I hate Japan!

[imomus]

It's time to come clean. For quite some time now I've been making up a series of outrageous fibs about Japan. Regular readers of this blog—the credulous amongst you, anyway—may have built up a mental image of the oriental archipelago as a ribbon of dense, exciting, experimental cities squeezed between wooded mountains and teeming silver seas, traversed by fast trains, studded by volcanoes, full of people bathing naked together, eating the world's most delicious food, then going home to worship nature by fucking for prolonged periods in an ornamental garden.



The truth is quite different. Marxy is right. Japan is—I might as well admit it—a pretty dismal place, a nation in terminal decline. Its cities are ugly agglomerations of concrete boxes, built so close together that there isn't even a view of the sidewalk-free street. Its people are so stressed by overwork (or unemployment) that they're completely unable to muster an erection; the consequence is a disastrously declining birthrate, the lowest in the developed world, which will shortly result in Japan's emergence as the world's most geriatric country. Are you looking forward to seeing Cutie magazine style tips for the over 80s? How is oba chan wearing her colostomy bag this season?

Japan is not only the world's most wrinkly nation, but its most racist. Never queue at Narita immigration behind a black person: you'll be there all day. Japan would rather sink into the Pacific Ocean than admit a single immigrant worker — sorry, "criminal foreigner". Never mind that the robots they're hoping to use instead are nothing more than talking vacuum cleaners. That's better than a Korean. As for the "Korea Boom" we've been hearing about, one Yon-Sama does not make a summer. The only "Korea Boom" Japan is likely to experience is a missile sent straight from Kim Jong-Il's Pyongyang... with love.



Don't get me started on Japanese re-armament, knock-kneed taggle-toothed 35 year-olds who insist on pretending they're 12 year-old Lolitas, the $65 grapefruit, the endless authoritarian teddy bears and Hello Kitty mugs, sound pollution, the mind-crushing boredom of the so-called "slow life", isakaya meals where you pay $50 for a $5 bite of food, the desperate fear of speaking out politically, the mafia-run entertainment industry, the rote-learning education system, the total lack of insulation in houses, the failure to develop an international tourist industry, the dismal poverty of the old, the incapacity to learn English, the pathetic levels of foreign capital investment, the government croneyism and corruption, the fact that the middle-aged salarymen who lost their jobs all drive taxi cabs now despite not knowing where the hell anything is, the vast tarpaulin encampments of the homeless, the endemic sexism, the rotten stinky seaweed that everyone eats, the endless crappy comedy and chat shows on TV, the formulaic rubbish that passes for "J-pop", the milquetoast suburbs that all connect together into one vast ugly sprawl... Japan doesn't smell of sewage for nothing. It's the world's biggest—sorry, smallest and most cramped—shithole.

I'm really amazed you goons have fallen for my Japan schtick for so long. I mean, if Japan is so great, why the hell don't I live there? Now that Marxy's come out of the closet and admitted he secretly loves the place, and I've admitted I hate it, doesn't it make sense that he lives in Tokyo and I live in Berlin? Let's face it, all the best stuff in Japan is European. I had some nice times there in the 1990s because during the Shibuya-kei era it was fashionable for the Japanese to fete Europeans like me. In return, I marvelled at the shit-shaped Asahi Beer Hall and the Talby phone — both touted as examples of Japan's radical experimentalism, but both in fact designed by Europeans. Like everything good in Crapan. The best thing I saw on my last trip there was the Archilab exhibition at the Roppongi Hills Mori Museum (Roppongi! What a sewer! The only good thing there is Super-Deluxe, designed by Europeans Klein Dytham). Well, guess what, that show was put together by Mori director David Elliott, a Brit, and the best stuff on display there was the visionary Archigram stuff—walking cities, garden cities, inflatable cities—again, British. For all its lip-service, has Japan actually built anything by Archigram architects like David Greene and Peter Cook? Of course not. For that you have to go to Europe, to visit the Kunsthaus at Graz in Austria or look at Peter Cook's social housing experiment on the Lützowplatz here in Berlin.

The future isn't Japan, it's Europe. Have a listen to The House of the Future, an excellent BBC radio programme (58 minutes) investigating experimental approaches to life and architecture over the last 50 years. Japan isn't mentioned once.

Note: This entry is an April Fool's Day joke.

Comments

[benchilada.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah.

http://www.guitarwolf.net/

Hard to laugh right now.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

4/01/05 nevar forget

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Although on a seriousish note, I do think the Europe is in for a fascinating and productive century.

[wishdragon.livejournal.com]

Happy April Fools to you too.

-Wish

[martymartini.livejournal.com]

Man, whatever.
I must say I am disgusted by Japan at the moment, althought I sometimes believed in and agreed with your shit.
But at the moment, let`s say that its hard for me to see the bright side of life in Japan, I work 6 days a week, my japanese wife`s family hates me and japanese food makes me constipated.
One thing though, japanese girls and cherry blossoms were and remain a nice sight, agreed?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

japanese girls and cherry blossoms were and remain a nice sight, agreed?

Only in a country as excruciatingly boring as Japan would it be the highlight of the year to sit on a small stool under a tree waiting for a bit of pink stuff to fall off. As for the girls, why can't they read a newspaper instead of sitting with chihuahuas in Hair and Make salons all day? Ah yes, difficult kanji.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Something you left out of your complaint: the Japanese sense of humour does not encompass irony.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

It's just so subtle that it doesn't actually exist yet.

[anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com]

From what I've read of your posts, I would like to visit Japan. I've found, however, that some of the things that you write leave me missing Berlin. It's been almost a year since I've been there and I miss how calm it is compared to here in Canada where we recieve most of the brunt of America's obsession with celebrities and the various scandals they get in to.

