Report: 5,400 living crappily in net cafesAugust 28th, 2007 by Roy Berman |
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After reading the initial wave of articles about the new trend of homeless young “freeters” and “NEETs” living in net cafes, I tried sleeping at a net cafe in Shibuya once while I was in Tokyo back in April or May. How was it? While Adam may have enjoyed his stays in net cafes, I found it so unpleasant that I left at around 3am and wandered the streets of Shibuya, at that hour mainly filled with solicitious Chinese prostitutes trying to entice me to come inside for a massage, or as one put it “you can have sex with me for 6000 yen,” until I found the capsule hotel I had spied a few days earlier. My back hurt such much from trying to curl up on the floor of the little padded computer cell that I was briefly tempted by the shady massages just by the thought of being able to lay down for a while, but despite my quite literally feverish state still had my wits about me enough to make it up-hill to the capsule hotel. How did I feel in the morning? Well, according to the latest article on the subject of net cafe homeless, telling us that a new government study estimates their population at 5,400:
In 2005, 13 people contracted tuberculosis at a Net cafe in Kawasaki that health officials suspect originated from the cafe’s homeless population.
That, plus the backache, pretty much sums how I felt the next day. My throat was so irritated by whatever infection I had that I still, all these months later, have slightly more of tendency to cough than I did before, and I would probably have a full-on phlegmy hack if not for the THREE doctor’s visits I made after coming back to the US and probably 7 or 8 different medications ingested over that course of time. The lesson? Thinking that a net cafe would be a safe place to sleep because it was cheap and had a small non smoking section was a bad idea.
August 29th, 2007 at 2:41 am
To avoid the backache…
Get one of the more expensive cubicals with a couch.
August 29th, 2007 at 3:37 am
My local net cafe in Osaka had great big faux-leather chairs that I’m sure I could fall asleep in. No Chinese prostitutes, but there was a hostess bar upstairs.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:08 am
“To avoid the backache…
Get one of the more expensive cubicals with a couch.”
Non-smoking sounded like a good idea. Wasn’t.
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:56 am
It’s painful to do it for one night, but it gets easier if you’re in for the long haul. I once spent a few days bouncing back and forth between Yoyogi Park and an internet cafe in Shibuya, and it went surprisingly well once I realized that I could sleep in the park during the day and then spend the nights reading ask.metafilter.com instead.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:48 am
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/notes-from-a-neo-geisha-eiji-and-duckie/
September 4th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I’d pay the couple of thousand and get a real hotel room myself – this sounds ghastly….
September 4th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Better option.Try sauna.There is a room with some couch where you can sleep.Lots of salaryman does that when they miss the train.