Saturday, 28 June 2008
Tokyo 2016 Olympic Candidate City
Something that's been a little bit of a joke with me for the past few months has been all the publicity in Tokyo about it being a "Candidate City" for the 2016 Olympics.
Train stations are full of flags and signs promoting the fact that Tokyo is a "Candidate" and press conferences and PR sessions are held on a very regular basis. If you didn't know otherwise you'd think Tokyo is actually hosting the Olympics. The thing is they're not. They're just a "Candidate".
When I was living in Australia back in the 90s I had no idea Sydney was a Candidate. There was no promotion for that at all really. Of course when we actually won the right to hold the 2000 games in Sydney, the media pretty much went crazy but for simply applying... I don't remember any promotion of that fact at all really.
Doing a web search I found a small site for Chicago celebrating their candidacy. But it's literally one page.
The Tokyo 2016 Website on the other hand is massive! It offers photos, up to date news on Tokyo's progress, maps of their venues (proposed venues anyway) and even a copy of their application!
What's more, the site is in four different languages! Japanese, English, Spanish and French! When a Japanese anything offers a real English version of itself, that really raises eyebrows. But when it offers Spanish and French as well... I'm very impressed.
If I had never been to Tokyo and had just been to this site I would definitely think it's a lot more international than previously thought. But since I live in Tokyo, I do have to wonder if Tokyo does win the hosting rights if there'll be an attempt to internationalise Tokyo more.
As it is today, there are three things keeping Tokyo back from being International:
One is the simply practicality of living in the city. Most signs are still in Japanese kanji, and when English is used, only half of the sign seems to have been translated. Take a walk around Shinjuku or Ikebukuro station (two major stations) and you'll see what I mean.
Add to this the fact that the majority of non-Japanese residents in Japan are actually Chinese or Korean, one really begins to understand how incompetent city planers and businesses are here.
The second is the law and government officials attitudes towards "non-Japanese". Currently any policeman can stop you in the street and ask for your passport simply because you may be up to no good or a possible illegal immigrant. Businesses of any kind can refuse you service simply on the basis of your race and despite Japan being a part of the UN, all of this racist and offensive laws are completely legal in Japan and aren't likely to change.
The third is simply public attitude. Most Japanese people don't want the Olympics held in Tokyo. There is massive fear of Foreign Crime that's supported simply by xenophobia. There's also blind racist hatred which I can confidently say most non-Japanese (and Japanese of non-Japanese appearance) friends of mine have faced.
This third fact actually makes me wonder if all of this massive PR for the 2016 Olympics isn't so much to advertise it to other countries but to sell the idea to Japanese people within Japan in an attempt to change their attitudes.
If this is the case the PR people will need all the help they can get. Everyone I've asked about the Olympics who lives in Tokyo thinks the whole concept is just impossible for one basic reason: Tokyo is too small.
While the Tokyo 2016 Website promotes the fact that the trains run on time, it fails to mention that the trains are almost always dangerously overloaded with passengers. There's just no way the current public transport system would work with the massive amount of officials and tourists the Olympics would attract.
Tokyo would need to revamp ALL the trains to be at least dual storied (like Sydney trains) and make them wider, but due to space restrictions there's actually no way they can do that with the current train lines.
Come the Olympics (if Tokyo gets them), Tokyo's going to be screwed.
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Labels: japan
posted by Brad at
4:30 PM
6 Comments:
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Welcome. My name's Brad and I'm about to start my fifth year in Tokyo, Japan though lately I've found that that defines me as badly as saying I'm from Sydney, Australia.
Agreed about the transportation issue; If train service wasn't doubled during the period, every day would bring a commuting nightmare.
lol..wow, what an interesting read! XD I checked out the website..lol, seems misleading!
I find it interesting that you're so shocked that Japan has put together the most thorough, comprehensive site of all the candidates.
You've lived here how long and haven't realized that perhaps Japanese people might be a little anal retentive?
It's also interesting that you feel that the site is somehow trying to portray Tokyo as international simply because it's available in four languages.
Did you read the site at all? Most of it is talking about Japanese people doing things in Japan, and even the description of Tokyo is focused almost entirely on traditional Japanese aspects that can be found here.
But oh wait, that's just a convenient segue way into the same tired complaints that every burnt out gaijin in Tokyo has about the city.
'Oh my god, they don't translate everything into English for my benefit! What the hell kind of city is this?'
'I once heard about a friend of a friend of a friend once being stopped by the police for nothing! And lots of blogs around the internet also have completely anecdotal evidence to support my claim that secretly Japanese people are racist bigots who want us all out of their country!'
'And thanks to my complete inability to look at my own country and culture in an objective manner, I'm going to use it as a Utopian measuring stick by which I can quantify just how horrible this country is. For everyone knows that Japan is the only country in the world that has ever had trouble accepting foreigners!'
I agree with you that Tokyo's transportation infrastructure would have to be overhauled and enhanced to meet the extra demands of hosting the Olympics, but all of your other points on why Tokyo is not suited or capable to host such an international event are untrue, poorly argued and very misrepresentative of Japan in general.
Sendaguy, sounds like you have some issues. Haha.
If you read what I wrote you would have seen that I'm not some stupid non-Japanese complaining why nothing's in English. I actually mentioned that it's worse that nothing is translated into Chinese or Korean (two languages I don't speak). That being said, having been to Shanghai and Beijing a few years ago, it's completely ridiculous how behind Tokyo is in making itself more internationally minded in regards to the English language.
"I once heard about a friend of a friend of a friend once being stopped by the police for nothing!"
Actually I was woken up around 8am last year by police who decided to ID every person in my apartment building because they heard lots of non-Japanese lived there. I'm not in a guest house, I'm in a regular apartment. Some of my neighbours are Japanese, but hey, OMG there are foreigners living here! They must be illegal immigrants. And yes this happened to a friend (immediate friend of mine I might add) who lives on the other side of Tokyo as well. Police are racial profiling. Racist? Naaahhh!!!
Did I ever say Australia was a Utopia? If you read my blog you would have found that I have strong opinions about the Lost Generation and Australia's recent apology and other racial and social issue but you're too busy generalising all non-Japanese Japan based bloggers about generalising Japan when we're not, we're actually raising good points.
On another note, I've lived here for almost 5 years now, pay tax just like the average Japanese person and plan to live here a while longer. While I wasn't born here, for now (possibly for the rest of my life) Japan is my country. Surely I have a right to bring us issues that I feel need raising.
Brad,
You're right, the tone in my response was a little too harsh, and generally aimed more at the foreign blogging community in Japan more than to your post specifically.
I think unfortunately a lot of people don't realize that what they write in their blog, no matter how small the audience and no matter how insignificant the detail, has the ability to strongly influence their reader's impression of Japan.
For example, I'm sure you've read countless times about people seeing some oyaji reading porn on the train.
If someone who has never been to Japan reads that, their impression is going to be that old Japanese guys are pigs. And if they ever end up coming to Japan, they're probably going to look out on the train to find that oyaji reading porn, right?
The problem is that most of the time, at least based on my own (granted) anecdotal evidence, just because the magazine or newspaper may have a barely dressed over even naked woman in it, does not make it porn. In fact, there are a lot of pretty harmless publications aimed towards men that may feature a picture of a nude woman, always among otherwise completely serious or unrelated content.
But too often people are in such a hurry to paint Japan as such a wild and crazy place that they sacrifice factuality for sensationalism, or they simply don't know enough about Japanese publications to do anything but assume it is porn.
Like I said before, anyone who reads that will probably be on the look out for it when they come to Japan. Then if they happen to see it, whether it's their own blog, a gaijinpot style bbs, or just talking with friends, they're going to want to share their experience.
If that happens enough, as it has, it becomes a meme that people just kind of generally accept.
I suppose that was the main problem I had with your article. While you have had personal experiences to back up what you were talking about, it is still anecdotal and so I think you shouldn't present it as a hard fact.
Just because something has become a kind of accepted fact within the japanese blogging community's group think still doesn't mean it's a fact.
Anyway, I'm carrying on too long, so I'll leave it at that. I apologize for the rant, after reading more of your blog, I can see that it was misdirected.
Thanks so much for your reply!
I know exactly where you're coming from concerning the Japan blogging community. It is a fine line between anecdotal and fact.
I had to laugh at your porn analogy though. Probably not the best topic as porn in Japan is more widely accepted than Western countries. I mean, they sell it next to children's comics in book stores. ;)
But then they do censor the porn here (vaginas are a no-no!) so while there's more of it, it's more tame than stuff back home.