In January 2000, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport released a detailed study on how the Tokyo mass transit network could be expanded over the next 15 years. (Japanese text is here.) Many of the ministry’s suggestions have since been fulfilled, including the completion of the Oedo Line, Saitama Rapid Railway, Tsukuba Express, Nippori-Toneri Liner and Fukutoshin Line. But there are still a number of lines which have yet to be finished, and here are the most likely candidates to be built:

• Narita Airport Railway
  Under construction – opening in 2010

This is probably the best-known railway project under development in the Tokyo area, as it has been on the drawing board for about 25 years (roughly since the cancellation of the planned shinkansen to Narita) and is finally under construction. It provides a more direct route from central Tokyo to Narita Airport by extending the existing Hokuso Railway line through the outskirts of Narita City. The line is expected to make the Skyliner journey about 15 minutes shorter (36 minutes from Nippori as opposed to the current 51 minutes).

• Tohoku Line (Re-)Extension
  Under construction – opening in 2013

This extends the Takasaki Line and Utsunomiya Line, which currently terminate at Ueno, southward to Tokyo Station. There will be no stops at the stations in between (Okachimachi, Akihabara and Kanda). The main goal is to draw traffic away from the Yamanote and Keihin-Tohoku Lines, which are both really overcrowded in this corridor. (Joban Line communities are also lobbying to extend their service to Tokyo Station, but this would be logistically more difficult.)

This line actually used to exist but was cut off in 1973 so that the Tohoku Shinkansen could be extended to Tokyo Station over the Tohoku Main Line’s right-of-way. Opening the connection again will allow through service with the Tokaido Line, similar to the existing connection between the Sobu and Yokosuka lines. The main obstacle is (as you might expect) local citizens’ groups, who are calling on JR to “stop the heat island” (whatever that means). Despite their protests, JR started construction earlier this summer and plans to build the line over the next five years (i.e., really really slowly).

• Yurakucho and Hanzomon Line Extensions
  Proposed for construction by 2015

The Yurakucho Line extension would run from Toyosu to Noda City in Chiba Prefecture, following a roughly northward course through Sumiyoshi, Oshiage and Kameari in eastern Tokyo. The Hanzomon Line extension would follow a similar course (perhaps even using the same tracks) up to Yotsugi, but track off toward the east to terminate in Matsudo.

A few bedroom towns in Chiba and Ibaragi are lobbying to have these extensions built, but Tokyo Metro cut off its construction budget with the Fukutoshin Line project and is not officially planning to extend any other lines, at least for now. I really hope they get around to this, though, because the Joban Line is inhumanely overcrowded during rush hour, even with 15-car trains.

• Sobu-Keiyo-Keisei Connector
  Proposed for construction by 2015

This would be a line from Shin-Urayasu on the Keiyo Line through Funabashi Station on the Sobu Line to Tsudanuma Station on the Keisei Line, hooking up the three main Tokyo-Chiba railway lines. The main purpose is to divert traffic from the overcrowded Sobu Line onto the less popular Keiyo Line; the main carrot for doing this would be through service with the Rinkai Line (and, by extension, the Saikyo Line), allowing direct service from Chiba to the major terminals on the west side of Tokyo.

This plan is apparently still on the drawing board, but sounds pretty promising given all the development going on around the Chiba waterfront. It would probably be good for foreign visitors to Disneyland and Tokyo Big Sight as well.

• Asakusa Line spur to Tokyo Station
  Proposed for construction by 2015

The Asakusa Line runs parallel to the JR trunk lines that serve Tokyo Station, but stays a few blocks away inside the financial district. The plan is to build a Y-shaped spur off of the west side of the Asakusa Line which would connect the line to an underground platform at Tokyo Station.

Most significantly, this would open up a new direct route from Tokyo Station to both Haneda and Narita Airport, potentially putting Keisei and Keikyu in even more direct competition with JR for airport-bound passengers. There is some speculation (e.g. among Wikipedia) that the Tokyo government may build additional passing tracks on the Asakusa Line to allow for high-speed direct trains between Haneda and Narita, which would likely become more necessary as regional international flights are moved from Narita to Haneda.

• Kan-nana and Kan-hachi Lines
  Proposed without a deadline

These two lines would go through the outer wards of Tokyo at a radius of about 10km from the city center, roughly following the paths of Kan-nana and Kan-hachi Streets. The major stops along this route would include Haneda Airport, Futako-Tamagawa, Ogikubo, Tobu Nerima, Akabane, Nishi-Arai, Kita-Ayase, Kameari, Aoto and Kasai-Rinkai-Koen.

The lines would provide train service to huge under-served portions of suburban Tokyo, but would likely be difficult and expensive to construct because of their length. There is also doubt regarding how this line would compete with the proposed Yurakucho and Hanzomon extensions, which would follow a similar routing in east Tokyo. I would vote in favor of these lines since I now live near the proposed corridor, but we’ll have to wait and see whether any funding comes out to build them.

