The Running Bin Men of Tokyo

Arrived in Tokyo just under a week ago after a fair old journey. Everything had gone fine until we actually boarded the plane at Heathrow. As soon as everyone had strapped in an announcement came over the tannoy informing us that the auxilliary power was not working and as a consequence the air conditioning was not switched on.

"As soon as we start the engines we will be able to return the cabin to a more comfortable temperature very quickly" we were assured.

Everyone looked around at each other and smiled, nodded a bit then sat back taking in deep breaths from the already hot and stifling air. Within nano seconds a second announcement came over the tannoy.

"This is your captain speaking, I have just been informed by the control tower that there is a problem with the runway and we will be held here until that is cleared up. At the moment there is no indication how long this will be but once we are given the go ahead we should be near the top of the queue to leave."

A collective sigh as loud a blue whale spouting shushed along the length of the plane. Somehow everyone realised that this was very bad news and we were in for a melt down.

What always amazes me in these situations is the lack of foresight. Obviously all of the staff disappeared into the first class cabin where they stood fanning the air with the a la carte menus but it was half an hour before anyone thought about opening the doors to allow some air in for the rest of us.

Eventually we were taken out of the oven and allowed permission to take off. True to the prediction, the moment the engines started the cabin temperature eased down and the arm rests on the seats stopped melting.


The flight itself was notable for turbulence and there was only one moment of staff surliness to note. When asked if I would like a drink I requested a lemonade. The hostess looked at me, curled a prehensile lip and said in a withering bass tone worthy of Dame Margaret Rutherford "Just a lemonade?". Obviously not being a raging alcoholic was an issue for her. "Go on then, make it a double and put some ice in it!" I responded with all the authority of an economy class passenger.

I did my usual trick and watched movies for the full 12 hours of the flight. Iron Man 2 lasted for 8 minutes before Robert Downey Junior stood on a stage backed by a line of inanely grinning chorus girls and a backdrop of a huge American flag fluttering across an enormous screen. When you have that moronic, jingoistic, mono-cellular nationalism shoved in your face it almost feels like some disgusting old man has just opened up his raincoat. I immediately switched that movie off.

Avatar gave me some relief, Walt Disney meets Terminator is a jolly sort of jape but there is always something slightly suspicious about American films celebrating the triumph of indigenous culture in the face of corporate genocide! Thankfully the Japanese film Rinco's Restaurant was available and that provided the entertainment highlight of the bumpy ride across Siberia.


An American review says, "After a bad breakup, a young woman returns to her hometown and opens a menuless restaurant.". Well that provides you with a truly insightful sentence covering a really clever film about, as is a standard for Japanese cinema, the tensions and disfunctionality between generations. The further comment that the film is; "Quirky, Quiet, Kind of Interesting, A Little Slow" obviously took our critic into the area of aliteration... but only just!

Quirky: because there were no guns.
Quiet: because there were no guns.
Kind of Interesting: truly I have no idea what this means but suspect it is because there are no guns.
A Little Slow: required cognitive thought processes.

You may be detecting a slight anti-American stance in my writing and o.k., I will come clean, America is not my favourite country, some of American culture makes me feel like the planet Earth is quite rightly doomed and I find too many Americans.... (was going to add something else but on second thoughts that's about right).

Rinco's Restaurant is a beautiful film, very humourous, gentle and ultimately uplifting. The story, and I refuse to ruin it for you, provides the basics of Japanese culture; food and family. I absolutely loved it and have no idea how many dollars it made at the box office though I am almost certain that our American reviewer will be able to tell you.

"My name is not news!"

I cannot be the only person who is infuriated by the belief that dollar sales figures are the prime indicator of value in the culture of film. Fine if our American cousins (remember chimpanzees are also our cousins but prone to less violence) want to start every revue with the bottom line but why on earth do we feel the need to copy them? Over recent years our media has been so completely bastardized that whenever a serial sex pest appears on the front page of a newspaper the first thing we are told is the value of the house they live in. Arghhh.....

You may be wondering if you have stumbled across the right blog at this point. Wasn't this meant to be something about Japan and Japanese culture rather than the story of a hot seat in Heathrow and a diatribe against the U.S.A.? Well yes and no... you see the flight out to Tokyo is the start of what I call "The Purging". Having spent the last seven months in the evolving armageddon that is London culture whilst working on human rights issues (in other words looking daily at the most awful crimes against humanity perpetrated by truly dreadful examples of humanity) I tend to become, how shall I put this, a little negative. My time in Japan is always the bath tub of sanity for me but it takes a few days to relax into a society with so many fewer stabbings, manners and a sense that the future can be better than the past.


Consequently with each new trip the first entry on this blog tends also to give the reader the opportunity to carve their way through the mayhem and also arrive in Japan. Already in just the past few days I have seen enough to write a book about but the real reinforcement that I was in a completely different culture left a broad grin on my face. In the picture above you see the shopping arcade just opposite Mushashi Koyama station which is a two minute walk from where I live when in Tokyo.

This arcade is a long air conditioned tube, auxillary power supply always working, which tunnels for six or seven hundred meters away from the station. Every hundred metres the arcade is cross sectioned by side roads whose main physical feature is their narrowness. A car width with room for a pedestrian either side is about the space provided in these little veins of commerce.

I was strolling around the other morning and doing some serious people watching down in the arcade. It was very hot out, about 37 degrees with the sort of humidity that even slows down the pace of snails. Inside the arcade space the air conditioning keeps the jostling crowd relatively relaxed but as soon as you step into one of those side streets the air becomes so thick it is like trying to breath in treacle. The effort of breathing also immediately drenches you in sweat so all in all not an environment to consider running a marathon in.

As I sucked in another spoonful of breath a Tokyo Dust Cart came towards me. A note here, all the recycling vehicles are of a scale which allows them to pass through the famously narrow streets of Tokyo. They are quite dinky really! As the truckette passed me at a steady pace I was confronted by two men running down the street behind the vehicle loading the rubbish bins into its crushing mouth. The operative word here is "running".

Not only were these bin men running in urgency to gather the bins and fill the truck but they were doing so in corporation hard hats, uniform overalls, boots and the mandatory cotton gloves of all Japanese working people. I mean it, these guys were running and the rubbish truckette was rattling along at a fair pace.

The reason for this urgency was obvious, behind the dust cart was following a small line of traffic; two motor scooters, a delivery truckette and a car. In such narrow streets removing rubbish would inevitably cause delay and clearly the Japanese response is to do the job as quickly as possible so as to minimise the inconvenience.
After all, rubbish collection is a public service and therefore carries a responsibility to the public.

I stood watching and would have shaken my head in utter disbelief if it wasn't so bloody hot. You see I live most of my life in London and there the dust carts are bigger. If you drive along a back street and come across a dust cart you just pull up the handbrake and switch the engine off to save petrol money. Our dustmen are a lot more laid back, a lot more relaxed about their task. They will be careful not to breach any health and safety regulations by invoking unwarranted urgency.

But this is Japan and things are very different here. Now I have got the transfer process out of my system I will be sending some more detailed insights into those differences. Today promises to be a rich opportunity to relate. In a few hours I am off on the two and a half hour drive to visit my father-in-law's grave. This is for the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of his death, a very, very important moment in the death process which requires a priest and ceremony (with a not insubstantial fee involved) in order that father's transition into the fullness of re -birth is complete.

I have a sneaking feeling this will be the topic of my next entry; the business of death Japanese style.