Tokyo remains, in the world\u2019s imagination, a place of sophistication and wealth. But with economic revival forever distant, \u2018tourism pollution\u2019 seems the only viable plan <\/p>\n
The yen is low, and everybody is coming to Tokyo. If that sounds familiar, it\u2019s not because I\u2019m being coy or hedging my bets; it is the only information to be found in most English-language coverage of Japan\u2019s capital in the aftermath of the pandemic. I can\u2019t stop reading these accounts. After nine years in the country, you\u2019d think I would have learned enough Japanese to liberate myself from the Anglo-American internet, but I\u2019m afraid I\u2019m stuck with flimsy stories about the tourist uptick for the time being.<\/p>\n
Part of the reason that so much coverage of the city where I live errs on the side of optimism is that Tokyo remains lodged in the postwar American imagination as a place of sophistication and wealth, good taste and cultural authenticity, with a reputation for deferential hospitality. Never mind that this was the calculated effect of bilateral postwar public relations campaigns, a boom in exportable middlebrow culture and fearmongering about Japanese industrial dominance.<\/p>\n