The Land od the Rising Yen

the stuff good
businessmen are made of.

DRIVING
     
    The steering-wheel of a motor-car has the
same effect on a modern, civilized man as the smell of blood has on the average
tiger.
    But the Japanese is no average tiger.
He is a suppressed, frustrated and over-teased tiger, forced by sadistic
tiger-tamers to keep smiling and bowing when he feels like growling and
devouring the boss. Sitting behind the steering-wheel he does not feel
malicious; he is not after blood: he simply throws all restrictions and
discipline to the wind. He is not out to harm others; his aim is to cure
himself; to get rid of his worries, humiliating memories, suppressions. While
he drives he is free and anonymous: as soon as he stops, he becomes once again
a meek, conforming member of society.
    Outwardly, all Japanese cars are models of
tidiness and cleanliness. I did not see one single dirty — or even
not-spotlessly-clean — car during my last visit in Japan. A clean car is part
of one’s appearance, a sign of self-respect and respect for others, like
spotless clothing. A car must stop occasionally, and then everyone can see it,
so it must be clean. But so long as it is moving, it is one of many cars in
busy traffic, it is anonymous. It is not a means of communication; not even a
status symbol; it is a cure for taut and tattered nerves.
    Compared with Japanese drivers, the
French are meek, over-cautious and patient, the Italians restrained and
hyper-courteous. Siam is the only place which belongs to the same school of
driving. As an official at the British Embassy in Bangkok (it could easily have
been Toyko) said to me: ‘Back in England, on my first day of leave, I performed
a perfectly decent — nay, courteous — piece of East-Asian driving. I was fined
ten guineas with three guineas costs and my licence was endorsed.’
    Rush-hour traffic in Tokyo has to be seen to be believed. What they do not do in the way of cutting in, crazy
cornering, acrobatic overtaking and unindicated, or even misleading, changes of
direction is not worth doing. With this type of driving one would not survive
five minutes even in Rome, simply because no one would be expecting such feats:
but in Tokyo every driver is expected to perform the physically
impossible; every driver is expected to drive like a criminal lunatic
let out on parole. The only sensible thing they do (or so it seems to a visitor
from Britain) is to drive on the left — although that, too, depends on the .
mood of the moment. You would think they never touch their indicators but they
do, quite often. A flickering left indicator means: I am slowing down. Or: I am
accelerating. Or: I’m turning left. Or: I am turning right. Or: I forgot to
switch it off. Or: you would be ill-advised to pay any attention to indicators.
    It is an old joke — I heard it many
times on my first visit to Tokyo — that the former suicide-torpedo pilots had
become taxi-drivers but were longing to get their old jobs back because they
were so much less dangerous.
    Or it used to be a joke: it is stark
reality today.
     
    I heard about a not infrequent type
of accident in Japan. Two people meet in the street, have a chat and are about
to part. On taking leave, they start bowing and in their zeal for courtesy they
keep shuffling backwards and — still bowing — step off the pavement. As soon as
they touch the road, a car whizzes by, runs them over and kills them.
    Both victim and killer are true
symbols of Japan. The little man walking with deep ceremonious bows into his
grave; and the maniacal motorist who does not wish to kill the man but
certainly wants to kill the ceremonious bow.
     
    A word or two on taxis. They are —
need I say? — the worst offenders, the most respected and feared among all
vehicles. I often noticed taxi-drivers forging ahead in the murderous traffic
like demons out of hell, although they were timid and trembling, dreading every
turn of the wheel. They cannot drive cautiously: there is an esprit
de corps. People, including other taxi-drivers, expect all taxi-drivers to
drive like werewolves — if that be an apt simile — so like werewolves they
drive.
    Japanese taxis differ from others in
some remarkable features:
    (1) Drivers do not expect and in most
cases do not even accept tips. They are too proud.
    (2) Taxis are very cheap — perhaps
the only cheap commodity in Japan.
    (3) You cannot open the door of a
taxi in Japan from the outside: only the driver can open it for you from