Part Two: Going Home

The honourable Takayama sat with her mother behind her, nodding often but gently. Cha Han was on the table, tea was in the mug and the sun was brilliant in a cloudless blue sky.

"People don't want to hear your rantings about consumer society." Takayama admonished, "They want to hear about Japan and all things Japanese not talk of slaughter yards and credit cards."

Mother nodded in agreement however, with what exactly I remain unsure, you see she doesn't speak English. But then she is a mother and always proud to see that her daughter has the foreigner firmly under her tongue.

"And my mum says that you are to drink your Chinese tea in one hours time so hurry up and eat your Cha Han." Mother nodded.

"But I am just contextualising the journey into the Japanese culture, I have to show the juxtaposition, reveal the differences..." I was interrupted,

"You have to write about what people want to hear about not go off spouting this that and the other and don't go trying your 'duty of the historian is to understand context' speech." Mother nodded vigourously and pushed the plate of Cha Han towards me indicating that I should eat. I knew I was beaten, this wasn't about being Japanese this was about a man knowing not to go up against his wife and a fully grown mother-in-law at anytime. Still, they would be going out shortly, scavanging for bargains in the market, negotiating the thumbs off of a street trader and then sharing the spoils of victory (in a non consumer way) in a coffee shop with cakes....

As they left the house I set about writing. Hmmm, I so wanted to talk about Terminal 3 and the re-branding of the bar but maybe that is not what people want to hear about. Personally, I was both fascinated and appalled by the insincerity of this re-branding excercise. What was a perfectly feasible "Irish Pub" (well maybe not so feasible) with beer and food had been turned into a trendy "Bar". All of the furniture was the same, all of the internal structure was identical but on every shelf and wall, in every nook and cranny, there were now odd bits of metal, presumably sculpture, strange incongruous items such as wicker baskets and odd shaped vases and a whole host of other "changes" which completely escape my memory right now.

Lost Pleasures of Irish Pub

The menu hadn't changed except that it had. I mean that the colour and layout of the menu had changed but the food hadn't. On the drinks side this new version of "Bar" had catered to customer needs by deciding not to serve any real English ale, always previously a feature, strangely, of the Irish pub. Corporate commercial lager and chips with a breezy new decor referring the weary traveler to no precise identity whatsoever, perfect, and I bet that this whole re-branding exercise only cost £40 or £50,000 in total. Still, no-one will want to hear me going on about this sort of thing so I will skip straight to Japan.

Lovely, Clean, Narita Airport Restaurant

Japan, lovely place, Narita airport, clean, tidy, re-assuredly consistent. Japanese people, strange and quirky but completely charming, lovely warm and friendly people..........

Sorry about that, Takayama just popped back to check that I wasn't writing about consumer slaughter yards or wandering off moaning about Terminal 3.

"Just make sure you write about Japan, that's what people want to hear about. My mother says that you have to take your Chinese medicine" and then she was gone, back out with her honourable mum in search of indisputable bargains.

Shopping is one of the main social activities of Japanese culture as far as I can see. Strange that isn't it, I moan like mad about corporate slaughter yards but then wax lyrical about Japan and if there is a more consumerist culture on the planet then that would be something to see and write about for sure!!! Here I am sitting in Tokyo, wide eyed and mouth catching flies as I take in all around me, and all about there is the most ravenous buying spree burning like a forest fire.

The Japanese economy is huge, I think it has the second largest Gross National Product in the world:- for the economically illiterate that basically means that they make a lot of things, buy a lot of things and sell a lot of things. This is no mean feat but it is also no surprise because you only have to stroll around the streets to see that everywhere, everyone is economically very active. You are either buying or selling one way or another.

Actually, there are other issues, there is unemployment, there are social problems and there is an economic crisis...of sorts....of Japanese sorts. I will try and highlight some of these issues during the course of this trip and provide some sort of insight into the pain as well as the pleasure of being Japanese today.

I will leave you all with the result of this summer's Japanese General Election:

After 45 years of Conservative government a radical new party was formed by the grandson of one of the founders of the Conservative party. With promises to abolish motorway service tolls and to provide every Japanese family with children a monthly cash benefit which amounted to £450 if you had two kids, the new party swept to power with a landslide victory.

Once in power, sadly it seemed that the economy couldn't stand the loss of motorway toll revenues and the monthly benefit to families also had to be scrapped as fiscally imprudent. However, it transpires that the mother of the new prime minister is giving both him and his brother 6 billion yen a year each, each year, to shift the family fortune away from the older members and thus avoid inheritance tax.

Well done Sir!

Japanese Election Result: Landslide Victory, No Change Whatsoever.

Don't laugh, it's our turn to play General Election in 2010.