Ugly Japan

A little while ago, I read Dogs and Demons by Alex Kerr, whom you’ve probably heard of if you have any interest in Japan. If you haven't, you should. He's one of the most important Japanologists alive today.

I’m not going to review the book here (I may do it one day... or not...), but in short, Kerr discusses how the narrative of the Japanese miracle — the idea that Japan went from being a ruined and destroyed country to the second richest country in the world in just a few decades after World War II — has a very dark side that is still present today and will not go away anytime soon. Its roots date from well before the postwar era. He published the book in 2002, and most of the problems he mentions are still present today.

One day, while taking a walk in my neighborhood, I was thinking about the book when suddenly, many of the things Kerr talked about appeared right in front of me. Not that I hadn’t noticed them before, but they became more explicit and unavoidable. This experience also gave me the idea for this post, which may or may not become a series. We'll see. If it does, I’ll call it:

Ugly Japan

Have you noticed that almost everything Westerners write about Japan online tends to only focus on either its positive aspects—I’m sometimes guilty of that, too—or, on the contrary, on the country's shortcomings? Most of the time, though, it's not really about the country itself, but rather about having a hard time being a foreigner or immigrant. I don’t blame them; it's difficult. But I digress.

As with every country in the world, the truth lies somewhere between the dreamlike image and the idea that everything is terrible.

In this post (and possible future series), I’m going to focus on some of the country's negative aspects, more or less following what Dogs and Demons discusses. That is, I'll discuss the country's actual issues, which it has had for a while, not just bad experiences I may have had or something. Actually, I'll try to make it as little as possible about me.

And let's with the fact that Japanese cities are ugly.

Don't look at me with those big, surprised eyes. Forget the temples for a minute and think about regular streets and neighborhoods. They're utilitarian messes with no urban design or planning, and when there was one aesthetics were never a priority.

After more than a decade in the country, I got used to it, and I rarely pay attention to it anymore. But then I remember one of my earliest memories of Japan.

Spring 2009

I had left the airport less than an hour earlier. I was riding the bus to the city that would become my home a couple of years later—though I didn't know that yet. As we crossed Kobe, something suddenly hit me. We were on the highway, on one of those massive overpasses that stretch for kilometers. I remember the scene very clearly because of the eerie feeling I had being on an overpass that I had seen before, but 14 years earlier, it was on TV, and it looked like this. (see why the eerie feeling?)

A few kilometers later, I noticed something strange. Right next to the overpass, there were a lot of buildings. I couldn’t imagine having buildings so close to a highway in France or any other familiar country. Even worse, many of these buildings were residential. Not all of them, though. That was my second realization. Some luxury apartments stood right next to the highway, as did some factories. Pretty crappy apartment buildings also stood next to the expensive-looking ones. That confused me to no end. It didn't make sense. How could that have happened?

The only answer I could come up with was that, in the aftermath of the 1995 earthquake, the city had to be rebuilt as quickly as possible, so they didn’t bother with urban planning.

"Oh, sweet summer child!" That’s me talking to myself from 2009, fresh off the plane.

If you’ve spent more than a couple hours in Japan, you know it wasn't the reason. It wasn't just Kobe. Every city in the country is like this!
Japanese cities are built without any logic or aesthetic in mind.

Japanese cities are just ugly.

There are a bunch of reasons for that—some acceptable, some not—but that's not my point today.

My point is that Japan can be beautiful, but it's also quite ugly. I'm going to document that here every once in a while.

We're starting today with just a few pictures taken in my neighborhood.