards the door, and when I got close, I pushed harder... no go... harder still... still no go, so I reverted to 1991-Seibu-Ikebukuro-Line-Express mode (like that wild video... who took that anyway?), and - pulling with my arms from the top edge of the door frame, and pushing with all the strength of my legs, I finally got so my feet were wedged against the bottom rails for the doors. At this point, with both arms up against the upper door frame and both feet set, I formed an arch with my body that could withstand a lot of pressure, and waited for the doors to close, holding back the combined pressure of many compressed rib cages.

Most new arrivals to the platform took one look at the situation and either didn't even try to get on, or went down the platform further in search of a less crowded door. One extra guy forced his way on to the side of me though, and he had a hard time of it, but did finally manage to compact everyone enough to get on. The doors closed somehow and we moved out. (Incidentally, they must use very powerful motors in the trains here, I can't remember ever feeling that the train was having trouble accelerating - no matter how heavily loaded it is.) As the train moved out, it became apparent that the man on my left was not enjoying the ride - maybe he was being smashed into the vertical handrail by the doors - but there was absolutely nothing I could do. I was pinned against the door myself and unable to move anywhere. Fortunately it was only about a three minute ride to the next station.

As we pulled in, I observed that I was right in the middle of the opening, so I anticipated jumping out of the train through the middle of the opening as soon as the two doors were half open. The train stopped... and it sat there for a few seconds without anything happening "Come-on! Get a move on! Open the bloody doors already!" I thought. Then the doors just barely moved about a centimeter, and it was suddenly apparent that there was so much pressure against the doors from the inside, that they couldn't open! But being right there in the middle, I reached my fingers in and gave a mighty pull - forcing the doors open enough to jump out the middle. As I reached my left leg out to cross the train-platform threshold, someone stepped on the back of my right shoe, almost ripping it off my foot. Out on the platform, I stumbled a little, and as I hopped on my left leg long enough to get my right show on, I had a flashback to a news reel from about thirty years ago, where they showed several people's shoes left behind on the platform after a crowd had fought their way onto a train....

Next train - no problem! But I was still frazzled, and when I finally reached my desk, my workmate wasn't overjoyed to hear my tales of the morning battle to get to work. I almost think (recognizing that it is in no way comparable in a serious way) that I can understand (a little) what soldiers feel like when re-entering society, where friends and family don't want to hear what it was really like. You think a wild experience is something people want to know about - but in the passion of decompression, it seems to scare/disgust/worry/something people. So, I suppose the only way to convey it, is to write about it (hello folks!).....

So how will tomorrow's commute be?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"The Japanese Automotive Industry - 1991 & 2009"

The Japanese automobile industry was still flying high in 1991 - and a lot of industry money and public attention was spent on the auto show that year. Foreign manufacturers were also pushing to get a better foothold in the Japanese market, in contrast to some large companies not even bothering to display anything at the last show (although private import companies displayed some of these missing companies' vehicles). For a look back at 1991, see this video (the second one covering the show that day):

Beyond the cars, the people had different hairstyles, hair colors, eyebrow thicknesses, and were wearing different clothes. I'm not sure what to think about the car industry - considering how many cars the world's manufacturers are capable of pumping out every month, you have to wonder if it makes any sense to fill up the world with fire-breathing machinery. Something without the internal combustion might be nice - electric?.....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Express Checkout & Future Gambling"

As I entered the station to get on the Yamanote Line this evening, there were announcements about there having been a "jinshin-jiko" (passenger action, which generally means suicide by jumping in front of a train), so the Shinjuku - Ikebukuro bound trains were stopped. After a bit of back-tracking and some trouble, I managed to get on a Saikyo Line train in Osaki. It was pretty intensely crowded though, so I got off in Ebisu and hung out there for a bit, before taking the Hibiya (subway) Line to Hibiya Station (near Yurakucho, etc.), finally getting home close to 10:00 p.m.

(2009/01/22) - Then I sat down in front of the computer and barely managed to wrote the above... before falling asleep in my chair in front of the keyboard. Now it's morning and it's time to begin another day. I really hate the way yesterday consumed itself without my having managed to write anything. Either there are too few hours in the day or I'm spending too many of them on the trains and etc.

Okay - all in a rush here, but here's a quote from the the old Japanese book about Japan (NIPPON - A Charted Survey of Japan - 1936) that I picked up recently. Considering the direction the country went in, it seems interesting...:

"It is unfortunate, however, that there has of late years emerged in our midst a number of those who, though extremely small in number, hold views different from what is common to most of our people. The more radical of this group scheme to supplant the existing polity of the country by a system of Communism. The radical movement of Communism, in fact, has been declining since some years ago. In its place there has now sprung forth a group of reactionary minds which propose to enforce under the slogan of nationalist conservatism ideas as radically right as those of the others are left. Nothing surprising to be sure, if a fraction of the 70 million population have turned heretics; but they must be well taken into the hands of the authority because of the possibility of misleading minds which can know no better."

It's so easy for a country or group of people to fall into one extreme or another - and so hard to get things right. Same as for individuals. The thing that makes me stop and think about this, is how one person, or a small group of people, when moving in a constructive direction, is an inspiring thing... but how the same process also works in a negative way. Best for more people to think deeply about the world they live in, and not leave it to chance for a leader to appear in their midst. Such a method is a gamble that leads to great heights at times, and horrible depths at other times....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Here and There in December 2008 Tokyo"

The clock has not been cooperating over the past week! I try to get things done and the clock speeds ahead before I can complete things. This has led to many nights falling asleep on the floor in front of the computer, where I end up sleeping the night half-frozen and wake up more tired than when I went to bed. Next night, repeat.

In spite of this bad situation, I managed to post a couple of new things. First a reposting of the 1991 crush-rush train video, which I posted a second time to YouTube due to there being something wrong with the original file. It would play on some computers, but not others. It seems not to work with the newest (version-10?) Flash player. The new link for this is here:

"Actually Full Train in 1991 - Why Flex-time is Needed - Reload"
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BgropnG8rNE

Then I posted a few photos taken in December 2008, here:

"Here & There in Tokyo - December 2008" - Shinbashi, Yurakucho, Setagaya, & Shinjuku
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/PhotoGlryMain/pgc/Iroiro200812a.html

Finally, a short video of driving in Tokyo - showing how many of the streets aren't really intended to handle more than pedestrian and bicycle traffic:

"Driving in Tokyo - October 26th, 1991"

Now to get to work on more things - and get proper sleep at night!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"A Week to Cross the Pacific in 1936"

I picked up a 73-year-old book today entitled "Nippon - A Charted Survey of Japan - 1936" ("charted" apparently meaning that there are charts in the book; the 1936 English translation from the source Japanese-language book isn't perfect), which I'm hoping/expecting to be historically interesting to go through. The thing about history books written by current generation authors, is that they say basically "The old ones did this, and this, and that, and when they did this thing, they were hoping to... but actually...." etc. Which is fine... I guess... maybe.... But there's something immediate and compelling about seeing what the old ones did and thought when they were young - written in their words at the time, before they became dusty old ones.

Take this off-hand remark in the forward to the book:

"Tourists and those who visit Japan for professional and other purposes will find the present book an unfailingly informative companion as they tour the country. Those who are visiting Japan for the first time will do scarcely better than go through the book while their ships are still sailing in to sight of the shores they are to visit."

Trans-Pacific passenger air travel wasn't part of the picture yet, and it was just a normal given that anyone visiting Japan would be spending a week or more on a ship plowing across the ocean. And... the scenario of tourists willingly lugging around a book about industrial production, etc., paints a picture rather different from 2009.

The book also talks about Japanese people as though they are either trying to get a handle on a national identity, or trying to explain themselves to the English-text reader (or both). The book bills itself as an English translation of a Japanese book (which was used as a textbook in schools), but some parts leave me wondering whether the translator did a straightforward translation of the original, or whether he got creative with text he knew was for readers of radically different cultures.

And something else that has recently come to mind. I sailed to Japan on a raft of books saying how amazing it was that Japan rose from the ruins of World War-II in such a short time. This is certainly true, but it's begun to occur to me that the terminology is unfortunate, as it doesn't quite paint the full picture. By 1936, Japan had been industrializing for well over half a century already, so at the close of WW-II, the ruined cities and masses of dead notwithstanding, the country still had a lot of engineers and industrialists. Keeping this in mind and conjuring up the drive that led the original technological modernization, is it in fact so surprising that the country got the industrial machinery going again?

Too much interest in 1936? The accidental discovery of that book is the only reason I'm looking at that specific year, but I have been thinking a lot about the 1928-1946 time frame... hoping that this time around, history will not repeat itself - that we will stop it from doing so. Knowing what happened and getting a grasp of the mindset of specific times can be instructive in how not to make the same mistakes?

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Photographing at Flank Speed & Sailing With an Anchor Out"

I went out with some friends over the holiday - taking my camera along - and was again reminded that street photography is something best done alone. If you're with someone, you end up walking at flank speed in an attempt to catch up with them between taking pictures, and they (if they're concerned about actually staying within a kilometer radius of you), have to stop from time-to-time to wait for you. So while you're thinking "Why do they have to steam ahead at flank speed?", they're thinking, "Why does he have to keep holding us back, like an anchor left overboard, slowing down the ship?"

All-in-all, it's a frustrating experience for all concerned, and the photographer doesn't get many decent pictures while hurriedly taking them anyway, so I tell myself it would be best to just leave the camera in the bag. But... when you go to some new place, how can you not take some pictures? It just seems wrong not to. And so, once again, the photographer realizes that friends and good photos generally do not mix - not at the same time in any case!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Shinjuku Melody - October 2008 #4 (30th & 31st)"

October 30th & 31st - having run out of not only patience, but also days in October, this is definitely the last one of this series. I originally meant for it to be one video containing the whole week's worth of performances, but there was too much material for one YouTube posting, so I divided it up.

As I mentioned in "Shinjuku Street Bands - October 2008 #3", I have no intention of focusing exclusively on street bands for videos, I just wanted to finish this project, so I slogged it out until the end. (I'm open to recording the subject again, but for now I want to do other topics for awhile.)

All of that said, there is some excellent guitar music in this one I think - with two sections highlighting Otofuke, the solo guitarist with a unique guitar-playing method (the first section is very brief, but the second takes a better look from multiple angles), and one section (at the end) of the group, Oshare Dorobo. Others are featured as well, such as the three-piece group Ondo.

December 31st, 2008. Another year over. But not just any year it seems. It's looking like "2008" will be remembered in history in much the same way as "1929". Here's to moving forward constructively; to not slipping into World-War-III; to proving that history does not have to repeat itself!

Happy New Year everyone! May it be a great one!

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Shinjuku Street Bands - October 2008 #3"

I don't intend to make writing and taking pictures of Shinjuku street bands a profession, but I would like to finish the project at least! I went by there every evening in late October 2008 and this is the next video in that series. #1 was taken earlier actually, and then #2, #3 (and #4, when I can get around to editing it) were taken in the same week. This one, #3, is from a couple of days - back-to-back.

In searching for the street bands, I walked around the station (about a 20 minute hike - Shinjuku Station is large) and there are some brief views of areas of Shinjuku around the station. Also in this video are views of three police officers shutting down a performance by the South-East Exit of the station.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Shinjuku Street Bands - October 2008 #2"

October may have been the peak of street bands performing in Shinjuku (mostly in the South and South-East exit areas), what with comfortable temperatures (no humid heat and no biting cold), and not very strict patrolling by local police officers. Since then however, the police have been more rigorously enforcing a ban on unlicensed pubic performances, and the weather has made it uncomfortable to be outside anyway (for both the performers and the audience).

For one week of October in particular, I went to Shinjuku every day, and this is one of the days (or "another of the days" - if you've seen the previous Shinjuku Bands post), a not very crowded evening, with only three bands:

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Nighttime Ikegami Line"

The Ikegami Line is interesting, for a few reasons. The first thing you notice when using the line is that the trains only have three cars, which is really unusual for Tokyo. Most lines have ten cars, with a few six and eight car trains on one end of that, and a few 15-car trains on the other.

The next thing you notice as you travel down the line, is that several of the stations are as though in a time slip, with wooden roofs and other station bits that look as though they're either from the many-decades-ago past, or on a seldom traveled line out in the countryside somewhere.

Then - as you watch the trains going in the other direction, you notice that there are several different types of train on the line. By riding a few of them and noting the plaques that say when they were manufactured, you notice that the oldest of the four types being used dates back to around 1963 or so, and the newest is from this year (2008).

Other than that, it's just a normal branch line, except the station names tend to be more interesting than those on many other lines.

Anyway, that's not much, but it's four in the morning and I need to get some sleep, so....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Guitar Music by the South-East Exit"

Time-wise, I can't walk the streets of Shinjuku every evening in search of street bands, but following my visit there on Monday, I returned on Tuesday and saw a guitar player I had enjoyed listening to before (and bought a CD of his music) named Otofuke Kenta. Before I get going with an attempt to put some of the thought typhoon I had earlier this evening (Thursday) into words, here's the guitarist's website:
http://www.otofuke.net/inner2.html

Once upon a time, I wanted to be a musician, then a photographer. I abandoned the idea of becoming a musician when I assessed how much difficulty I had distinguishing one note from another, but have never abandoned my love of music, nor my quest for visual experiences and recorded images. The quest continues as the years continue their relentless acceleration towards the inevitable end of the story... and the man walking through life begins to... worry about running out of time... and to look at the sky and deeply feel that the world needs more art and music.

...... There was a moment earlier this evening, with the air thick with meaning, sorrow, tragedy, hope, promise... and all the wordless feelings such moments carry. In the moment I determined to write the experience into form with words. This is that attempt, but there was so much more. Maybe some of the moment is conveyed between the lines? I wish I could do better - this is where music would help - if only I could create music to fit the thought typhoons....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"A Hard Evening in the Plaza"

On Monday I stopped by Shinjuku to see if any bands were playing and found the band Ondo playing in the plaza by the Southeast Exit (correct name? I think it's "Tonan" in Japanese). As they finished playing one song, an unfriendly looking cleaning man came up and seemed to be telling them they shouldn't be playing in the plaza, which they smiled off and then began playing another song as he walked off.

As I dug my hands into my pockets, I thought "It's getting cold to be playing outside..." and was just getting into the song when the bass player hurriedly put down his instrument and dashed off down the street. I looked back at the other two members of the band, who kept playing. Looking back down the street to see where the bass player had gone, I saw him talking with a policeman by what looked like the band's van - probably getting a parking ticket.

I looked back to the two band members still playing and pondered the band's difficulties - the time and trouble of setting up their equipment for a performance; the difficulty in parking their van; and then the unfriendly man telling them not to play. As they finished the song, a pair of policemen walked up, and that was the end of the evening's performance. As one of the policemen talked with one of the three band members, I bought one of their CDs from the keyboard player/singer (at least two of the three sing, maybe all three), and she mentioned that they would be playing at a "live house" in Shibuya the following Monday (is "live house" an English term, or just a Japanese term?)

The band's website is:
http://www.ondo-net.com/pc/index.html

You can hear clips of their songs on this page:
http://www.ondo-net.com/pc/item.html

Incidentally, the system with the police asking people to write something on a clipboard when they are asked to stop playing in public seems to be one in which the written statements basically say something like "I promise not to do this again here", so if they are caught a few times, there comes a point where the police can take out a stack of statements and say "You obviously are willfully breaking the law" and then they can be... fined I guess. (One of the musicians filled me in regarding what the clipboards were about.)

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Friendly Advice & an Empty Field"

On Friday, I went to an (early for the season) end-of-the-year party in Akasaka. The food and drink were good, irritations few and far between, and basically a great time was had by all (except one guy who had too much to drink, and had slipped into the "Uuu... can I hang on... uuuuu" zone). I was hoping to convince him to go home, but he was more interested in staying with the group for more fun. A perfectly understandable and good motivation, but generally a mistake under those circumstances. (I'll have to ask about what happened after I went home!).

I actually had the good sense to leave the "Let's keep going all night - all weekend - forevermore!" die-hards before reaching a "I should have left earlier..." point of regret, and sensibly left for home in time to catch my last trains. However, as I sat down on the last of the set of four trains I needed to take that evening, I relaxed, thinking I had completed the journey (big mistake!). I fell asleep and woke up a couple of stations past where I wanted to get off. Getting off, I walked across the platform, intending to take a train back in the other direction, but a station employee told me there were no more trains headed in that direction. (Tokyo shuts its entire train system down each and every night - except on December 31st - for... maintenance I suppose.)

No trains to get home on... time to wear my shoes down! I was rather irritated with myself and the situation as I began my long walk (on top of everything, I had to pay extra for that part of the train journey I hadn't wanted to take), but then (after walking for about 90 minutes) I began to enjoy the clear, cool (cold, but not too cold) night air. After getting instructions from a friendly man keeping guard over a crossing as workmen did some work on the nearby railway (the railways are kept in very good condition here, by the way), my mood improved still more and then I found myself positively and throughly enjoying walking through a field away from houses and lights - with the stars above visible as they rarely are in over-lit and often smoggy Tokyo (the air tends to be clearer in the winter).

I suppose you might be wondering about the idea of walking through fields in Tokyo! I live away from the center of Tokyo, so there are some, but not many. I considered myself fortunate for the experience of walking through an open field. I get very tired of always walking about on asphalt or concrete, in canyons of buildings, and of in being in sealed-box buildings. It's very rare to experience a wide-open sky in this city.... (That said, I certainly don't want to live outside! I just want a little more fresh air than I usually get!)

Why not a taxi? Basically, I'm allergic to taxi drivers! I've been cheated in the US, Hong Kong, Australia, and in Japan. About seven out of ten rides have been unpleasant. The usual problem has been drivers taking a round-about route, but I've also been overcharged, with the driver saying there was an extra luggage charge (in both Hong Kong and Australia, when I didn't have that much luggage anyway). A couple of times in Japan the driver blatantly ignored my direct requests and made sure that he ran the meter up. A couple of examples would be in order:

One time I said (using the local language, mind you) "Stop here please" and the driver - the dirty rotten scoundrel - kept driving past where I wanted to get off saying "I can get you closer". As soon as the meter jumped up, then he stopped, I (very unhappily) paid the extra fee and then had to walk back to where the driver had refused to stop!

Another time, I was running late for a friend's wedding and I took a taxi from the station to make up time. Not only did the driver pretend to not know the streets at all, but when I (looking at my map) was giving him directions, as we neared the destination, I said (using the local language of course) "Turn left here", and the dirty bugger turned right! Turning left would have gotten me to the wedding just in time, but by turning right, the scoundrel driver was able to take a long detour that made me late. Naturally my story about why I was late was not believed. "The taxi drivers here are wonderful and honest - they would never do such a thing." Yeah, sure, right....

But the clearest example I had was a weekly trip I took out to a factory in Tatebayashi, which is in Gunma Prefecture, just over the border with Saitama; a one hour trip out of Tokyo by Ryomo Express train on the Tobu-Isesaki Line (I had thought it was spelled/pronounced "Isezaki", but there are more Google hits for "Isesaki", so I guess that's the correct way). Over a period of about six months, I went out there once a week, and took a taxi from the station to the same factory each time. Tatebayashi is a smallish city (by Japan's standards anyway), with a population of about 80,000. In Tokyo, there's always the possibility that a driver really doesn't know the streets in a particular area well, since the city is so vast (less of an excuse now with electronic navigation), but in a city of 80,000, that's not very likely. It's highly probably that the taxi drivers there know the city like the back of their hands (better maybe, who studies the back of their own hands anyway?).

So what happened? Well, in a spirit of anthropology (and since my company was paying the taxi fare), I just sat back and observed what the drivers did each week when I gave them the name of the well-known factory I was going to. The first time out, I sat back and watched the scenery go by outside as I took in Tatebayashi for the first time. Arriving at the factory, I thought it was a little expensive, but I just figured that the factory was far away from the station. On subsequent trips, I began to wonder why the price was never the same, but just put it down to traffic conditions. Then - about the sixth or seventh trip out - I suddenly found myself with an honest taxi driver who - zip!-zip!-zip! - took me directly to the factory in the shortest distance and time. The fare was about 30-40 percent cheaper and I arrived quite a bit sooner than usual.

From that point forward, I watched the drivers more closely, and - more often than not I'm afraid - they were not taking the most direct, least crowded, or fastest route to the factory. (I could have battled them each and every time, but I wanted to see what they would do.) One time was funny, because this driver had taken me on one of the detours, but it was a slightly less lengthy detour than usual, and the meter was just on the verge of jumping up when we stopped in front of the factory. I could sense his disappointment as he looked at the meter that was just about to give him some (dishonestly earned) extra income, but didn't. He reluctantly hit the stop button on the meter and I gleefully thought "Serves you right, you dishonest bugger you! You wasted time and fuel, and all to very little avail!" (Thinking back on this, I realize that he was likely confident the meter had already changed, as he didn't look at it until we were sitting there in front of the factory, and then what's he going to do? I guess he could have said "Look, I took a special detour to cheat you out of some extra money, but the meter hasn't climbed much beyond the honest price yet, so let's do a few loops in the parking lot here until it jumps into the next range. You don't mind if I steal some more of your money, do you?"

The lingering question is whether this despicable behavior and lack of morals of many taxi drivers is equally dispersed among their unfortunate passengers... but that's a stupid question. Of course it isn't! If you're going to cheat someone, you pick people who are cheat-able! Doing that to a savvy local of Tatebayashi could generate some serious trouble for them. After all, it is illegal to steal people's money dishonestly.

On the flip side of this issue of course, are the people who cheat taxi drivers. Jumping out without paying, throwing up in the back seat, saying unpleasant things, doing unpleasant things, etc. I don't envy the job taxi drivers have, along with the different kinds of nonsense they have to put up with, but that's still not an excuse to victimize innocent people. Getting "revenge" on innocent people is not getting revenge at all, but rather perpetuating the crime. (It's a fearsome thing the way things can snowball.)

A question the reader may have, is how could that happen with me going out there so often? The answer is that if the weekly business I had out there had been more frequent, or went on longer than six months (there may only be 80,000 people in Tatebayashi, but the city still has a large number of taxis, so I kept getting different drivers each time), the drivers would have begun recognizing me and then behaving more honestly. They would have to, otherwise I would have begun getting angry and combative, not to mention that the company paying the taxi fare for me would have begun to get angry and started making complaining phone calls to the taxi company (and if the problem persisted), to the police, the newspapers, etc. The taxi drivers probably (incorrectly) took me for a one-time visitor from overseas (people would come from overseas to visit that factory from time-to-time), and thought it was a safe crime to commit.

So there you have it. Sorry for my long rant against dishonest taxi drivers, but now that I've explained in some detail why I'm allergic to them, if I need to explain again in the future, I can just dig up this text again and won't have to spend time explaining it.

This is another advantage to having an extensive train system, by the way: you can completely shun taxis (save riding somewhere past the nightly shutdown point). In fact, I don't think I've been in a taxi for a few years now. The last time was when one of my train lines caused me to miss the last connection due to some problem with the trains, so they gave out taxi vouchers to the people who had missed their connections. They first determined which stations people were going to, and then grouped them together, giving them a voucher to that specific station. You can bet the taxi drivers didn't even consider trying to rip off the railroads, who know very well what it should cost and are more than willing to fight about it (from a position of power no less).

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Visiting the Tokyo Motor Show in 1991"

Watching a video I took of my trip out to the Chiba convention center Makuhari Messe in October 1991, the number of changes between then and now is striking in some ways. If you rent a historical CD of documentary footage taken decades ago, you expect things to be different and it just seems natural that a different era had people wearing funny clothes ("Ha-ha! Look at those people in those ridiculous clothes! And they don't even realize how silly they look! Ha-ha!"), but when you take a video of modern life, today, right now, you have the current situation in hand to show people living in different parts of the world how things are where you are, currently.

So.... when you put that video in a box in your closet, let 17 years pass, and then have another look, you know it's not going to look modern any more, but the degree and depth of changes in the video can be a bit shocking. Having been through all the time between then and now, one day at a time, it's disconcerting to see how nearly everything has changed. ("Wait a minute... when did that change so much anyway? I've been here the whole time... how could this happen without noticing it?").

And with that preamble out of the way, let's have a look at some of the things that have changed in Tokyo since this video was taken (comments preceded by the time where a comment topic appears):

00:01 - A few things right from the start in the first second of the video: Women wearing long hair and long skirts. Not exactly non-existent now, but there was a fashion trend back then with very long skirts and very long hair. That's definitely changed.

Painted trains. There are still some trains on the Seibu line like in the video with that same paint scheme, but new trains are nearly always some combination of unpainted steel and aluminum, with a colored stripe along the side.

00:05 - Old type train station. This specific station - Hibarigaoka Station (on the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line) has been completely rebuilt (although those narrow stairs leading to the station are still basically the same). The old stations were practical. They often used old rails as a construction material (which makes sense - rails are I-beams after all) and were typically open on the sides, so they were cold in the winter, but nice in other seasons since you could look out on the world from them easily. New stations typically force you to look through glass, and while they are larger and have higher ceilings, they sometimes feel more confining somehow.

00:07 - Manually punched tickets. The ticket gates of Tokyo train stations were just beginning to go automatic in 1991. Some other cities in Japan (Nagoya for one I think) had already gone automatic, but the vastness and complexity of Tokyo's train system made it much more difficult to automate.

00:10 - A view through an open window at the old roofs over the two platforms at Hibarigaoka Station. There is now Plexiglas there that keeps out cold wind in the winter, but I liked being able to look through clear free air before. The Plexiglas isn't kept clean and there's that early 21st century claustrophobic sealed-in-a-box feeling that ruins atmosphere and photos.

00:25 - It's hard to see, but if you look closely, you can see what look like square steel boxes on the roof of the train that is passed over. These are air intakes for openable vents on the inside. Trains used to always have these - a way of getting ventilation inside when the windows are closed (for rainy weather, etc.). On new trains, they've stopped making these and made most of the windows unopenable. There are some improvements to the new trains, but doing away with the roof vents was a very bad idea I think. In the past, there have been many times when I was stuck as a sardine in the middle of the train, unable to reach the windows (which were nearly all openable before), but the stuffy uncomfortable atmosphere was easily remedied by reaching up and opening one of the roof vents. But alas, now they are gone from new trains, and in a similar situation, I just stand there suffering, with no way of alleviating the bad situation. Admittedly, they do seem to make a point of running the circulation system more, but mostly that is just recirculating the same air - better than nothing, but the vents for outside air were a vastly superior idea.

00:41 - That "Bee!!-Bee!!-Bee!!-Bee!!-Bee!!" ("Hurry!-Hurry!-Hurry!) sound used to be used at all the JR (formerly JNR) stations, but they've since changed over to using melodies instead, using a different melody for each station. This change corresponded with signs saying "Don't run for the train!", flex-time, and a less industrial approach to life in general.

00:47 - Painted trains - you see less and less of them as they are replaced with stainless steel and aluminum ones.

