the story of tunnel vision

3 o'clock in the morning, 18 degrees, feels like 32.
A few things prevent me from sleeping. this prolonged state of adrenaline rushed life, endless worries and anxieties about the design project, and even worse worries and anxieties about the future. There are so many what ifs and only ifs sparkling in my brain that it just refuses to take in too much of reality. Architecture sounds like so remote a dream now that I really think about it.

To comment on a few things.
The MUJI addiction. As a gaijin, an alien, I expect that if there's a something that's nice, it's supposed to be unique and going to the place itself is already an event on its own, like Paris. But in Tokyo, MUJI is on top of every major train station, and to pick up a few essentials is so convenient that it doesn't present itself as an experience at all. It explains that, on the other hand, the most expensive item in Tokyo is experiences. The sex industry works in a similar way; whereas in any other city "getting it" is the ultimate content of the service, in Tokyo, "not getting it", and how to creatively not getting it, seems to be the drive behind so many bizarre inventions and innovations. Food is similar too, whereas a trip to Tsukiji market five o'clcok in the morning and two hours of waiting in a long line may be considered experience, the actual fresh fish is sold in such a straight forward traditional way that they don't really charge any higher than anywhere else; whereas a pot of extremely terrible instant tea in Akihabara, just because it's served by some young girls dressed in maid costumes, is nearly just as expensive. The ultimate reasoning after all these is certainly the land price, which makes doing the same thing in Ginza much more expensive than doing the same thing in some outer suburb, as Place in Japan is so deeply embedded in the collective consciousness.


Another thing is Panadol. A recent box that I bought was hermeneutically sealed in plastic wrapping. As a drug they must be so proud that they take extra precautions for their customers to make sure the tablets inside are safe, but as a product, for a skeptical Chinese like me it has raised more questions than answered. It is plainly a statement that says don't believe in the convenient stores that sell their tablets, as they may be secretly swapped; and what if it was opened before and re-wrapped by some dodgy underground operations? It is like Ebay sellers call their Gucci bags genuine, makes themselves all the more suspicious.


A third thing that caught my attention recently is an survey of girls in Shibuya.
http://neojaponisme.com/2009/08/11/kyabajo-japan/
Apparently the average income for a 20 something girl who works as a Kyabajo is 6 million yen a year, and one in five girls aged between 15 and 22 wanted to participate in this profession, according to a mobile phone survey in 2007 and 2008. Whereas the social/moral implications were discussed in the article, here's an interesting comparison, 6 million yen, that's about 80 thousand Australian dollars, that is the graduate salary of high end jobs in Melbourne, such as engineers and financial analysts. Given the nature of the income they will be largely untaxed, which means their income more than doubles ours as lowly architecture graduates, and we are only talking about averages here. One may argue that as a characteristic of the trade one only has a limited time in the industry, but on the other hand it has the best exposure to potentially very rich clients and contacts in the most intimate ways, the industry being the best thermometer of the economy, these girls can practically predict the future of the financial market.
A proposal is that a girl can gather together four of her colleagues and start an investment account. Assuming they are active for five years, and pool in 3million yen into the pot each per annum, the fund will have a value of 75 million yen, or 1 million Australian dollars. And if one gathers 100 of such girls, or twenty accounts, we will end up with a 20 million AUD fund. To spread this money over real estate and low risk financial instruments, it's not unreasonable to achieve 20% returns per annum. And remember that we are talking about 20 million in plain cash, not on credit swap papers, the return will be much higher with a higher risk profile.
I have no idea why I am still awake doing these calculations, but here's a serious challenge to the traditional morale: say no to quick cash. It turns out that, in this credit crunched world, quick cash, rather than empty promises on future returns, is a much lower risk way to live. So it seems.