Tag Archives: Japan

June 19, 2011 · 10:00 am

3 billion of Takatoris

In this post I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts that I discussed with my father and older brother some months ago on the welfare state that we enjoy in Europe.

Luca and I went on a holiday trip to Japan 3 years ago. There, while in Kyoto and thanks to a cultural association, we enjoyed an activity consisting of spending the afternoon and evening with a Japanese family at their place.

The Takatori family lived in the centre of Kyoto (a wonderful city). He was an engineer who worked for a big electronics company (I forgot the name), thus I imagine that he earned a decent salary. The family lived in a 40-50 sqm flat, without bedrooms for the teenage children as they slept in futons in the living room. The Takatoris had no car and travelled either by bike or public transport every where.

At some point in the conversation we talked about travelling, holidays, etc., and then I asked him how many holidays did he had? “120 days.” I was surprised, “120 days?!?” He explained it better: “There are 120 days a year in which I don’t work, including weekends”… I started making the numbers: since the year has 52 weeks, 104 days are weekends, these left only 16 days off for Mr. Takatori, including bank holidays. This was in Japan and a medium class family.

I take it that in the rest of East Asia the conditions will be lower and work ethics will be at par with Japan (think of Chinese shops opening schedules in Europe).

When I compare that with Europe: 35 hour work-week (in France), a collective bargaining agreement with 211 working days a year (or 154 non-work days as Takatori viewed it – since weekends are the same here and in Japan, that means we enjoy 34 days more of holidays, or 7 more full weeks!), subsidies for a myriad of things, retirement at 60 (in France, with protests when raised to 62)… well, there’s simply no comparison.

Sure, the system we have here is something to be proud of, but then again, will it last? It’s not like the Takatoris of Japan, China, South Korea, etc., will refrain to: work an hour or a day more, lower a dollar in a price, retire a year later, etc., so we can continue to enjoy our welfare state.

Will it last? I have no answer, it escapes my power of analysis, but if I were you, I’d start saving yesterday.

 

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July 27, 2010 · 12:00 pm

World War III

Beginning of June I bought at Schiphol airport the book “The Next 100 Years; A Forecast for the 21st Century”, by George Friedman (author of “America’s Secret War”). I receive sometimes at the job reports and articles by Stratfor, the intelligence and forecasting firm that George Friedman founded. This was one of the reasons that raised my attention, the other were the headlines that could be read in the front page “2020: China Fragments”, “2050: Global war”…

Cover of "The Next 100 Years".

Friedman’s book tells us that when thinking about geopolitics we should be aware of:

  • Experience tells us that we should expect the unexpected.
  • We should not be confused by passing chaos and cyclical crisis.
  • Humans and countries are not that free when taking decisions, but they see limited their options by several constrains. He goes looking for such constrains.

If he had written the book in 1900 he would have pinpointed the following three things as defining for the century:

  • Collapse of European Imperial System
  • Quadrupling of World’s population
  • Revolution in transportation & communications.

Now, at the beginning of the XXI century he guesses the three defining issues will be:

  • The rise of American power
  • The end of the population explosion
  • The development of technologies to deal with a declining population.

You may wonder “the rise of American power?”, yes he makes the case that North American power has just started and it’s here to last: technology, economic power, control of the World’s seas (US Navy), military power, access to both Atlantic and Pacific oceans…

As he says, the USA “had the ultimate aim of preventing any major power in Eurasia. The paradox, however, is as follows: the goal of these interventions was never to achieve something –whatever the political rhetoric might have said- but to prevent something. […] Its goal was not to stabilize but to destabilize. […] The USA has no interest in winning a war outright.”

With this in mind, he explores what may happen in the next hundred years: Russia trying to reassert  itself, China fragmenting, Poland, Turkey & Japan as rising powers, some of them starting a global war, space-based power generation, Mexico challenging the US…

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May 4, 2010 · 10:00 am

Bits of the World in Brazil

While in Brazil last Easter, I read in my guide that in the city of Sao Paulo lived the largest Japanese ethnic group outside Japan. My first thought was: that’s not surprising; by heart I made the following reasoning “if Sao Paulo is among the six or seven biggest cities in the World and we exclude Tokyo and Chinese cities… there is a chance of 15-20% of it being Sao Paulo”.

Later on I was told that in Sao Paulo also lived the biggest communities of several other nationalities… yes, the same rationale could apply (I guess it would come a point where not every nationality could have their largest community abroad in Sao Paulo… but I found no way to prove that).

This may give us an idea of the diversity of the city as well as the country, Brazil… and that is something you keep feeling when you visit it… you suddenly see something and tell yourself “I have seen that somewhere else…”. Like if there were wormholes connecting different parts of the World… Be it music, food, architecture, clothing, traditions…

Let me focus on some examples:

The first two examples are related to Japan.

