Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - March 2006

News this month

Tokyo or busk

The silent underground walkways of the Tokyo Metro could soon reverberate with the sounds of the capital’s first licensed street musicians. In a surprise break with the Tokyo Metro’s conservative approach to busking, delegates travelled to London in early March to liaise with their counterparts from London Underground and explore the possibility of legalisation. The Japanese authorities say they are eager to recreate the success of the three-year-old British scheme, in which 300 musicians have been granted licences to play at 42 designated “pitches” throughout stations on the London network.

But there are real differences between the two cities. British buskers have been around for decades and were locked in a game of cat-and-mouse with the London Underground authorities until their position was formalised. Tokyo has never had buskers, and the Metro will first have to hold auditions for a new crop of subterranean stars.

Six days a week

With the new academic year due to start on April 3rd, some state schools in and around Tokyo are preparing to recommence lessons on Saturdays. The Japanese tradition of a six-day school week was controversially outlawed in 2002, to mitigate the heavy educational burden on Japanese schoolchildren. But this has frustrated teachers at Tokyo’s finer state schools, who say their students are falling behind those at private institutions, where the ban has no bearing.

They argue that this growing disparity is especially visible during the white-hot competitiveness of university entrance exams. So teachers at the Omiya High School in Saitana Prefecture will offer Saturday lessons, exploiting a legal loophole by claiming these classes are for “special circumstances”. As many as ten schools in Tokyo and Saitama say they expect to get away with the same practice.

Blowing a fuse

Hundreds of second-hand shops across the capital are angry about a new law that prohibits reselling electrical goods produced before 2001. Opponents of the Electrical Appliance and Material Law, which takes effect on April 1st, say it will destroy Tokyo’s most vibrant trade and cramp the city’s music scene. The ban, introduced with safety in mind, will affect everything from vintage electric guitars in Jimbocho to retro video-game consoles in Akihabara.

For a city filled with obsessive collectors and gadget aficionados, the law threatens to drive their hobby underground. It will certainly push up the prices of old electronic gems. The only way around the new legislation is for shopkeepers to submit resale items for official government approval, at a cost of between $30 and $300 per item. Many blame the Ministry for Economy, Trade and Industry for the panic, as it has failed to explain the ramifications of the measure.

Capital increase

Tokyo has among the lowest birth rates in the country, new figures have shown. The capital last year experienced its first natural population decrease since 1955, the first year the Tokyo Metropolitan Government began keeping record. If immigrants to the city are discounted, the number of Tokyoites shrank by 687 people last year, an indication that couples in the city are reluctant to have children.

Not that this means the city is going to feel any less crowded. The population of Tokyo grew for the tenth straight year in 2005, owing to an influx of immigrants from elsewhere in Japan and overseas. Nearly 73,000 people came to Tokyo last year, raising the population of the capital to nearly 8.5m and the number of registered foreigners to nearly 365,000, an all-time record. Almost two-thirds of immigrants hailed from China and South Korea.

Red handed

Tokyo’s more radical past returned to the spotlight with the sentencing in February of Fusako Shigenobu, the founder of the Japanese Red Army (JRA) terrorist group. Once considered one of the most dangerous women on earth, she helped the group mastermind a series of deadly bombings and hijackings during the 1970s and early 1980s. Miss Shigenobu earned a 20-year prison sentence for her role in the 1974 siege of the French Embassy in the Hague. A former employee of a soy-sauce company, she remained defiant throughout her trial and handed her lawyer a haiku to read outside the Tokyo District Court that concluded “strong will shall keep spreading”.

Police arrested Miss Shigenobu in 2001, when she secretly returned to Japan after decades in the Middle East—most believe Lebanon—where she underwent paramilitary training and set up the JRA. The story of Miss Shigenobu’s transformation from meek office worker to socialist firebrand hark back to a more politically engaged Tokyo. She described being seduced by student street protests and activism while walking back from work one afternoon. Her rage with the Japanese system, the Imperial family and various alleged injustices fermented into something violent after a stint in the Middle East.

Catch if you can

March 2006

Masterpieces from the Prado

March 25th-June 30th 2006

This much-anticipated show is sure to be one of the biggest blockbusters in Japan in 2006. For an exhibition subtitled “From Titian to Goya”, Madrid’s Prado Museum has lent over 80 works from its permanent collection. Highlights include paintings from Titian (including “Venus”), Velasquez, Goya, El Greco (pictured), Murillo and Rubens. Tokyo hosted a Prado show four years ago that attracted half a million visitors, so expect crowds. Try to come on a weekday or early on Saturdays to view the works with minimal jostling.

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Ueno Park 8-36, Taito-Ku. Tel: +81 (0)3-3823-6921. Take the Yamanote Line to Ueno. Open: Tues-Sun 9am-5pm. See the exhibit's website.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar