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Showing posts from May, 1997
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21 Tips For An Asian Invasion A tourist goes to a place and then returns home; but a traveller is at home wherever he may find himself. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky Introduction In winter 1997 I spent a few months touring through Japan, Hong Kong, China and Indonesia. Below you will find my lessons and impressions. Japan Japan, land of contradictions. A place where Zen buddhists ride bullet trains. A nature-worshipping culture with one of the worst environmental records on the planet. A country where the denizens of the Tokyo-Yokohoma sprawl, a gargantuan Blade-Runner-meets-Disneyland urban jumble with more inhabitants than all of Canada, are glued to their TV sets each spring to track the flowering of cherry blossoms across the country. A land where pachinko parlors take in more money each year than the worldwide grosses of all the Hollywood movie studios combined. The safest place in the world for female travellers, where salarymen openly read sickeningly violent comic-boo