  • See the Japanese traditional gates (or Torii), both in Japan (this case in the island Miyajima) and in the Japanese neighbourhood in Sao Paulo.
  • Note the striking similarities of procedures used to push people into the subway coaches both in Sao Paulo and Tokyo (in this case I was later told by my sister that in a TV programme about Spanish living abroad it was commented that the metro of Sao Paulo was inspired by the one in Tokyo).

Japanese gates, Torii, in Sao Paulo and Miyajima.

People queueing in Sao Paulo and Tokyo subways.

The next striking example is one that I already posted about: the Banespa tower in Sao Paulo compared to the Empire State Building in New York (you almost wouldn’t notice the difference if it wasn’t for the height of ESB).

Banespa Building (photo by Felipe Mostarda) and Empire State Building (photo by David Shankbone).

Other very similar example is found between two elevators: the Lacerda elevator in Salvador de Bahia and the elevator of Santa Justa in Lisbon… here the main difference is the queue and pricing… in Lisboa you may wait 30 minutes and pay over 1 euro, while in Salvador you wait less than a minute and pay 0,15 R$ (this is 6 euro cents!)…

Elevators of Santa Justa (Lisbon) and Lacerda (Salvador).

Similar experiences can be found as well inside two different markets: the Sao Paulo Municipal Market and Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid, the first one offering a wider variety of products (including good Spanish jamón in the “Emporio Arabe”?!?) and the latter a more upscale atmosphere. (If at the market in Sao Paulo, do not miss the codfish pastel and mortadella sandwich at Hocca bar!!).

Municipal markets in Sao Paulo and Madrid.

Lastly you all know the Cristo Redentor in Corcovado Mountain, Rio de Janeiro… there is a similar Christ in Lisbon, just at the opposite riverside from Praça do Comerço (though I admit that in this case it is in Lisbon where you think “oh, I’ve seen this somewhere else”).

Christs in Rio de Janeiro (being overhauled) and Lisbon.

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April 9, 2010 · 8:00 am

3 wishes to Nosso Senhor do Bonfim

Just back from a two-week trip to Brazil, I’ll start with the first one of a series of posts. This one is about the last church we visited in Brazil: Igreja de Nosso Senhor do Bonfim (Our Lord of the Good End). This is the most famous church in Salvador de Bahia, therefore if you are interested in getting to know about its architecture, etc., you may check it on the Wikipedia.

When you approach the church the first thing that catches your attention are the thousands of little ribbons (fitas) of multitude colours attached to the entrance. Beforehand you have been offered those ribbons everywhere around the city. Prayers come to Bonfim and together with their prayer they take one of the little ribbons, and attach it to themselves (or the entrance, the benches or the candles in the church…) making three knots. Supposedly they are granted one wish for each of the knots, and they shall not remove the ribbon until the wishes come true.

Igreja de Nosso Senhor do Bonfim.

We all have seen youngsters wearing this kind of ribbons with the same wish-that-comes-true bond. Nevertheless, I find it curious that it is connected to the church. But on the other hand, two other examples that I found years ago come to my mind.

The first one is from a visit to Estonia in 2003. In the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, in Tallinn, the church also provided people with a piece of paper where to write their wishes to later deposit the paper in a box (after due payment, of course). I may still have somewhere at home one of those papers… obviously having taken the paper with me nothing was wished so nothing could be proved about the effectiveness Alexander Nevsky. I accept a scientific reprimand.

The other example is from Japan. There, close to Shinto shrines we can find Ema, or small wooden plaques where wishes are written upon and which are left hanging from special places destined to them. Again, you see thousands of them sometimes. I felt more scientifically obliged in 2008, so I used my chance to ask for only one wish; nothing personal, nothing related to love or richness (something that the genius of the lamp surely would have approved): I wished for Real Madrid to win the 2008/2009 Champion’s League… did I succeed? Well, that season Barcelona won the League, the Spanish Cup, Champion’s League, Spanish Super Cup, European Super Cup, and Club’s World Cup… not very effective.

Shinto wooden plaques, Japan.

The idea of asking for that wish started out as an exercise to prove the existence of God and at the same time checking to which confession He felt closer… but that is to be explained in another post.

Going back to our business of today: Every superstitious person will argue that my wish in Japan didn’t come true solely because of making it public before it happened, but that is what all Japanese do! Once bitten, twice shy: this time I have been more cautious. I took my fita do Bonfim and attached it to the entrance iron wall and will keep silence about those wishes until they come true. Will they?

Me and fitas do Bonfim.

Well, I have a basis to think they will. Take a look at the pictures of the Room of the Miracles below. This is a room within the church where people who have seen their prayers’ effect leave a picture of themselves with a thank you note, a poem, an explanation of the miracle that occurred to them… and even wax or wooden replicas of different parts of the human body that were healed by Senhor do Bonfim… (this view is bizarre to say the least).

The Room of the Miracles.

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