We ignorant Westerners, not you, just the team behind this blog still have the pictures of the insanely overcrowded Tokyo subway trains and the glitzy overwhelming shopping district in our mind when we think of Japan.
Yet, a friend told us that the subway trains with their white-gloved pushers become glaringly empty just minutes after work starts. But you have to be at the office at a specific time, the friend said.
So, we sat back, thought for a moment and cracked an inappropriate joke: looks like the peoples who put the verb at the end of a sentence are not very flexible in life.
To even begin to understand the quip, you need to know that the Germans put their verbs way towards the end. Or used to. Things change.
Well, can we admit that we lied at the beginning of the post? Recent world events have caused us to revisit our zero tolerance to lying -- the prez does it, the clap does it, the merkel, too, why not we?
Japan has not been in good economic shape for at least a decade. People seem to stop counting or caring when the decade mark has been breached. But the latest Zeit online article (in German) about Japan made us a little sad.
Like in so many other developed countries, more and more people struggle more than a couple of decades ago.
Where did all the wealth go?
Why does half the country have to work themselves to death while the other half cannot make a somewhat decent living?
Right, that's how it has always been, we forgot.
No comments:
Post a Comment