Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - July 2006

News this month

Age concerns

Japan's ageing, shrinking population—the result of a falling birth rate and high life expectancy—has long been a worry. Preliminary figures from a 2005 census, released at the end of June, confirmed the worst: with 21% of its population aged 65 or over, Japan has shuffled past Italy to become the world's oldest country. The swelling ranks of the silver-haired present Japan with a range of problems, such as a dwindling workforce and a rising demand for pensions. Many are also wondering just how these ageing people will spend their time. There is rising concern, for example, that the record number of domestic mountaineering accidents logged last year is a taster of the carnage to come, as the elderly take to ever more exotic post-retirement activities.

But a survey by Tokyu Land, a real-estate company, has alerted Tokyoites to a previously unforeseen clash: elderly couples are bitterly divided over where to spend their twilight years. A majority of men favour retiring to the countryside, while women prefer to stay in Tokyo near a railway station and, especially, the shops. As the so-called “2007 crisis” approaches—when Japan's biggest-ever generation hits retirement age—such arguments are expected to grow ever fiercer.

Going Dutch

Nobody much likes Tokyo in the August humidity. But Crown Prince Naruhito's decision to take his ailing wife, Crown Princess Masako, and their four-year-old daughter, Princess Aiko, to the Netherlands for a “recuperative” holiday has been seen by some as a snub to Tokyo and its environs. Not only is it the first time the heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne has taken his brood abroad, but also it will be the first time that an imperial family member has felt the need to leave Japan in order to recover from illness.

Since late 2003, Princess Masako has been suffering from a stress-related disorder and has performed almost no public duties. Palace-watchers have long believed that her unhappiness stems from the tight restraints of palace life and her disappointment at not performing a more international role. The Harvard-educated ex-diplomat has not left Japan since attending a wedding in Belgium in 1999. The family is going to the Netherlands because Princess Masako's father, Hisashi Owada, is a judge at The Hague's International Court of Justice.

Crow-barred

The capital's increasingly aggressive jungle crows have become inadvertent cyber-criminals, denying thousands of Tokyoites broadband access. It turns out that fibre-optic broadband wires are perfect material for their nests, and can be dislodged from junction boxes with a well-judged peck. NTT and Tepco, the principal providers of fibre-optic cable in Tokyo, have reported sharp surges in vandalism committed by crows, who have no such success with the copper telephone and electricity cables that criss-cross the skyline.

The crows' rising boldness must be a disappointment to Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's governor, who declared war on the birds some five years ago, but has watched their numbers more than quadruple since. Even if the crows are somehow dissuaded from their destruction, the attacks on broadband access are expected to continue. Cicadas have discovered that fibre-optic cable is the ideal place to lay eggs, and have been staking out breeding grounds on the telegraph poles.

The write approach

The workers of Tokyo continue to find innovative ways to relax. But the desire to unwind has taken an unexpected voyage back 300 years to the poetry of the Edo period, and prompted a pencil-buying boom. A new book, “Tracing the Narrow Road to the Deep North with a Pencil”, which offers to help readers simultaneously to meditate and learn the lyrics of Basho, Japan's most famous haiku poet, has sold nearly 700,000 copies in a few months. More spectacular, though, is its impact on the market for traditional wooden HB pencils, whose sales have risen 30% since the book's publication. The reason is that the volume is interleaved with pages that encourage the reader to trace the words of Basho's most famous verses in elegant calligraphic style. The idea, says the publisher, Poplar, is to bring people back to a more analogue way of life.

Neo-Beatle mania

With all those baby-boomers retiring and seeking ways to recapture their youth, it is little wonder that Tokyo is in the grip of a 1960s boom. The race to recreate the decade's highlights is proving lucrative. Electric guitar sales to the over-60 set, for example, have risen sharply. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ lone visit to Japan, the hotel in which they stayed in 1966, the Capitol Tokyu, has restored the presidential suite to its former glory and opened it to guests one last time. The hotel, which will be knocked down later this year, is offering the “Beatles Room” at ¥110,000 ($960) per night during the month of August. The phone lines opened at 10am on June 29th and all bookings were filled within nine minutes.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Tokyo Summer Festival: Songs of the Earth/Music in the Streets

Until August 6th 2006

This festival of music and dance, now in its 22nd year, was started by Kyoko Edo, a renowned classical pianist. She remains the guiding force and personally approves all the acts. This year's festival includes free performances in Yoyogi Park on July 8th and 9th, featuring Black Blanc Beur, a 22-person French break-dance company; Stax Groove, a group of Japanese jazz dancers (pictured); Norie Anzai, an accordionist; and Funny Bones, a Japanese-English comic duo.

Highlights of the rest of the festival are a July 22nd performance by Gilles Apap of Vivaldi's “Four Seasons”, as reinterpreted by the violinist and fellow musicians; two evenings of classical Persian songs by Shahram Nazeri on July 26th and 27th; and two evenings of “Afro-Pop” on August 5th and 6th, headed by Senegal’s Youssou N'Dour.

Tokyo Summer Festival/Arion-Edo Foundation, OT Building 2F, Tomigaya 1-46-9, Shibuya-Ku. Tel: +81 (0)3 5465-0755. Concert locations all over Tokyo. See the foundation's website for festival details.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar