Japan Is Doomed

According to The Inquirer, Japanese lawmakers are again in talks about building an underwater train line that would connect Japan and South Korea, similar to the channel tunnel that connects me to Paris. It seems like a plausible idea that has lots of benefits. Prime Minister Fukuda has been promoting improving relations with other Asian countries for ages so this can’t be a bad idea, really. Or so I thought, until I spotted this gem;

“Concrete steps will be discussed in the future,” said a secretary to Japan’s former defense chief Seishiro Eto, a member of the committee, adding that the lawmakers have yet to inform South Korea about the plan.

Brilliant idea there. I absolutely love the fact these guys are insisting “Hey yeah, we are really super serious about this train. Look, I have my serious face on. What’s that? Oh, what will happen when people get to Korea? We hadn’t really thought that far.”

Painful oversight ignored however, this is probably the sort of progress Japan could benefit from. I wouldn’t put “Build a really expensive underwater train” above “Stop going to shrines that celebrate war criminals” in the list of things to do, but since that seems unlikely I guess we have to accept what we can get right now.

Yet more exciting news is that the government are to launch a new group dedicated to becoming friends with South Korea. Whilst this may sound good, remember that this group will do absolutely nothing at all, as is the style in Japanese parliament when it comes to international relations. Oh well, we can dream, can’t we.

I have made a few suggestions of what this group might want to consider in order to improve relations with Korea;

Do: Tell them about the railway idea. They might be quite happy! They might even help!
Don’t: Build the bridge right up to their border, then create a diversion and quickly build the rest while they aren’t looking.

Do: Get rid of this fingerprinting nonsense.
Don’t: Keep the fingerprinting, or add mandatory retina scans, finger and toe counts or any other sort of bizarre measures.

Do: Offer Korean as a language in schools.
Don’t: Gloss over everything in textbooks.

Do: Acknowledge the importance of good relations with nearby countries.
Don’t: Do nothing for the next 20 years.

Any bets for when we’ll see some change? I’m guessing I’ll be celebrating my 60th birthday.

I’m sure you’ll be devastated to hear that new rules coming into Japan in the summer will stop you from making calls or blocking the rain whilst cycling. According to Asahi (the news company, not the beer);

Proposed revisions this spring will ban cyclists from holding an umbrella, listening to music, gabbing on the phone and riding in other reckless ways, sources said.

I can see the logic here. I wouldn’t call listening to music “reckless” if you have the volume down low. I move an extra rule be added “If the rider is listening to C-ute, he or she deserves what’s coming. Bonus points to be awarded to drivers for swerving to hit said rider.”

The article goes on to state;

“Triple-riding,” an unsafe practice in which a rider carries two children on a bicycle in attached front and rear seats, will also be prohibited.

Triple-riding will be punishable by a fine of up to 20,000 yen. Warnings will be issued for other violations.

Quite a hefty fine for providing two people with a helpful lift. Notice that whilst the article doesn’t mention “double-riding”, it also doesn’t talk about other multiples of people on one bike. My theory here is to bring enough people on the bike to avoid the rule. If all I get is a warning for balancing fourteen people on one bike then so be it. Notice it also states nothing about animals. Finally some slack for the many giraffe owners of Tokyo.

Not a particularly exciting news article so far, huh? Don’t worry. It’s all about to change;

Other more minor infringements, such as constantly ringing a bicycle bell while riding on a crowded sidewalk, will also be discouraged.

Yes! YES! Yes! Finally! There is nothing worse than walking along a sidewalk and having some idiot come up behind you and ring their bell every ten seconds. I seem to remember strolling down the pavement with friends in Oji and, upon being annoyed by some bell happy fool, forming a one person line in front of them. At least now I can rugby tackle them and perform a citizen’s arrest.

But wait! It gets better!

Under the proposed revisions, bicycles will in general be required to be ridden in road lanes, not on pedestrian sidewalks.

I don’t know if I should consider this an early birthday present (March 29th!) or a late Christmas present, but either way this is the best news I’ve heard in a while. Bikes were the absolute scourge of the pedestrian; swinging out in front of you left, right and centre. More than once I considered jamming a stick into the spokes of some annoying kid’s stupidly expensive bike.

So there you are. One-nil to us walkers. But what of the unicyclists?

According to Jamaipanese and Yahoo News, Tokyo is “Asia’s Capital” and the 4th most important city in the world. Apparently it was beaten by Paris in 3rd, New York in 2nd and a great win for my own country, with London coming in first place. Shame it’s a horrible city, really.

Anyway - I was thinking of ways Tokyo could change to win the title of “Best city in the world”. Hell, with a little work, it could even take “Best city in the universe”. Here’s my rundown of things Tokyo needs to take the title.

1. Marshmallow Rain
Whilst it doesn’t rain in Tokyo that much, when it does it really rains. We’re talking people having to swim to work and back. I think the only way to address this is to get a huge fan which gets turned on to blow all the rain away before it hits the city, then have planes fly overhead and drop marshmallows down on the unsuspecting but hungry public.

The drawbacks, I would imagine, would be getting marshmallows constantly stuck in your hair, cars chewing them up into their wheels and grinding to a halt, and people getting morbidly obese. But think of it this way - more people will shave their heads, leading to acceptance of those with bald heads already. Furthermore, less cars means less pollution! As for the weight issue, well I guess you could call it “packing for the winter”.

2. Futurama Transport Tubes
How awesome would that be. Imagine if you need to get from Shinjuku to Harajuku in 3 minutes. What do you do? Pay a measly 400 yen and hop in the tube. Whoosh. Thirty seconds later you are in the fashion capital waiting for your stupid friend who got the train.

3. Giant Fans
Anyone who’s been in Tokyo in the summer knows it gets unbearably hot and humid, like sitting in an oven. The only logical solution to this is to have giant fans everywhere. There are two ways to do this. Either they could have hundreds of little fans stuck to walls and so on, which would be nice but might make it a bit noisy. The other option would be to have one colossal fan, although that would mean if you jumped in the air near it you might land somewhere in China.

So there you go - three surefire ways to get Tokyo to #1 in the rankings. The city scored 74/100 (where London got 100) and thus has some way to go. But with enough money and little sense, my dream of a well ventilated city covered in marshmallows with tubes everywhere may become a reality. Vote Mike in ‘08.