00:52 - A real live human being making the announcement that the train is arriving at Tokyo Station, not a recording. Also, the announcement is in Japanese only, without a secondary English announcement. If the announcement is always the same anyway, then why not use a recording? Because after you've heard the very same recording for about 20,000 times (if you travel ten stops on a line, you'll hear it twenty times a day for a round-trip - they only change the station name part of the recording, otherwise there is only one recording), you start to go insane! People need variety! Also, while the Japanese announcement isn't too bad, the English one is really irritating! It's too loud, too slow, robotic like, and just... horrible! And what's the point? Shinjuku is Shinjuku, Yotsuya is Yotsuya, Ochanomizu is Ochanomizu.... so in Japanese: "Tsugi no eki wa, Shinjuku desu" and in English: "The next station is Shinjuku" - either way, the important part of that: "Shinjuku" is the same, so torturing commuters with a myopically spoken "The next station is..." is really uncalled for. Not only could tourists catch the station name within the Japanese, but there are displays over the doors in both English and Japanese. JR - please - drop those horrible English announcements on the commuter lines, they are unneeded, unwanted, unpleasant, and unnecessary.

01:07 - This passageway over to the Keiyo Line was new at the time. In fact, the Makuhari Messe conversion center was new at the time as well. The Tokyo Motor Show used to be held at the Harumi convention grounds.

01:58 - Tokyo Disneyland. At the time this was taken, there were a lot of amusement parks in Japan, but since then, I've seen news reports about one after another of them going bankrupt. Through it all - good times and bad - Tokyo Disneyland is crowded with expensive ticket holders, day after day, year after year, rain, shine, and in hot and cold weather. I've talked to people who go there several times a year, year after year! And people actually fly in from foreign countries (in Asia primarily) to go there! It's amazingly successful....

02:16 - Chiba would qualify as a bed town, in that most of the people living in these houses and apartments travel into Tokyo to work. It's the same with Saitama and (to a lessor extent due to Yokohama) Kanagawa. The only thing that's changed here, is that they have since built a lot of luxury high-rise apartment towers in central Tokyo, and people who can afford to live in them, are happy to escape the purgatory of the morning crush-rush sardine-run trains.

02:18 - The big green netted box is most likely a golf driving range. Those are scattered about the city - providing golfers without the time or money to visit a real golf course, someplace to practice their swings by hitting real golf balls (as opposed to the people I've seen practicing in their yards or in parks with sponge or light plastic balls).

03:25 - Crowds of people heading for the Tokyo Motor Show. The shows are always crowded, but the last couple I've been to seem to have been a little less crowded than they used to be - like this time in 1991.

04:20 - I'm not even exactly sure what it is that makes these two women look so retro - but they seem quite different from women their age in the year 2008. It's probably some combination of hair color (so many women dye their hair now, that black hair is actually unusual), eyebrows (it's common to more radically thin them now), eye size (it seems that a lot of women are having their eyes surgically enlarged now - a terrible mistake I think, as the women here look much better with their original eyes), clothes, attitude, radio waves, etc.

05:07 - It's a strange thing about mini-skirts. You didn't actually see so many of them in 1991, but when you did, they were often really short. Mini-skirts tend to be a little longer now, but they're everywhere! The biggest change is that high school girls used to be required to have skirts that went below their knees and to not wear make up, but then a few private schools started allowing mini-skirt uniforms and now a majority of high school girls are marching around Tokyo in mini-skirt uniforms and many of them also have thick layers of paint on their faces (in their prime physically, why they think they need to hide their face is a mystery).

05:10 - Definitely a retro look from a 2008 perspective. Three things stand out as reasons - 1) existence of eyebrows, 2) black hair, and 3) that hat!

05:41 - Live narration about the cars. They used to have the models (the human models I mean) memorize long and complicated presentation speeches about the cars, but the last time I went, more often they just played recordings and had the models walk around in front of the cars, acting like... models! I did see one presentation just like in the old days though, with the model flawlessly (seemingly anyway, I didn't see the script!) giving a long presentation about the car's technical details.

05:58 - Four-wheel steering was a big deal at that time. It seems to be have been completely abandoned. Have you heard of any current production cars having four-wheel steering?

07:21 - Large crowds around the Ferrari cars....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"Hibarigaoka, Ikebukuro, Tokyo, & Shinjuku - October 1991"

Another look back at 1991 - mainly just detail changes in fashion and trains (train carriages since retired), but the scene at the Tokyo Central Post Office shows how it was before e-mail - when people still used stamps for letters, and since they needed to use stamps, they had much more interest in obtaining good-looking ones to use. (If you only send a rare occasional letter, the detail of the stamp design doesn't seem so important).

