Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - October 2005

News this month

Olympic Tokyo

Tokyo’s governor, Shintaro Ishihara, emerged from an assembly meeting on September 20th with a grand gesture to cement his popularity. He announced plans for Tokyo to bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, and promised this would “break the sense of deadlock overshadowing Japan”.

Though few Tokyoites were aware of any deadlock, the governor's comments cheered up a public that had watched enviously as London celebrated its successful bid for the 2012 Olympics in July. Memories of 1964, when Tokyo last staged the games, remain potent for many Japanese. As well as transforming a large part of central Tokyo and providing the spur to build the “bullet” train, the games gave Japan the chance to show the world that it had emerged from the painful reconstruction of the post-war years. Mr Ishihara’s bold plans, however, are believed to be driven by the country's rivaly with China, which is hosting the 2008 games.

Forex failure

Tokyo residents who placed their wealth in the hands of small foreign-exchange trading houses have been left destitute by a string of bankruptcies. In July, the government revised Japan's foreign-exchange law to require forex trading houses to have at least ¥50m ($436,000) in capital and to be officially registered. In the months since then, nine trading houses have suspended operations, six of which then declared bankruptcy. In most cases, investors—mostly elderly savers—have lost everything.

This is a dramatic turn-around from seven years ago, when a change in Japan's foreign-exchange law allowed non-banking companies to offer investors the chance of hefty returns on forex margin transactions. With bank interest rates close to zero, the prospects were attractive and tens of thousands of savers poured billions of yen into small forex trading houses, many of which were inexperienced. In the past two years, according to a report by the Yano Research Institute, the number of customer accounts tripled to 180,000, with margin deposits totalling about ¥290 billion.

Cooking up trouble

To combat anti-reformist cabinet members in his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister, enlisted a raft of celebrity candidates (dubbed “assassins”) to run against them in the September 11th elections. Voters rewarded his coalition with a two-thirds majority in parliament, seemingly endorsing his plans to privatise the country's postal-savings bank, the world's largest financial institution. But it was only a matter of time before one of Mr Koizumi’s popular “assassins” ran into trouble. Few were surprised when the first political faux pas came from Makiko Fujino, a celebrity chef famous for her fine pastries, who ran a campaign based on the “social power of cooking”.

In the first week of October, the lower house of the Diet held a critical plenary session to debate the controversial postal privatisation bill. It was expected that each newly elected reformist would be in Tokyo to demonstrate his loyalty to the cause. To the intense annoyance of her new masters in the LDP, Ms Fujino was hundreds of miles away in Fukuoka, appearing on a cookery-related television show and expounding on the joys of Italian cuisine.

Awkward figures

Japan’s national census results always help shape government policy and budget decisions. But authorities are concerned that this year’s official headcount may be the most inaccurate in nearly 50 years, particularly in urban areas and especially in Tokyo. The problem stems from a new mood of privacy and paranoia. In the past, census-takers had little trouble getting to front doors to collect forms or chivvy people into completing them. But fear of crime and a rise in security in apartment blocks mean that many census-takers cannot get past password-activated gates; even if they do, people increasingly refuse to open their doors.

Added to all this is a climate of secrecy engendered by a new law that protects personal data. Passed earlier this year, the law was designed in the wake of customer data leaks at banks and other companies, and does not in fact apply to the national census. But Tokyo's concierges do not seem to know this, and have been turning census-takers away.

Creature discomforts

Another stiflingly hot summer, together with mass media excitement about global warming, have produced a spectacular run of scare stories about animals in Tokyo. Pacific Ocean sightings of everything from a piranha to a yellow fat-tailed scorpion (neither of which is native to Japan) have been used as evidence of climate change, and proof that Japan will soon be capable of supporting tropical wildlife.

But the true story behind the appearance of such creatures is more straightforward, and may pose a more immediate threat to public safety. Most of the alien species spotted were bought in Tokyo shops during a craze for exotic pets, and then subsequently released into the wild. According to officials at the environment ministry, many of Japan’s ecosystems are under threat from species that have been irresponsibly freed into the countryside by their city-dwelling owners.

Catch if you can

October 2005

Hiroshi Sugimoto: End of Time

Until January 9th 2006

Hiroshi Sugimoto, a Japanese photographer and artist, first achieved recognition for his large images of the ocean. These powerful photographs of sky and water, shot in locations all over the world, made him one of Japan's most celebrated artists. But there is much more to Mr Sugimoto than oceanscapes, as this retrospective at the Mori Art Museum demonstrates. Indeed, the scale of his career, which has included nature photography, sculpture and architecture, is suggested by the show's centrepiece: a full-size Noh stage, designed by the artist (on which there will be two performances on October 19th and 20th, though seats are sold out, unfortunately).

This is a beautifully lit and mounted exhibition: all greys, blacks and dark tones, with the photographs shining like icons on the walls. Next year, the display will travel to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, before finishing at the Japan Society in New York.

Mori Art Museum, 53F Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, Roppongi 6-10-1, Minato-Ku, Tokyo. Tel: +81 (03) 5777-8600. Take the Oedo or Hibiya line to Roppongi Station. Open: daily, 10am-10pm (Tues until 5pm). See also the Mori's website.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar