Firstly, to all of those who love Japan, but who have never been to Japan, and don¥“t have any plans to go there, I suggest you stop reading this now, because this post may just break your heart. What I¥“m about to tell and show you will may shock you. You may misconstrue what I¥“m saying as Japan-bashing, and you might think that I hate Japan. I¥“ll say right now that that isn¥“t true. I think that the average Japanese person is very nice and polite. I¥“m able to go all around Tokyo, Yokohama, and many other areas from my apartment without having to buy and drive a car. I just catch the train - not many other places can also claim that. Also, neighborhoods tend to be bustling and lively. However, the architecture and urban design or lack thereof, is appalling.

This is not completely their fault. After all, Japan went through earthquakes and bombing raids, which wiped out a great number of buildings. Japan¥“s economy again became one of the best from the 1950s until the 1970s, continuing until the crash of the 1990s. Unfortunately, anyone (who isn¥“t a modernist) who has seen the brutalist architecture of these decades, sees that it compares quite unfavorably both to the classical architecture pre-war and to the new postmodern architecture that has come to the forefront since. Too bad that the vast majority of Japan was built back up during these decades. Sadly, except for a few…well…exceptions, Japan and indeed most (though not all) Japanese architects around the world are forever stuck making mediocre buildings. Sadly, even though places like Kyoto never suffered from the aforementioned disasters, they are well on their way to being destroyed by the modernizing Japanese, themselves.

It¥“s funny to hear when people say, Wow…Japan blends the old and the new! or The Japanese respect their history. I saw an old temple in-between modern buildings! Like Japan¥“s the only place to have old buildings. In fact, places like Paris, Florence, and most cities and towns across Europe have buildings that are not only far older than anything left in Japan, but taken far better care of, and are seen in groups, not just one single shack from 1911 nestled in-between brutalist concrete apartment buildings. However, I guess because Europeans are white and not of some exotic race, with strange faces and such, who are not supposed to be modern, but should live eternally in squalor, their preserved history is overlooked.

Moving on, I should note that wherever a photographer goes…not just Japan…one is liable to take pictures of only 10% or less of what s/he sees. I mean, who wants to take a picture of the building NEXT TO the Empire State Building? Has anyone ever focused on that? But that¥“s not all, as professional or hobbyist photographers only show others the top 10% or less of the pictures they actually take. If my math is correct, then this comes out to (10% of 10%) a maximum of only the top 1% of sights in a given area ever seen by those who haven¥“t been there. Also, many camera tricks are used (especially with mountains in the background). Let me give you some visual examples.

First is a nice photo I took of Tokyo, which is actually one of the ugliest cities I¥“ve laid my eyes on, though you¥“d never know it from this:


I waited six months for that baby, but I didn¥“t wait six months for this next one. In fact, I¥“ve never shown another person this one, because I wanted to wait for a good one like the one above. All of a sudden, you realize how hard it is to wait until some breezy day after a long winter rainstorm so that the pollution clears.


However, I¥“m not nearly done. Many people think that, well, that¥“s the view from any observatory in Tokyo. Firstly, partly judging from the number of derivative photos from the same place, it must be one of the very best observatories. And second, you need to zoom with your camera for most people to even realize that there is a mountain back there. Too bad eyes can¥“t zoom. Where¥“s that mountain again?... Oh…Found it!


The previous photos are mine, but now let me show you some that I got from one of Vtower¥“s posts. Some amazing photos by the way! But, I¥“ve highlighted something… Look at the area that I¥“ve drawn a red line around. Hey…that¥“s called…THE REST OF TOKYO!




Hmm…let¥“s take a closer look… What, exactly, is this rest of Tokyo composed of? (Below, beginning again, are all my photos.) Oh, I¥“m beginning to see…


And Yokohama¥“s not that different:


Well, that photo above was better, but as we all know, we can¥“t fly around like a bird all day, every day. There comes a time when you have to get down to street level and actually walk around. I wonder what the vast majority of Tokyo, or any city in Japan, including Kyoto, for that matter, looks like. Let¥“s see some stuff from ground level. Oh…


Hmm…that was pretty bad. But it was a single building. Not all, or even the majority of a Japanese city could look that bad…....could it? Well, I read some things yesterday about Japan being the pinnacle of modernity. In one way, I couldn¥“t agree less. In another, I couldn¥“t agree more. If you call modernity as making a liveable habitat for contemporary people, I don¥“t agree. If, however, you define modernism like the architects do - as a sad period between classical and postmodern styles - then you hit the nail on the head. After reading these falsehoods yesterday, I decided today to take a walk around Tokyo. I wanted to call people on their false assumptions, or refusal to actually realize how far this place has become a wasteland…a ghetto minus most of the crime.

