3 sides of Tokyo's rising eastside
Aug. 16th, 2007 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusArtists Love Eastside Tokyo is an interesting article on Pingmag about the shitamachi district of Mukojima, by the Sumida River. The piece, lavishly illustrated on the page and on Pingmag's Flickr, celebrates small domestic factories manned by the elderly and the presence of a creative class represented by the shy Mr Furuhashi (we see him peeping between the sliding doors of his funky tatami-and-wood event space), "the best representation of the wonderful relationship between the traditional terraced houses and today’s artists".
The article ends by noting that a new Tokyo Tower (610 metres tall) is due to be built by the Sumida River, and that Eastern Tokyo is sure to redevelop as a result.
"Rising East", trumpets the Tokyo Tower website. Put that together with Pingmag's "funky shitamachi" angle and you get a fairly classic case of urban redevelopment -- the two-pronged fork of property development and creative class "urban pioneers" adding value and driving prices up in a previously neglected district, with mixed consequences. But there's a third prong to the fork -- one much less common in Tokyo, and therefore rather more interesting. That's immigration, and the transformation of an area by economic migrants. It's happening in East Tokyo too, and I thought I'd report on it today.
Cross the Sumida River on the Tozai line and the first station you'll reach is Nishi-Kasai. Built on low-lying land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay, this unglamorous district is home to just under a thousand Indian immigrants, many living in high-density government housing like Kasai Clean Town. Nishi-Kasai currently houses about a sixth of Tokyo's total Indian population (5,883, according to the metropolitan government), but it's the fastest-growing community, housing 70% of new arrivals.
Hisae and I planned to visit Nishi-Kasai in June, but didn't get around to it, so the information here comes from two articles, one in Nihon Kairali News (Indian community thriving in East Tokyo), the other in Japan Times (Tokyo's Indians "home from home").
The first Indians arrived in Japan in the 19th century, at Yokohama, where ad hoc Sikh, Jain and Hindu temples can still be found operating in apartments run by merchants' associations.
"We call Japan 'Ram Rajya', or world of heaven,'' one immigrant tells Kairali News. Just like heaven, Japan is difficult to get into (and the official welcome is "anaemic"), but "Indians praise the law-abiding nature of the Japanese and the resultant safety". It's a theme echoed by Hari Hara Krishnan, Nishi-Kasai's longest-standing Indian resident, interviewed by the Japan Times:
"Most of my friends who studied IT with me wanted to go to the United States, but I think Japan is a much better country. There are so many good things here -- like convenience, safety and a satisfying job."
Nishi-Kasai's immigrant Indian community is the missing third prong of Tokyo's "rising eastside" story. Who knows, maybe it'll play as big a part in that urban revival as Brick Lane plays in London's Shoreditch, where a creative class rubs shoulders with financial service workers and Bangladeshis.
The article ends by noting that a new Tokyo Tower (610 metres tall) is due to be built by the Sumida River, and that Eastern Tokyo is sure to redevelop as a result.
"Rising East", trumpets the Tokyo Tower website. Put that together with Pingmag's "funky shitamachi" angle and you get a fairly classic case of urban redevelopment -- the two-pronged fork of property development and creative class "urban pioneers" adding value and driving prices up in a previously neglected district, with mixed consequences. But there's a third prong to the fork -- one much less common in Tokyo, and therefore rather more interesting. That's immigration, and the transformation of an area by economic migrants. It's happening in East Tokyo too, and I thought I'd report on it today.
Cross the Sumida River on the Tozai line and the first station you'll reach is Nishi-Kasai. Built on low-lying land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay, this unglamorous district is home to just under a thousand Indian immigrants, many living in high-density government housing like Kasai Clean Town. Nishi-Kasai currently houses about a sixth of Tokyo's total Indian population (5,883, according to the metropolitan government), but it's the fastest-growing community, housing 70% of new arrivals.
Hisae and I planned to visit Nishi-Kasai in June, but didn't get around to it, so the information here comes from two articles, one in Nihon Kairali News (Indian community thriving in East Tokyo), the other in Japan Times (Tokyo's Indians "home from home").
The first Indians arrived in Japan in the 19th century, at Yokohama, where ad hoc Sikh, Jain and Hindu temples can still be found operating in apartments run by merchants' associations.
"We call Japan 'Ram Rajya', or world of heaven,'' one immigrant tells Kairali News. Just like heaven, Japan is difficult to get into (and the official welcome is "anaemic"), but "Indians praise the law-abiding nature of the Japanese and the resultant safety". It's a theme echoed by Hari Hara Krishnan, Nishi-Kasai's longest-standing Indian resident, interviewed by the Japan Times:
"Most of my friends who studied IT with me wanted to go to the United States, but I think Japan is a much better country. There are so many good things here -- like convenience, safety and a satisfying job."
Nishi-Kasai's immigrant Indian community is the missing third prong of Tokyo's "rising eastside" story. Who knows, maybe it'll play as big a part in that urban revival as Brick Lane plays in London's Shoreditch, where a creative class rubs shoulders with financial service workers and Bangladeshis.