A sideways look at economics
“Summer of 2018” doesn’t roll off the tongue like the (in)famous Bryan Adams song. However, it too will stick in my memory, but for all the right reasons.
Last October, my wife and I snatched a ridiculously cheap airfare to Japan for the whole family. The closest I had got to Japan before was through long and fascinating discussions with a Japanese flatmate about the cultural differences between us. The perceived gap from both sides was so large that it instilled a lifelong curiosity about the country. Professionally the interest has only intensified given how policies that were meant to be informed by the Japanese economic experiences post 1990 seem to actually edge us ever closer to a similar outcome. It seemed appropriate to investigate the country further if we are all on the way to turning Japanese.
We set off expecting and even wishing to feel totally spaced out, almost entering a parallel dimension where we couldn’t read, communicate, find our way around or decide what to. I basically longed for my own Stendhal Syndrome washed down with a glass of Japanese whisky, Lost in Translation-style, but unfortunately Scarlett Johansson never showed up.
To my surprise and slight disappointment, I felt quite at home in Tokyo. It’s a big city and I have always felt at home in the anonymity and endless options offered by a metropolis. Yet, not feeling spaced out allowed me to focus on observing more. For example, it was certainly an experience witnessing the public reaction on a squeaky-clean Tokyo underground train, packed with peak-time morning commuters, to my son being sick. Somehow everyone managed to dodge the bullet with an efficiency of movement and unflinching composure reminiscent of a shoal of sardines, while one lady flipped cleaning wipes out of her handbag as fast as ninja stars. At the next stop, we got off, along with every other disgusted and probably deeply offended passenger in the carriage, in order to attend to our son and in fear of the cleaning staff, in equal measures.
More generally, the contrast in social norms between private and public life was the most startling cultural difference I noticed. A strong subordination of self-expression for the greater good was highlighted by a clear preference for black and white work attire, the quietness of subway and train journeys, the tattoo police on the beach, motorway speed limits of 80Km/h and a constant feeling that as tourists we were somehow exempt from such rules. At the same time, self-expression was anything but repressed with its clear escape valves evident in the garish dresses of the Harajuku girls, the fake adulation of maid cafes, the incredible skills on display at video game arcades, a nightlife cloaked in local knowledge of bars and clubs hidden from plain sight, or even the adult toys casually placed in the bargain basket in the middle of a local supermarket.
The food was one of the standout themes and, to be fair, it usually is during family holidays. The kids were amazing at trying different and often unidentifiable new foods. The adults went out of their way too. We followed a two-pronged approach. The first was the ‘Osusume’ strategy: find a local tavern without a menu and tell the chef we trusted his judgement. This was only partially successful as we realised that the chef brought us what he thought we would enjoy, rather than what he actually enjoyed as we had hoped and sometimes feared. The other approach was to basically order the most unusual dish on the menu or indiscreetly point at someone else’s plate. This resulted in us tasting grilled turtle, raw chicken, horse sashimi, a bear stew and numerous unidentified sea food dishes. Beside the unknown, the sushi, sashimi and grilled beef were as amazing as everyone had told us. The other surprise was on the drinks front. I had seen myself setting up camp at a whisky distillery and not leaving until I had drunk it dry. Yet, it was sake that ruled. The variety and subtlety of the taste was a revelation, thanks to a very friendly supermarket lady organizing an impromptu and very generous tasting session.
I eventually got my Japanese spaced out moment when we arrived in Koyasan. For the uninitiated, it’s a relatively remote, centuries-old Buddhist pilgrimage site with temples and monasteries in a setting that felt straight out of a Miyazaki movie. It’s on the classic Japan tourist checklist, yet it still felt special and mystical and like nothing I could compare it with directly. I felt spaced out in the sense of being at peace in a place that defied time rather than space. I had relaxed. Staying two nights in an actual Buddhist monastery made it even more special, with even the vegan monastery food a revelation of taste and texture.
From an economist’s perspective, the clear preference for cash transactions throughout Japan was not so much news as a bit of a nuisance and a reality that sat somewhat strangely with the highly technological backdrop. I did spend an evening pondering between glasses of sake whether for a high enough level of risk aversion, decades of zero interest rates and the monetising of all domestic fixed income assets may have had the counterintuitive effect of making the demand for money totally inelastic to rates or even a bit upward sloping. I quickly returned to the sake.
Although I had initially expected to experience something poignantly different, I will always remember this trip for having defied time, space, age and cultural boundaries through one small and long forgotten aspect of my past: Japanese animation. Many of my generation back in Italy grew up watching Japanese cartoons on regional TV channels. I’m not talking about the dreamy Pokemon and Dragon Ball cartoons aimed at mass markets. I’m talking about the heavy stuff like Tiger Mask, Kenshiro, Cyborg 009, Galaxy Express 999 and anything that had robots, humanoids or laced with a hard dose of Shinto morals like my all-time favourite Lupin. I basically always got Japanese culture without even realising it. Seeing a moving, ‘real’ life-sized Gundam outside a shopping mall was basically a homecoming. Both my son and I fully expected it to come to life. A single moment made me feel 30 years younger, offered another bonding opportunity with my son, made a permanent memory of happiness and broke down cultural barriers that had actually never existed.