One of my best friends in college was a Taiwanese guy firmly in the “green” (pro-independence) camp. We had many conversations about the symbolism of green in the independence movements of both Ireland and Taiwan. We were also both into vexillology, the study of flags, and we often compared the evolution of Irish flags to the evolution of flags in Taiwan.

Fast forward a few years. Today was the St Patrick’s Day parade down Omotesando in Tokyo. Much to my curiosity, there were a couple of elderly Taiwan independence protesters out with their green Taiwan independence flags, which made for an interesting comparison with the Irish tricolors hung from flagpoles farther down the avenue. It was also an interesting contrast with the typical crowd of subculture groupies and bemused foreigners that hang out by the entrance to Yoyogi Park.

Despite being color-coordinated for the occasion, they seemed rather lonely at their posts. Apparently getting Taiwan admitted to the UN is not high on the political priority list of most Tokyo residents.

For whatever reason, green is an underused national flag color once you go east of the Indian subcontinent and the extensive Islamic influence in that half of Asia. Macau has a nice green flag (as does Tokyo), but the nations of East and Southeast Asia have generally adopted red, white and blue in varying proportions, with yellow stars sprinkled here and there.

The consensus among books I’ve read and people I’ve spoken to is that green became associated with Ireland (and its native Catholics) simply because Ireland is a very green country—they don’t call it the “Emerald Isle” for nothing. (Although green is prominent in the flags of other Catholic countries—Italy, Portugal, Mexico and Brazil for instance—it doesn’t have religious significance in the stories behind any of these flags.)

Wikipedia’s explanation for the Taiwanese independence movement’s use of green is that the Democratic Progressive Party adopted green because environmentalism was a major part of its agenda, and the color eventually became associated with everything else the DPP advocated.

In both cases, it seems that green took on another meaning: it drew a sharp contrast to powerful adversaries who flew red and blue flags, namely the British in Ireland and the communists and Kuomintang in China and Taiwan. Then you have the United States, where the Green Party is the most popular (if you can call it that) alternative to the “red” and “blue” parties.

I’m not sure if there is really a point to these parallels, besides that people will find ways to divide themselves by color even when they’re all the same color to begin with. The Irish flag acknowledges this in its own way—it stands for peace (the white mid-section) between two opposing sides (the green Catholics and orange Protestants). Ireland eventually got this peace after a few decades of faking it. Who knows where Taiwan is headed—all I know is that I will support a green flag in Asia, because this part of the world is crying out for vexillological diversity.

Hamarikyu Gardens as of 1400 hours today.

Following up my post on the stock market’s effects on Sazae-san viewership, I wanted to show you something fun I saw in the Nikkei:

Friday, February 15, 2008
Women’s Locks Hold Key To Forecasting Economic Outlook

TOKYO (Nikkei)—Women tend to wear their hair long when the nation’s economy is up and short when it is down, a survey conducted over the past two decades by consumer goods manufacturer Kao Corp. shows. As concern grows about a possible economic downturn, will this hairstyle trend repeat itself, or will something new happen?

Kao has been regularly surveying the hairstyles of 1,000 women on the streets of Tokyo’s Ginza and Osaka’s Umeda districts since 1987. In 1991, the firm defined “short” hair as above the chin, “medium” as above the collarbone, “semi-long” as above the armpit and “long” as below the armpit.

Taking the “short” and “medium” categories together as “short” and the “semi-long” and “long” categories as “long,” the long-short ratio for women in their 20s turned in favor of “short” in Ginza for the first time in 1997. The diffusion index of coincident economic indicators, published by the Economic Planning Agency (now the Cabinet Office), reached zero in November and December of that year, the first two-month streak of that kind in five and a half years. The economy is thought to be deteriorating when the index drops below 50%. That year also saw a boost in the consumption tax and a series of major bankruptcies, including that of Yamaichi Securities Co., and in 1998 the economy contracted.

Until 1990, over 60% of women in their 20s kept their hair long. But since 1997, the percentage of women wearing long hair has remained under 10%. That figure has been rising again lately, but without the briskness that would signal a return to past levels.
...
How has the length of women’s hair, assuming a linkage with the health of the economy, influenced related businesses? The market for hairstyling products, such as hairsprays and gels, are estimated to have peaked in 1994 at 102.5 billion yen in terms of shipments. Then it showed year-on-year decreases for a while, along with falling per capita spending on styling products. Although about 80% of women continued to use those products, they used them less frequently, switching sometimes to products like waxes for the tips of the hair. The market hit bottom in 2004 at 59 billion yen, ending a “lost decade” for hairstyling products.

Though the longest economic expansion since the end of World War II has continued, the consumer confidence index fell for 10 months running to hit a record low for six years and one month in January, according to the Cabinet Office’s Economy Watchers survey released on Feb. 8. With many observers talking about a downturn, Kao’s data suggest that women’s hair will likely get shorter again.

