Roads to nowhere
Driving with three locals through the countryside the other day, it was interesting to listen to their conversation.
At ease in each other’s company, they would talk about local matters, often triggered by something seen from the car window - the new athletic stadium that we passed, the newly-opened road, and a rather forlorn looking housing estate with the majority of plots standing empty.
The stadium could only be half glimpsed from the road. It looked rather magnificent, though we couldn’t see the track itself. The driver said the track hadn’t actually been built yet. Unfortunately, the stands had been positioned so badly that it was now impossible to make the track big enough to reach the desired proportions.
I was gobsmacked. The "magnificent" new athletic stadium would therefore be downgraded in the national classifying system, presumably only attracting meets that incorporate the 83 metre sprint, the not-very-long jump, and the hop, skip and err, that's it.
The new road is a beauty. It looks smooth and shiny. Its tarmac surface glistens like the sheen of sweat on an Olympic sprinter. It cuts a swathe through the trees to … to … well, to nowhere really. It is deserted. “Anybody know why that road was built?” asks the guy in the front passenger seat. “It’s a carbon-copy of the one just down the road. I don't understand.”
The housing estate has some colourful, but somewhat plastic-looking, homes.
The houses themselves look welcoming, but the area around them does not. The estate has been there for several years now. Large signboards shout the message that the empty plots (plus the mandatory colourful, but somewhat plastic-looking, house) can be purchased for roughly 25 million yen (125,000 pounds) – and each house has its own hot spring thrown in for good measure.
But nobody's rushing to splash the cash, not even for the soothing forty degree waters, and the empty plots remain empty.
In his well-written tale of doom, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan, Alex Kerr laments what has happened to the land in Japan. It makes for depressing reading if you are planning to stay and live in Japan (Kerr has left). I recommend it if you too have left Japan.
If you are still here and value your Japanese friends or family, then the book can be the cause of much heartache.
Japanese spouses or friends quite rightly get a bit pissed off when cross-examined: Why are all the mountains planted with industrial cedar? Why are all the riverbanks enmeshed in concrete? Why is there no town planning? Why are old buildings, historical sights, and beautiful vistas not adequately protected? Why, indeed, are there so many beautiful roads to nowhere?
At ease in each other’s company, they would talk about local matters, often triggered by something seen from the car window - the new athletic stadium that we passed, the newly-opened road, and a rather forlorn looking housing estate with the majority of plots standing empty.
The stadium could only be half glimpsed from the road. It looked rather magnificent, though we couldn’t see the track itself. The driver said the track hadn’t actually been built yet. Unfortunately, the stands had been positioned so badly that it was now impossible to make the track big enough to reach the desired proportions.
I was gobsmacked. The "magnificent" new athletic stadium would therefore be downgraded in the national classifying system, presumably only attracting meets that incorporate the 83 metre sprint, the not-very-long jump, and the hop, skip and err, that's it.
The new road is a beauty. It looks smooth and shiny. Its tarmac surface glistens like the sheen of sweat on an Olympic sprinter. It cuts a swathe through the trees to … to … well, to nowhere really. It is deserted. “Anybody know why that road was built?” asks the guy in the front passenger seat. “It’s a carbon-copy of the one just down the road. I don't understand.”
The housing estate has some colourful, but somewhat plastic-looking, homes.
The houses themselves look welcoming, but the area around them does not. The estate has been there for several years now. Large signboards shout the message that the empty plots (plus the mandatory colourful, but somewhat plastic-looking, house) can be purchased for roughly 25 million yen (125,000 pounds) – and each house has its own hot spring thrown in for good measure.
But nobody's rushing to splash the cash, not even for the soothing forty degree waters, and the empty plots remain empty.
In his well-written tale of doom, Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan, Alex Kerr laments what has happened to the land in Japan. It makes for depressing reading if you are planning to stay and live in Japan (Kerr has left). I recommend it if you too have left Japan.
If you are still here and value your Japanese friends or family, then the book can be the cause of much heartache.
Japanese spouses or friends quite rightly get a bit pissed off when cross-examined: Why are all the mountains planted with industrial cedar? Why are all the riverbanks enmeshed in concrete? Why is there no town planning? Why are old buildings, historical sights, and beautiful vistas not adequately protected? Why, indeed, are there so many beautiful roads to nowhere?
posted by jh at 23.1.06
4 Comments:
I still think that Kerr book could have been written about more or less any country in the world.
It was really well researched and well written, but he sure was getting a lot of pent up Japan frustration off his chest wasn't he? Like we all have to do once in a while.
Yeah, Keiko's eyes start rolling if she even smells this kind of conversation on the wind. I don't know, seems like obvious sorts of questions to me.
Didn't read the second Kerr book, but I thought the first one was very even-handed.
I enjoyed the first book, too, Maethelwine. Bizarre that he wrote it in Japanese originally (if memory serves me right). Wonder if it lost anything in translation?
Wouldn't rush yourself into reading the second.
Hey JH,
Nice essay. For anyone into the country side of life here in Japan check out http://kenelwood.wordpress.com/ and Countryside dialoug at http://www.gaijinpot.com/bb/showthread.php?t=26179&page=5
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