Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
I think it was the American futurist Alvin Toffler who coined the phrase “high tech, high touch” to explain why at a time of increasing technological penetration of our lives people still flock to places like movie theaters and amusement parks as a strategy to maintain contact with others and escape from an otherwise increasingly isolated environment. Today Japanese and foreign tourists are walking the streets here with any number of applications available on their hand-held devices to make life easier and, in addition, further endanger our social interaction time. This technological penetration will continue. But by increasing English classes in schools and by training Olympic volunteers in other languages (“Trial classes for Olympic volunteers set to start,” Friday, January 16, 2015) the Tokyo Metropolitan Government seems to be banking on the high touch factor to impress the world with Japanese “omotenashi,” or hospitality. I understand the pleasure a stranger might feel meeting someone to talk to in their own language while visiting here. They might come away with a warm feeling for having met an ‘authentic’ Japanese, although I can’t imagine from all of the variety that exists what an ‘authentic’ Japanese would be. The government might be underestimating the strides that hand-held digital devices have already made and will still make in the next six years towards helping visiting foreigners to bridge cultural gaps and negotiate the city. Will visitors really need to ask directions of anyone? They already have online map programs to find their ways. Will visitors really need translators at hotels and restaurants, hot springs, train stations and department stores? They already have voice activated translation programs for that. If the government wants to impress me with omotenashi then it can quickly and cheaply start by barring the old lady toilet cleaners from the men’s public toilets while we’re still in there trying to use them.