Just around 5 years ago, I ditched the Tokyo life to return home.
Now, after 3 years of returning as a work visitor, I've been repeatedly exposed to the neighborhood where I used to reside, from the other side.
Things are changing, and rapidly. For once, believe the Japanese government's hype: this place is globalizing rapidly.
It began with a trickle of things this corner of Tokyo didn't have before: hey, the neighborhood got good Mexican food! Craft beer, whaaaat!
More tellingly, language support exploded. English is now pervasive on trains and menus, and Chinese started to pop up. I've seen precisely one sign for a Chinese language conversation school, which seems like Patient Zero for what will be an epidemic of interest in the language.
But the biggest sign of all - and one that has anecdotally exploded in 2018 specifically - is immigrants. For about the last year or so, observers such as The Economist saw small municipalities sneakily grant visas to foreign students to try to combat depopulation. But in the last few days the government has embraced the idea at the national level and announced new visa types for workers, especially in sub-white-collar careers such as construction. They've given in to the inevitable - if they don't want to shrink as a populace, they have to let in foreigners. I'm sure many tongues were bitten in Tokyo's halls of power.
As I walk around Shinagawa, a Tokyo ward slash locus of Japanese globalization that combines a transit hub, an IT cluster and a stack of tourist-friendly hotels, I see explosions in the things that are immediately visible, like Caucasian and South Asian salarymen - and audible, like Mandarin speakers. (They are so loud.) The legendary convenience stores are seemingly staffed by 0% Japanese. Restaurants already have large numbers of non-Japanese waitstaff.
I'm sure I'm also failing to notice stacks of immigrant professionals who blend in well in both appearance and behavior, like the very well integrated Chinese, Korean, Mongolians and others I worked with when I lived here.
The immigration is good. Residing in Japan will become more accessible for it. The travel guide I wrote 10 years ago endorsed internet cafes as a place to check your Internet, because smartphone roaming was unfathomably expensive and prepaid SIM cards were illegal in Japan. (SIM cards are now airport mainstays, like the rest of the world.) Your waiter will understand your order if your Japanese isn't impeccable. Residential bureaucratic nonsense will be less painful as procedures are standardized, information is translated, and permanent residence becomes achievable for more. Mexican food will finally be edible. Smoking is on the decline and it's no longer inevitable that you come home reeking of ashtray. Working practices are finally being questioned.
Friends of mine are moving to Japan to stay. Funny thing: lack of school shootings is a pull factor.
That accessibility reveals that Tokyo is eminently livable. Housing is available. So is health care. With some exceptions, so is education. The income mark for 'a good life' is well lower than any other major world city.
The immigration will also ruin Japan. It'll get the same stuff as everywhere else: craft beer, Mexican food, Blue Bottle coffee, Tinder. What sets it apart? You no longer miss the creature comforts of home, but it gets harder to find the unique. If you chase authenticity, you'll have to go further and further off the beaten path. But expanding bullet train lines and government ministry initiatives to boost tourism nationwide, not just Tokyo/Osaka/Hiroshima, are working too well. I'll probably deal with lines at a museum 3 hours outside Tokyo next week. Kyoto is overrun with visitors to the point that policymakers are trying to address the problem by way of introducing peak pricing into tourist landmarks. Anecdotally, restaurants seem to struggle to keep up with running at full tilt all the time, which kills the magic of Legendary Magical Japanese Customer Service.
It'll just be another rich city - another Singapore, another London.
In 2008, you would really struggle in Japan without a local guide. In 2013, a guide merely enhanced your visit. In 2018, you simply don't need one - you can get a full, authentic experience, completely without assistance. By the Olympically imposing 2020, this place may be totally overblown. The travel guides that try to live on the bleeding edge - NYT Travel, Conde Nast, Monocle - will inevitably raise the question.
But thank goodness, there's still quirk. In a 7-11 I spotted what is probably beer-flavored sparkling water in the beer section. It branded itself as being good for, among other use cases, meetings. Without missing a beat, my dear friend Chloe remarked:
I really like that America is like “we shouldn’t have beer at meetings” and then WeWork just went 🤷🏻♀️ and added kegs. Japan is like “we should develop a special set of beverages for this situation”God bless this wacky, silly place.