After reading these notes, you may think that the author may be an absolute dilletant concerning travelling. Such impression, however, is not correct. In fact I am a frequent traveller, one of the kind all airlines would like to have as a customer. But all my experiences in most parts of the world could not prevent me of making some basic errors in Japan.

Of course the first and major hurden is the difference in spoken and written language. I must apologize not to have learned even the most common expressions in Japanese. But the western style of the skyline of Tokyo, the presence of Japan all over the world, and the power of their economy made it hard to believe that after leaving the airport there is no other langage than Japanese; moreover, it is not given to everybody to get aquainted with the complexity of the Japanese language. Now facing a charming lady in a shop, proved that my optimism was not justified: neither English, French, Italian, German, nor even Russian were of any help. What you can not express by hands, gestures and smiling does not exist. Forget it. But in Tokyo I learned several times how many things can be said and understood by smiling. As an expensive result of such friendly misunderstandings I bought a cheese grater for 50 dollars which here usually costs 75 cents. But the friendly gestures of the saleswoman convinced me that this article must be of special quality, worth the money and easing the cheese grinding for the rest of my life. At home, the test results proofed that the grater is probably suitable to grind granite or as a torturing instrument because of its undestroyable sharpness. My wife and I decided to add this instrument to our collection of useless objects and remainders of basic errors.

You may think that in big department stores the sellers will speak some English. You are wrong. My experience happened in one of the most expensive store in Ginza. The tie department was covering an area which in North America is sufficient for an exhibition of a big car retailer. As far as I could see: nothing but ties in all colors, shapes and prices. It is worth to see it once and must be a similar impression when you stand in Holland before the endless tulip fields. It is unbelievable that in an epoque where in all other countries people separate from their behated ties the best and most expensive sellingsplaces in all Tokyo are dedicated to ties. That means, it must be a good business. It really is.

I soon learned that in professional life there seem to be only two important things: a) the visiting card and b) the tie. You must have both, to be somebody. Probably after some visites, I will be able to recognize, what meaning and feelings my green tie with humorous patterns of bikes evoked in our Japanese partners. I wouldn't wonder if this choice of the tie had more importance for our future cooperation than the projects we were talking about. Of course, this is exaggerated, in fact I was impressed by the efficency and professionality of our partners. What I want to say is that I got the impression that for 90% of all men living in Tokyo it is absolutely compulsory to wear a suit with tie. And all these men dressed in a similar way form a little bit the picture of Tokyo.

I can confirm that the hospitality of the Japanese hosts is overhelming. The only problem was to allow them and us some free time. We were spoiled with excellent food and sake. We were introduced to the dancing of a Geisha. I got the impression that in Japan, work and relaxation belong to each other. There was not the same sharp break between discussion about buisness and general topics, between work and entertainment, as we are used to.

During one business-meeting we learned the slogan of one company 'not to say no, to act immediately because mistakes can be corrected later'. As the greenhorns of Tokyo we did not dare to discuss this thesis, which sounds quite adventurous in our ears. Also religious topics were discussed during official meetings with no hesitation. Only my naive question, why Buddha is very often portraied rather wellfed although he was teaching ascetisme, was followed by a worried silence of our hosts. Later in the evening, - when my back was already hurting tremendously from sitting on the floor - the hosts even raised the question whether some among the 50 to 100 employees that work in huge offices on each of the 11 floors, one sitting aside the other, were hidden unemployees. I dont know, but I think that they are grateful that the ghost of the shareholder value is not yet dominating the company's policy.

To see a little bit of Tokyo on our own, we were completely dependent on taxis. You find them everywhere. It is hard to understand how so many can survive, as the prices are quite high even for Swiss people, and we are well trained to the sound of rapidly moving taxmeters. - The first shock hit me, when I heard that a taxi from the airport to the hotel would cost 300 US-dollars. Immediately I was awake even after 13 hours of flight, surrounded be 400 charming Japanese girl students, all in uniforms chatting vively about their experiences in London.

Later taxi drivers became our mute friendly ghosts. Once the road to the hotel was blocked by roadrepair. To avoid a time and money vasting detour we tried to explain the driver that we prefer to walk the remaining meters. Finally at least he understood that we asked him to stop. We paid the amount shown on the taxmeter. For the first time he talked with us not accepting neither tip nor normal fee. I felt unhappy because obviously he had the wrong impression that we were angry with him, reproching him a mistake. I nowhere met a similar professional pride. I hope he did not give back his taxi licence after this experience. By the way: to give money back without being asked for, seems to be a trend in Tokyo.

In a serious looking leather shop I bought a briefcase, at a reasonable price (especially after I recognized that it was Italian made). Till today I wonder whether he returned some money because of my good accent, my nice face, or because the official price as well as the origin of the briefcase were all faked. The longer I am happy with the briefcase the more I accept the idea that it was my sympathetic face.

Next day we decided to get up early in the morning to visit the fish market. A must for every fish amateur. Variety of seafood and the size of the market are impressiv, the cleanness: an invitation to the next meal with rawfish. Everybody and everything is moving. No square meter wasted. Tokyo has to be fed. Except on Wednesday. Our first attempt to smell the sea was on a Wednesday. At 5.15 a.m. a silent taxi driver dropped us before dark and deserted market halls and drove silently away. We followed some lights where frindly Japanese speaking men were preparing their stands. We learned later, that they did so for Thursday. Fortunately even at such early times we found taxis without problem to bring us back to our cooled out beds.

Tokyo is for me a city of contrasts. Whenever the meetings gave us one or two hours to have a glance at the city, we took a walk through the canyons of skyscrapers. We passed architecture of the last 20 years as well as of the next 20 years. And in between a shrine where old and young people stopped for worship. In our hotel, women in traditional costumes were waiting for their husbands wearing tails. History and future seem to coexist. We have been told, that even young people follow traditional and western living styles, depending on the occasion. Compared with them I think we (Europeans) have lost our history. (Americans never had).

1998/1/22