The Most Automated Place in the World

Before I came to Tokyo I worried.

I wasn’t really looking forward to the trip because of how many things I worried about.

The length of the flight, the possibility of jet-lag, not being able to speak the language or even read the signs, the crazy flashing lights everywhere that I’d seen in films, the amount of automation, the suicide rate, the earthquakes and an idea I had that the Japanese were not very nice people. 

I’m not sure where that last worry came from. How you are taught history has a huge effect on how you view people from around the world. The losers in a war always feel shame and the winners feel a moral superiority they probably don’t deserve. The history I was taught was post second world war propaganda. We were told that the Japanese were cruel fighters, who had deserved to have atomic bombs dropped on them and I grew up watching Tenko. I should have known that the Japanese are super-nice people. I’ve watched Marie-Kondo tidying up American homes on Netflix and you couldn’t get a sweeter, cuter, more softly spoken woman. Except that Tokyo is full of them. They are all quiet and polite. Any time you think you hear shouting it’s Chinese being spoken.

Tokyo does have a futuristic feel to it. Little jingles play as train doors open and escalators have quiet Japanese voices coming out of them, warning you to take extra special care. You do feel as though you might be an extra in Logan’s Run, Blade Runner or the Fith Element. There are flashing lights everywhere. It can be a little much for the senses.

The people are not only softly spoken but they are really helpful and polite. If you are struggling with a map they will stop and give you directions and if they don’t know how to get where you want to go   

 they are genuinely upset. They are not allowed to speak into their mobiles on the train and line up in  

 specially marked rows that line up at the doors when the train stops. When they meet you, or each other, they bow. If the other person bows back then the bowing can go on for a very long time.

“How do they get anything done with all that bowing?” I asked the Long Suffering Husband.

“There are a lot of them,” he replied.

I looked around and sure enough there were three people just helping people get in the train ticket line, twelve people on an automated gantry washing the windows and two small men, standing on boxes, either end of the platform making sure the train was safe to pull away.

There is a lot of automation but they haven’t used it to replace people as we have. There are automated ticket machines but if you press the help button a little hatch above it opens and a little man sticks his head out and asks how he can help you. I must clarify that this is a real man and not a robot. All robots have at least two human minders. Their police forces can still be quickly alerted to crime by the public with a mobile phone but there is a tiny police office on the corner of every district. 

 

They have cars but people still pull carts with tourists in.

They have clear automated crossings but they still have crossing attendants, who are smartly dressed and have waterproof rain gear, including a cap cover. 

The larger crossings have Jedi warriors, complete with light sabres.

If I was worried about not being able to read anything I shouldn’t have. People who say they only speak a little English have a wider vocabulary than most of the people in my home town. The signs are also repeated in English, however they don’t always help me feel calm about the suicide rate.

Overall though, there seems to have been very little I needed to worry about. The most automated place in the world is no where near as scary as I thought it would be.