“Women’s hair may get shorter, but shorter hairstyles will not dominate,” said Kotaro Nuriya, brand manager at Kao’s Premium Hair Care/Hair Make Group. He bases his view on the fact that a growing number of women are pulling their hair together in the back or up, as in the chignon style. Kao began including the chignon in its survey in November 2002, and its use has risen 10% to about 30% among women in their 20s recently.

While it might not be surprising to see that women are forced to make choices on which cosmetics to use when they are low on disposable income, it’s funny how predictable this survey makes it seem. Also, this so-called boom time has still been one of low economic growth and has occurred at a time when wages remained stagnant for Japanese overall and growing economic disparity has been an overarching theme, especially in the past two years. With prices rising now during a period of economic slowdown, I’ll have to be on the watch for more faux-expensive hairstyles. They will go great with the cheap clothes/expensive bag look that’s so popular these days.

PS: I wonder if the beehive was the product of a booming economy?

In my new job I deal a lot with the stock market. Here is one fun fact I learned at work:

Sazae-san is a better indicator of Japanese stock performance than the US

Sazae-san (episodic story of a quirky but happy Japanese family, sort of like the Simpsons but more like Leave it to Beaver in the execution) has been the top-rated animated TV show in Japan for almost 40 years. A Daiwa Institute of Research study showed that there is a 0.86 correlation coefficient between Sazae-san viewership and TOPIX movements. This is even higher than the correlation between TOPIX and the NYSE composite index, even though the US markets are supposed to be one of the main drivers of Tokyo trading.

The explanation for this phenomenon is that people tend to go out on Sundays when the stock market is booming and people have money to spend and stay home to watch Sazae-san when it’s slumping and everyone is broke.

Now, just because there is a correlation, that doesn’t mean that you should break into Video Research (the Japanese ratings house) on Sunday night to plan your Monday morning trades. At any rate, if you want to read this theory in detail it is available in paperback.

The photo gallery I posted about three months ago of a condemned block in the Shinbashi region of Tokyo has been converted into a nifty animated slideshow for the eRenlai.com web magazine, by my good friend Cerise.

I particularly like the moody background music she added, which she claims is based on a phrase from the song I Could Have Danced All Night, but I’m afraid I just still can’t recognize as such.

While you’re there, have a look at some of the other pieces on eRenlai, such as this semi-abstract music video piece by Jose Duarte, not coincidentally one of my flat-mates from my time in Taipei.

Any self-respecting Kanji reader will have noticed that Japanese convenience store workers have been less and less Japanese in the Tokyo area starting some time around 2004 or so (or even earlier?). Now, according to the Nikkei, the convenience store corporate headquarters are bringing in Chinese workers in “full time” positions:

Monday, November 19, 2007

Convenience Stores Boost Foreign Hires To Aid Expansion, Fight Labor Squeeze

TOKYO (Nikkei)—The falling birthrate and overseas expansion plans are spurring major convenience stores to increasingly hire foreigners for full- and part-time positions.

Lawson Inc. (2651) has already accepted nine Chinese and one Vietnamese for full-time positions starting in April next year. It is the first time for the company to hire foreign workers on a full-time basis.

The foreign hires will account for about 10% of all new employees accepted for full-time positions starting in April. The company plans to increase the number to 30, or about 30% of the total new workforce to be hired for jobs starting in April 2009.

This fall, Lawson created a work manual for Chinese part-timers as part of its efforts to increase its ratio of foreign employees amid the falling birthrate. With the number of foreign customers at its outlets also growing, Lawson felt it necessary to hire foreign staff on a regular basis to supervise non-Japanese part-timers. The presence of these employees in supervisory positions will also help the company in its future efforts to open overseas outlets.

So apparently the chains need to hire Chinese managers to help manage their increasingly foreign workforce.

I am tempted to say the Nikkei is really late in covering this (and as usual they don’t really dig very deep), but I haven’t reviewed the whole archives and at least I think I remember them making the point that there are lots of foreign convenience store workers in some New Years series of “make Japan more internationally competitive” editorials.

Some questions come to mind:

1. I would love to see how they train the Chinese workers because they do an amazing job. I’ve only very rarely had communication difficulties with Korean/Chinese convenience store workers.

2. Why no non-Japanese franchise owners? I wouldn’t expect there to be a copy of America’s population of Indian and Korean convenience store owners, but these convenience stores are pretty profitable and you’d think that they’d be tempting for an ambitious foreigner. Wouldn’t at least some of these student-workers feel like going into business for themselves?

3. Since I have come to Tokyo, I have seen a lot of South Asian people working at a lot of different chains, particularly McDonald’s. Is there any reason why the hiring patterns are different?

When meeting Adam and I on my last trip to Tokyo before I came home, for some reason Aceface had suggested we meet at Shinbashi Station. Having never been to that district I went about two hours early and wandered around the backstreets, in which I came upon one of the combination demolition/construction sites that frequent the developing regions of a city. I prepared the photos and meant to post this several weeks ago, but got distracted and left it half done, until the current thread of discussion going on here inspired me to finish it. All 25 photos are after the jump.

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