Das Fluff's 2012 Tour of Tokyo

I enjoyed watching this chronicle of Das Fluff's recent Tokyo tour. Hope you do too. A special soundtrack to a special place...

A friend's first visit to Japan

A friend, Dawn Lintern, who is the lead singer in a band called Das Fluff (dasfluff.com) is currently on tour in Tokyo and posted these wonderful first impressions of Japan on her Facebook page. I asked if I could share it here. If you've never been to Japan - this conjures up just the right image I think...

"Fish that's still jumping when it gets delivered to the restaurant, Geisha girls with slimy business men, cigarette smoke, cherry blossom, litter-free streets, teenage girls dressed like 5 year olds, courtesy, friendliness, modesty, non-agressive driving, orderly queues, Asahi, being treated like a pop goddess (for one night, at least), dogs in sunglasses, an insanely efficient transport service, soundchecks that run to schedule and the worst cover version of Karma Police ever. I don't want to go back to London."

I know how she feels! 

 

Wot!? No e-book readers!?

The Japanese are well-known for their insatiable appetite for reading; whether it be newspapers, manga (comic books), an infinate variety of specialist magazines or novels. Everywhere you go, morning, day, or night, you’ll see the Japanese reading in public. The Japanese are also well-known for their love of technology. So, you’d think a gadget that combines these two national passions, such as e-book readers, would be as popular as breathing. But, remarkably, you’d be wrong.

As a frequent user of trains into London (and around it via the underground once inside), not a single day goes by without seeing someone using an e-reader. Indeed, randomly get on any tube train around rush hour and you’ll regularly see more e-books than traditional books being read. Not so in Japan. Not even in the capital Tokyo. During our last stay in Japan, which included time spent in Tokyo, Osaka and many, many train journeys (including on the shinkansen bullet trains), as well as internal flights, not once did I see someone using an e-reader. Not once! More than two weeks spent in the country globally recognised as one of the most technologically advanced, and not a single e-reader to be found.

Japanese electronics/technology giant Sony was one of the first to utilise ‘e-ink’ technology (the clever tech that means reading from an e-reader screen is as close to reading print on paper) and creator of one of the first readers to come to the global mass market with its Sony Librie way back in 2004. (Though, sales of Amazon’s Kindle e–reader have since eclipsed those of Sony – the Kindle accounting for 45%-50% of all e-reader sales in 2010 according to Gartner). So why didn’t I see a single e-reader in Japan?

For all their love of high-tech, the Japanese remain a traditional race at heart. They also manage to sustain social, cultural and economic trends at a national level that most other countries (certainly in the West) would never be able to pull off. So, if, because of some deeply-ingrained reason, they prefer Yahoo!’s services over Google’s, or clamshell mobiles over smartphones, or print over digital text, then they’ll see nothing unusual or surprising in that. They may, in their own time (and on their own terms) gradually decide, often over a period of many years, that they will switch from clamshells to smartphones (as is beginning to happen now). But it will be how and when they choose. Their equal love of print, in the forms listed above, seems as strong as ever it was. 

I’ll be keeping a keen eye open on our next visit to see if I can spot my first e-reader in Japan. When I do, I might just step over the usual Japanese social reserve and tell the owner that they are the very first native e-reader user I have ever seen! If, in the meantime, you have a theory as to why I didn't see a single e-reader then please do share your thoughts...