Social Engineering Snapshots on the Japanese Subway

SUBWAY AD FOR PASMO - A CARD WHICH CAN BE USED ON ALL TRAIN SERVICES, BUSES AND IN A GROWING NUMBER OF SHOPS. E-MONEY WHICH YOU CAN'T SEE. INTERESTING USE OF A WALKING ROBOT - A PICTURE SAYS FAR MORE THAN WORDS, BUT IS IT A COMMENT ON NOW, OR A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE?

Engineers it seems, I'm doomed to be surrounded by. From a retired father-in-law who cannot stop tinkering and fiddling with his tools, to the TEFL teachers who have escaped the profession for a supposedly more adventurous route.

And those of us with dreams of geisha's, sumo and bizarre group rituals can find such 'exotica' in abundance, but stay here for longer than a year and alarming patterns make themselves plain. The co-option of trends without deep understanding of the contexts they sprung up in, and a pronounced tendency to copy, copy, copy: leaving precious few, few true individuals.

Yet, the few who are individuals shine so brightly, and long may they do so. The older I get, the more I see expression of one's self as all-important. But globally, with English being the world language, and its culture penetrating into all four corners, diversity has arguably been cut down in certain quarters. Look at the alternative cultures that have been consumed: aborigines, the Ainu, Indians, African tribes, Gypsy's - those cultures whose slavish worship/zest for money did not reach the levels our education engineered into us to be, as social bee-ings.

Bleeding hearts we turn away from. But TRUE DIFFERENCE has been consumed in the spread of 'our culture'. Yet, I don't even think of it as mostly 'our culture' - many aspects are 'engineered' from above, subtly, cravenly and crafted with a sharp intelligence that could seize your precious breath away from you in the bat of an eye-lid. It is 'their culture' - the culture of power-broking 'engineers'

Social Engineering. It happens often subtly and here in Tokyo - on the surface, a mundane development in the transport service is one example. You see, a few years ago - people used train/bus cards and money, but then SUICA was introduced, allowing Subway users to use a card that didn't need to be put into the ticket barrier slot - you just placed the card over an EYE SEE slot. Reduction of effort - convenient and faster. Just the ticket for worker bees, eh, rushing from hive to hive.



PASCO AD. NOTE THE SAMENESS OF THE PEOPLE. NO JOKE. IMAGERY SPEAKS LOUDER THAN WORDS.

Yet, SUICA was introduced in many shops in train stations and beyond. Like a credit card, you could use it to buy good goods as well as bad goods, and not fiddle with money. Once again, it is 'convenient' : you don't need to fumble for change.

But, I like calculating sums when buying something. I like the mental activity, and SUICA took that odd pleasure away. So I booted it into touch, making a point of sticking to paper tickets and dealing with coins and notes. Yet PASMO has extended SUICA's reach, which wasn't used on non-subway trains and buses. PASMO is electronic money which can be used in more shops., and ALL train and bus services. Quite an extension of e-money.


You can call me paranoid, but I dislike this 'development' on a number of levels. 1) There is no need for e-money. Though it is being marketed as 'convenient' (which it is), it further establishes the relevance of electronic money. E-money doesn't exist, you can't touch it, and if the computer goes down, or the owners of the particular computer system take a disliking to you, your money could disappear.

2) I like using my brain for calculations and not having automatized machines smother my life.

LEFT: YOU CAN SEE THE PASMO SIGN ON THIS DRINKS MACHINE. THIS 'CONVENIENCE' MIGHT WELL BE USHERING IN SIDE EFFECTS THAT ARE WORTH PONDERING...

I'll end this post with a mention of A WONDERFUL, GODDESS TYPE LADY who I saw twice feeding a group of unwanted stray cats who have had their environment consumed by a pointless road built obviously to fatten some soul-less bureaucrat, and further reduce glimpses of nature in this metropolis. SHE feeds the delightful creatures, and I gave her money to help her continue. While talking to her, a group of children with their parents came over, and suddenly a community emerged, and we all had a laugh. Nothing unusual, but in the rush of this city, where change is engineered and barely noticed by the citizens, such a spontaneous chat between strangers is rare. It was delightful and made me realise that the dehumanizing trends I detect can be reversed.... The cats looked a little like the one below, but without the hat!