Raw Japan

Small is beautiful

It’s been over two weeks since the final puck was walloped and the last skin-tight lycra suit was hung up at the Vancouver Olympics. 

And while Japan’s poor performance still rankles, the passage of time has given me the chance to find some bright spots in the country’s measly haul of three silver and two bronze medals.

Not least of which is the role played by small Japanese companies in supporting our athletes at a time when corporate behemoths, such as carmaker Nissan Motor and Seibu Holdings, an operator of hotel chains and train systems, have severed ties with teams including baseball and ice hockey squads.

Two of the three women in the team that won silver in the ladies’ pursuit speed skating belong to a skating club formed by tiny surveyor Daichi Corp in Toyama Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo.

Daichi, which employs only 40 people and posted $11 million in sales in the last financial year, spends about $220,000 annually on its skaters. Its president and its founder even took a pay cut to make more funds available for the club, a company spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, Keiichiro Nagashima and Joji Kato, who won silver and bronze medals, respectively, in the men’s 500m speed skating, are members of a team at Nidec Sankyo, a maker of ATM card readers.

A carriage too far

What are the odds, but on the morning after a few Seibu shareholders asked the transport firm to offer male-only rail cars to avoid the stress of possible train groping allegations, I mistakenly walked into the women-only car in Shibuya during the crowded rush hour.

Whoops, I suddenly realized - no blue suits and ties, discarded racing newspapers and pornographic manga, or slumped-over passengers letting neighbours support their weight, and it smelled decidedly better. Something was dreadfully wrong.

In that millisecond it takes to sense your toe in boiling bath water, I implemented immediate retreat operations, trying to moonwalk out of the carriage without creating an international incident.

I had seen Masayuki Suo’s movie “I Just Didn’t Do It” and interviewed the director, who researched cases of false groping accusations, and I knew Japan’s legal system wasn’t where I wanted to take my chances with “innocent until proven guilty”, particularly in a car where I was already persona non grata.

While Yojiro Takita, the Japanese director who won the Academy Award for best foreign film earlier this year, may have made a pre-Oscar franchise of adult movies involving molesters on trains, public opinion on this serious issue is loud and clear: Rail travel in Japan is horrific enough without roaming hands. 

Colour me hopeful

The world’s No.2 economy, mired in what may be its longest and ugliest recession, is not wearing its misfortunes on its sleeve — at least not literally.

Yutaka Sato, a spokesman for Millennium Retailing, which runs the Seibu and Sogo department chains, said Japanese consumers are going green in more ways than one.

“With this year’s spring season offerings, bright colour items are popular, such as yellow and green,” he told me this week.

“We had been seeing a strong trend for black and grey, as it’s been said that during economic hardship people choose dark colours. But this year people are buying bright colour items… we’re seeing strong sales of green spring coats.”

The Japanese, known for jumping on the latest trends, spend billions on themselves in good times and bad, but retailers saw a 10 percent sales slide in January. Some firms like Takashimaya are trying to frontload winter stock and perhaps nothing would say “Spring has come” more than bright colours.

PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters/Yuriko Nakao