Lost In Translation

Probably the most obvious thing an American can do these days when traveling in Tokyo is to compare his experience to the characters' in Lost in Translation, Sophia Coppola's chef d'oeuvre. Indeed, having just convened with ~ 700 other conference goers at Goldman Sachs' annual Asia hedge fund conference last week, the most pat (pattest?) line was how "different" Tokyo was from just about anywhere else us peripatetic researchers travel.

But this is one of those few instances where the conventional wisdom is not only true, it is also profoundly interesting. I've only been to Japan (and just Tokyo) twice so I wouldn't pretend to have any deep insights into this phenomenon. All I know is that I've never been somewhere with so few recognizable cultural markers, which in turn inspires such a sense of anomie - the kind that is (brilliantly) captured by Coppola and her actors. It's astounding that such a modern, wealthy city as Tokyo has so few linguistic short-cuts for Westerners (English character words, recognizable advertisements and brands, multi-lingual street signs). More so than in any other city I’ve visited has my brain struggled to latch on to something recognizable, the kind of mental shortcuts that allow us to get on with our day and not think about every step along the way. Tokyo is mentally exhausting.

The city’s massiveness is part of the phenomenon. It is, I believe, the largest urban sprawl in the world, with ~ 30 million inhabitants occupying a never-ending cityscape. During my 1.5 hour train ride from Narita Airport to "central Tokyo" (if you’ve been there, you know that concept is somewhat of a joke) I witnessed an uninterrupted agglomeration of buildings with no large parks, no fields, literally no break in the action. I've been to some of the city's tallest buildings but I've never seen the city's edge. Did Eduard Munch actually hail from Tokyo?

The simple act of taking a taxi in Tokyo encapsulates some of the key elements of this dislocation. First of all, you have no idea where you're going. The city is built on about as linear a plan as London; Baron Haussmann would have a seizure. As some of you know, I'm obsessed with maps but those two-dimensional props almost taunt you there. I take pride in my sense of direction, but in Tokyo I'm always lost; I hate being lost. Second, your taxi driver (who speaks no English) sort of knows where he's going - or maybe he doesn't. As happened a number of times during this trip, a local Japanese aide with a clear idea of where we wanted to go explained our destination to the driver for at least two whole minutes. Where I come from, an address is usually a pretty good indicator of where you want to go and if you don't know it exactly, a neighborhood will suffice to get you most of the way there. To make the whole exercise comical, WE ALWAYS HAVE A MAP of our exact destination printed off the web. However, an address and map still require minutes of pre-departure chat and the driver inevitably looks at the map a few times along the way. My favorite is when the driver slowly turns it 90 degrees four times in a row in order, I guess, to triangulate on the location. On this trip, we were taken to the wrong location only twice. And then there's ordering in restaurants.... We'll save that for an upcoming post.

This experience typically occurs with massive jet lag and a large time zone difference with home that makes connections with loved ones and colleagues hard to manage - oh so helped by the fact that standard cell phones and Blackberries don't work there. As far as I know, Tracy didn't FedEx any carpet squares to the hotel for my perusal.

For those of you who now think me (more) enthnocentric and unfit for even a Dennis Miller-quality rant, I reply that I appreciate to some degree Japan’s cultural history and it’s role within – and outside – world society and history; its island status in more than just geographic terms and its struggles – sometimes violent – in protecting a centuries-old culture that has some beautiful qualities. Not only do I know who fought in the Sino-Japanese war (and what years – do you?), I even saw that Tom Cruise movie where he somehow went from an American Wild West show to defending Japan against some of the original gaijin.

With all that, good lord, can they at least get the taxi drivers to get you where you want to go?