STREET SCENE: TOKYO, 1946

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 390, 13 December 1946, Page 18

STREET SCENE: TOKYO, 1946

(Written for "The Listener" by the Official NZ Correspondent with

the

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Force

: "EN 1923, Tokyo, "Imperial Met- | ropolis of Japan," in one of the most fearful of modern | disasters, was devastated by earthquake and fire. In the years after, the Japanese capital was rebuilt to a careful and attractive plan. of modern architecture. There were broad streets and avenues; subways and a suburban railway service which were certainly as busy and probably as efficient as any in the world; the latest in department stores and shops; and skyscrapers which rose into the air as angular as tombstones and about as beautiful. By 1936, Tokyo with a population of 6,000,000 was the third city of the world. 1 In 1944-45 Tokyo was again laid low, not this time by Act of God but by Flying Fortress and Super Fortress, by bomb and fire. The devastation was almost as complete. In parts Tokyo lay as flat on the ground as Hiroshima did as a whole; and the only difference was scores of raids and countless bombs instead of one raid and one bomb. Tokyo, to-day, for the second time in less than 25 years, is being rebuilt -to plans which are even‘ more studied than those after 1923. For the aim now is not only western style buildings and business methods but also the western style political pattern, of ideas and |ideals. The Frank Lloyd Wrights of 1946 are the Man and the men at the 'head of the organisations under Allied | direc’ion. The hope is that the new ‘structure will stand the test of time and upheaval ideologically as well as the Imperial Hotel has done _ materially. Frank Lloyd Wright, famous American architect whose work was the subject of great controvessy in his own country, designed the plans and supervised the construction of the famous hotel in Tokyo. It was built with "floating foundations," and was the only major structure in Tokyo to. withstand the 1923 earthquake.

UT the New Zealander on leave in Tokyo, however’ much. he laments the past and hopes of the future, is concerned with the present. Even if his six days were extended to 60 he would find it difficult to see leisurely all that is of interest in that most interesting of cities. After the beautiful but rural New Zealand area, a trip to Tokyo is like being born and brought up in the middle of the King Country, then travelling to Wellington for the first time. The difference between Wellington and Tokyo is as great. In the wide streets between the skyscrapers is constant and busy traffic. There are bicycles ridden with a disregard for safety that in New Zealand would land the owner either in hospital or court. One evening, pouring with rain, I saw an old man_ riding his bicycle through thick traffic holding a large umbrella over his head with one hand, with his steering hampered by a lighted Chinese lantern, as big as a bucket, on his handlebars. There are motor-cars which vary from (to your surprise) 1942 American models to old chuggers with gas producers. Rickshaws are everywhere, keeping close to the pavéments and clearing a way through straggling pedestrians by the warnings from their tiny horns-and if you are not sure that you like the idea of man pulling man, if your mouth opened at the sight of a 16-stone Australian sergeant being hauled along at six miles an hour by a Japanese who could not have been more than half the weight ‘of his customer, there is some consolation in the dismay of the servicemen who find that for their half-mile jaunt they have to pay 30 yen (10/-). You hope that soon Tokyo wili follow the example of Shanghai and_ gradually withdraw all rickshaw licences. In those streets busy with motor-cars and tramcars afte carts drawn by those weary, slobbering oxen with the drivers not riding but always walking either at the front of their steeds or alongside. With horse-drawn carts it is the same, apparently to allow another bushel or (continued on next page)

(continued from. previous: page) two of cargo. A four-wheeler carriage with four high-stepping matched blacks clip-clips past; you catch a glimpse of a young woman in traditional kimona fanning herself, eyes lowered. i * % N the pavements the pedestrians and the dress they wear are as varied as the traffic. Probably at least half of those who pass wear European clothes: the men, suits, hats, collars and ties; the women, costumes or frocks. Fashions vary from those of 20 years ago to ties and shirts and hats which are obviously the latest American patterns and so colourful and flowing that in New Zealand the wearer would be looked at with a blink. And although so many have forsaken the traditional Nippon dress, they have not lost a habit that goes with its wearing: the habit with both men and women of carrying umbrellas. If the weather is at all doubtful or the season unsettled they are carried by nine persons out of ten, and not the drab "brollies" we know so well, but gaily-coloured umbrellas bright enough, it seems, to relieve the dullness of even the wettest day. And as though to show that the mere introduction of western architecture and modern subways is not enough to uproot the customs evolved through 2,500 years, many of those people in Tokyo streets are wearing their traditional dress-the kimona (the women in bright colours, the men in dull), no hat, umbrella, and the clackety-clackety geta (wooden sandals, raised by wooden crossbars to keep Japanese feet out of Japanese mud and puddles). The noise of those geta is most peculiar. I'll never forget my surprise when about 70 schoolgirls came trooping from a temple they had been visiting and into their wooden shoes which had been left outside. First I knew of them was the sound of 140 clip-clops on the paved path, a noise I thought, momentarily, was a hail storm let loose on an iron, roof.

T is in the cities, in Tokyo particularly, that you see signs of a hunger which is not apparent in the rural areas (where, of course, the food is produced). The morning I caught that early train from the suburban station there’ were three. corpses huddled, apparently unnoticed, in the back entrance. In Japan, railway stations are the homes. of the homeless, and here too some of these ainfortunate people die. Tokyo Grand Central Station, however, is an exception. Apparently because of its constant use by Allied administrators the civil police have a "keep moving, you-must-be-alive here" policy. In the streets, too, you see the people who are obviously hungry; their bones seem too big for the skin that covers them, like yard-length sticks in a sack; you notice the eagerness. with which they pick up anything that. can. be eaten (apple cores in the dust), or anything that can be bartered for food (cigarette butts, an inch long): Throughout Japan black market prices are high, in Tokyo higher. Rice, for which the market price is fixed at about 25 yen for 1lb. (it varies from time to time), is cheap at 100 yen. With fish and vegetables the position is similar. For people with money there is no hunger, and for those without money there are furniture and family treasures that can be sold, or more often bartered. At present Japanese railroads are working with double overload. Every carriage that leaves Tokyo for the country is jammed with people who are travelling only to buy rice and vegetables at black market rates direct from the farmer. With the value of the yer so depreciated, it is only rarely that money is used; kimonas, silk and other valuables are the currency. Food brought back to the cities is kept for family use and any extra sold for even higher prices to others in need. Tokyo shops and stalls are filled with cameras, binoculars, china, furniture, and antiques. In Tokyo to-day, an empty shelf is not as worrying as an empty stomach. But to suggest that the nation, or even a large percentage of the nation, is starving is far from true. There is rationing

of staple foods that is usually efficient even if the ration is scanty. Added to this ration is a small distribution of tinned foods by the occupation authorities. Most of those who are really and consistently hungry are people who for some reason are without papers--Koreans who have been smuggled into Japan or who have escaped from repatriation centres, or Japanese who are wanted by either civil or military police. Rather than widespread hunger, there is a widespread shortage of ample food; the balance’ is somewhere between "too little" and "just enough." And this difference is enough to have promoted and sustained a black market which is centred in the cities and which has more or less the whole of Japan in its cruel clutch.