[piratehead.livejournal.com]

That's funny, Canada seems so calm to the US (where I come from) because all that celebrity and scandal stuff is muted down to sort of murmur here.

aren't you playing the fool

[carefulcareful.livejournal.com]

you know you love the $65 grapefruit!

one more time

[record-play.livejournal.com]

please lyric another kahami karie tune. the world, at least i will love you for it!

'a song for the emperor'

or maybe 'harajuku diaries'

or 'last in alastian'

or some other

[(Anonymous)]

In 1993 I was thinking "These old punk records are cool but everyone listens to them. If i can get, like, some of my granddad's elevator jazz and play it over house music (you know, the stuff Europeans wouldn't bother with so they dumped it at Tower Tokyo) I'll be hipper than anyone else and probably get laid a lot too. If my grungey club-kid friends rip me off we'll just start a record label and pay someone to get our drugs."

Then I was like, "Oh nevermind, they're already doing it"

Adam

[paletree.livejournal.com]

maybe it's just the japanese don't get erections with you.

[flyonawndshield.livejournal.com]

Happy April Fools day Momus. And you know, you're brilliant at satire.

[mckibillo.livejournal.com]

hoo hah

[(Anonymous)]

cheap trick, nick!
r.

aoi sanmyaky

[(Anonymous)]

yes, and misora hibari sucks!

;-)
bowie kouros

[dzima.livejournal.com]

With all this grumpiness, it's likely that you and Marxy have been in Japan for too long... (http://www2.gol.com/users/coynerhm/toolong.html)

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Here's one more: You know you've been in Japan quite a long time when you are completely fed up with the "you know you've been in Japan for too long" list.

:-)

[vinylboy20.livejournal.com]

Hilarious!

I had to stop reading at "Crapan" so I wouldn't make a scene in the office.

やっぱりね！

[azuki-pie.livejournal.com]

"Let's face it, all the best stuff in Japan is European."

Thanks for coming clean - that is if this isn't some satirical post.

Japan is much like a proper Japanese tea ceremony, in order for you to keep your hunger and desire MORE you only should take in the smallest amounts of all the little dishes and get out of the tea house before you get comfortable.

In kudos to you, you overstayed your welcome and really got to SEE Japan without it's make-up and without the support hose.

Don't get me wrong, I will always love Japan - I have friends and family there, but it really is barely holding onto it's place in the "civilized" world and sometimes I fear it's going to get knocked completely off its teeter-totter.

Re: やっぱりね！

[(Anonymous)]

Oh fuck it with the tea. The japanese tea ceremony is a total rip off from the chinese. The guy who wrote this blog hit the jackpot: Japan is crap. Yes i agree with your fear of japan becoming a total shit hole, but the thing is, I think i hate it so much i don't even care anymore.

[(Anonymous)]

Nice April fools, Momus!
www.marblevenus.net

Spaghetti

[thetemplekeeper.livejournal.com]

Yeah, damn right.

You forgot to mention that the Japanese also grow the worst pasta imaginable. The bonzai fettucini of Osaka is particularly nauseating, to my mind. Any one think of any other local pasta horrors of Japan? There must be thousands...

[peteya.livejournal.com]

Now that's love.

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

after reading what you write, one can only logically conclude that i hate japan too! less than you do, of course.

[(Anonymous)]

I personally look forward to 80 yr olds dispensing fashion advice in Cutie.
Something for a 35+ obsolete woman such as myself to look forward to.

[(Anonymous)]

I thought the Pope's April Fool's trick was the best!!!

But, doesn't he know that April 1st is over?

it is not my crime

[(Anonymous)]

It is not my crime that I'm living in Tokyo.
I am a Japanese and could not select my nation.
What would you say?
I think you are a racist same as a Japanese bureaucrat.

Re: it is not my crime

[(Anonymous)]

This comment just proves what he said. The japanese don'thave a sense of humor or maybe she didn't understand his English. Either way.... it is still 1950 here in Tokyo in many ways. I want to leave but everywhere else is probably just as bad in different ways.

[(Anonymous)]

Your April Fool's day joke got a few points. The best one was using April Fool's Day joke thing as a disclaimer type of thing, to avoid having J-Pop-loving fools posting death-threats as comments, all the while ventilating(I'm guessing on this one) your true opinions about Japan.
BUT.
Er...you should get your facts straight, Momo-chan. the Talby phone wasn't designed by a European...Marc Newson is Australian. Just because he lives in London right now doesn't mean he's European (unless you think he was Japanese when he was living in Tokyo back in the days).
Oh, and ever wondered why we're stuck with Nokia 3330's over here, while AU is hiring Marc Newson to design its phones?
Most Europeans aren't as far forward in the future as you are. Sorry.
The BBC program is nice, but you know as well as I do, that there have been probably a million like that one, mentioning Japan as the cradle to the most advanced approaches to life(hybrid cars anyone?) and architecture.
Everywhere is crap.
There is no future.
Shit.

You got it right

[(Anonymous)]

Dayum, this dude is right on the money. Ive lived here (Japan) for 12 years, and yes, it do suck!! Its a muther fucker to work for them, try being a white boy in a factory full of japanese! hellish! grey dismil shit hole but...the country side is nice if you can deal with the racist japanese there.. Im American, so you know I get all the naive questions back home, like are there tigers in Japan! or do they have samuri? The worlds a naive mess. Fuck it, I got to deal with it here for now. Anyways, I salute the guy who started this blog, he is the first one who ever got it right about Japan. The ones who amuse the most are the jerkoffs who just got off the plane, (Americans, Brits, ect.) who start telling you all about Japan and know it all. That shit is funny.