Today, I did my experiement, and the results are out for you to see below. So as not to be biased, I took a walk around an area I¥“d never been to before (on a nice clear winter day, no less). I didn¥“t know what I¥“d see, but at the same time, I knew what I¥“d see, if you know what I mean. I should note that I did see a few better sights that I didn¥“t take any photos of, but I also saw quite a few worse sights, that I likewise didn¥“t capture. In all, this group of photos represents, roughly, the average of what I saw just today on my _random walk.









One of the most traditional-looking things I saw during my whole 1-hour-plus walk was this. Rusty corrugated metal is a pretty common theme here in Japan.







Gee, I¥“d hate to see number 2…







I was amazed, and I must concede some sort of defeat, with this last one. It¥“s an actual park, with some trees and a brook…even if you can see the skyline of doom just behind it…


I¥“m sorry to have to be the person to let you know, but that is the real Tokyo. To back up my claims of being relatively unbiased, I took two videos, each exactly 5-minutes long. One is on a trolley-type thing (which I¥“d never ridden before), called the Toden Arakawa Line. I started the video and let it run for the 5 minutes, and showed what was out the window. Not very biased in my opinion. You can make up your own mind. And the second video was started from the last station of the Toden Arakawa Line, with me walking in a _random direction (never seen before), and filming what I saw. To my surprise, there were multiple temples, though again, in-between the horrid rotting boxes. I¥“ll post the links once the videos have been processed.

In Asia, besides Japan, I¥“ve been to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and China (Hong Kong and Shanghai). Nowhere else, besides Bangkok, have I seen such a bleak landscape. Singapore is the best, in my opinion, with tree-lined streets and protected historic quarters that have been saved from the bulldozer (even though central Raffles Place didn¥“t make it). Shanghai, too, with its tremendous growth in the 1920s and all of the glorious architecture that entailed, followed by war and a 50-year stagnation that saved it from drab 60¥“s boxes. Hong Kong¥“s stuff is cutting-edge. Somebody wrote on one thread that if all of the new buildings were put together in Umeda, Osaka¥“s skyline would look as good as Singapore¥“s. Firstly, that¥“s like saying that if Dick Cheney put on some makeup, he¥“d look as good as Jennifer Aniston, and secondly, I¥“m tired of people only looking at the tall buildings. Singapore has a hight limit, but on ground level, its downtown outshines almost all Asian competitors. I must say that even when riding from Changi Airport into town, and passing all the HDB flats, I breathed a sigh of relief! At least there were trees…flowers… At least it seemed like SOMEONE cared… I just wonder why the Japanese are unable to have the same thing. And do they not even care?

Japan is already turning into a has-been. Roppongi and Shiodome are trying to save it. Shiodome, in fact, is as beautiful an area as any contemporary city center, but Shiodome makes up less than 1% of even the downtown area of Tokyo. In my opinion, it¥“s not just skyscrapers that can save Japan. The city is too big to be completely filled with them. It takes half an hour by train just to cross downtown. I think that the places where people live have to be reinvigorated, with actual style used for smaller buildings…something that¥“s almost entirely lacking. I see some signs of a change. I hope it comes about. We shouldn¥“t just give compliments to Japan without giving its cityscapes very critical looks. It does the Japanese no good, in fact. We shouldn¥“t let the government get off continuing to degrade the landscape. Someone should speak up.

Now, with everybody convinced that I hate Japan and Tokyo, I probably can¥“t make you believe otherwise. But before you argue with me, remember what you¥“re arguing for. Do you like what you see? Or do you want a change? If somebody had argued with Elvis when he went into a downward spiral of drug dependence, he might not have died on the throne. Sometimes, if you love someone or something, you gotta tell them what¥“s wrong and check them into rehab. That¥“s what I¥“m trying to do with this country, because they¥“re continuing, even in Kyoto, to destroy every last bit of their history and culture and replace it with…well, you¥“ve seen for yourself.