When the post office released it's special regional stamps, they were sold only in the region being featured at the time, and at the Central Tokyo Post Office, so large numbers of people in Tokyo would go there and buy tremendous amounts of them, particularly businesses and collectors. Businesses simply because it looked better to send letters with interesting stamps, and collectors for obvious reasons. In-between the volume buyers were individuals such as myself buying just a sheet or two.

Here's the link:

Note that there is a bit of traveling about to other places in there, with the post office scenes in the middle.

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"A Stroll Around Electric Shibuya"

There are many aspects to Shibuya, from upscale department stores to kawaii shops, to restaurants, movie theaters, hotels, Yoyogi Park... and in fact all the way over to Southern Terrace by the south exit of Shinjuku Station (even most locals don't realize that as soon as they cross the street after coming out of the south exit of Shinjuku Station, they are in Shibuya).

So, if I'd given the idea of video-recording it a lot of thought, I either would have set aside a lot of time to try to cover all angles, or I would have agonized over which aspects of the area were most wanting to be covered. As it was, I just let my feet run on auto-pilot for an hour or so, from the Hachiko side of Shibuya Station, and they naturally followed the path of the former river (maybe still down there under the street somewhere in a pipe), and then took a turn here and there as seemed appropriate.

Why is "kawaii" in Shibuya? The other side of the Yamanote Line (Ueno-Tokyo-Shinbashi-Shinagawa) is more professional/business oriented, with the Ikebukuro-Takadanobaba-Shinjuku-Shibuya stretch heavier with students, and Shibuya with (seemingly - I haven't actually studied the exact demographics of this) having the most high school students. Sooo.... Shibuya is probably the world capital of kawaii. That said and out of the way - if you look at the passersby in this video by master videographer LHS:

- there are also businesspeople, etc. in the scene, but the majority of the crowd are probably in their twenties.

There should be much more to say, but after living with Shibuya for over 24 years, it just feels like part of the local scene (which it is), so I'm having a hard time getting into the frame of mind of seeing it as something novel - even though it has never ceased to intrigue....

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon

"More Music on the Streets Worldwide? - Sounds Good to Me!"

Just when I was beginning to think that Japan was becoming exceptionally musical and wondering if it was peculiar to Japan, I have begun receiving e-mails from e-pals in other countries (incidentally, one pronunciation of good in Japanese is "ee", so e-pals sounds like "good pals" in Japanese), saying that they're seeing the same thing in other cities (Ikebukuro, etc.) and in other countries, so I guess it's a world-wide phenomenon. These comments are from a friend who visited Italy a couple of years ago:

Just read your story on streets musicians of Shinjuku.

That's really too bad for them. Guys on the bottom always get the lumps. However, don't blame the cops. I'm sure they had official complaints from nightclubs and businesses. Nightclubs want people to come inside and spend money, and some businesses see such things as a neighborhood problem, attracting rowdiness. Imagine trying to sleep. But, I'll bet those musicians will find another place to perform.

During my tour of Italy a couple of years ago, we witnessed unlicensed street vendors in every major city creating problems for licensed stores, and police who were constantly chasing the low-overhead vendors from one street to another.

However, in vast St Mark Square of Venus, small street orchestras (in tuxedos) were set up in front of restaurants with outdoor tables. I saw three such orchestras playing beautiful music, a delight to all but the dullest of hoodlums. The idea was to lure people to sit at tables and spend money, but mostly people would stand just close enough to be entertained, listen to one orchestra for a while and then drift over to another, listening and standing was free, while sitting at a table would cost you. Historic and romantic St. Mark Square, night time sea air, and lovely music created a wonderful memory. The street musicians in Shinjuku just haven't found the right location yet.

Regarding "Imagine trying to sleep." - This may be why Shinjuku is such a popular place for street musicians - there are no residences around the south exit side of Shinjuku Station (where most of them play) that I'm aware of, so there shouldn't be any sleep-related complaints. The idea that area nightclubs might not like the idea of free music getting in the way of their selling it hadn't occurred to me, but that seems plausible enough. After writing that the police were chasing the musicians off the street, I went back another day, and there were several bands out playing again - including several with advertisements for local clubs! They played a few songs behind boards saying that they would be playing live at such-and-such a club on such-and-such a date, and a few were selling tickets to these places in addition to the usual CD's.

"Coming into Gotanda Station on the Yamanote Line, etc. (October 2008)"

Another train video - looking out the window of the Yamanote Line. My video camera doesn't handle wind very well, so the sound is shockingly bad, but the images might be sort of interesting. The video is on YouTube here:

Sore dewa,

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/
http://uk.youtube.com/lylehsaxon