An astute observation that allowing markets to operate without onerous licensing schemes and regulations often has wonderful upsides, allowing quirky and niche interests to survive and even flourish.
A similar situation was true of Melbourne's small bar scene vs Sydney's. Sydney's more expensive/onerous licensing requirements were prohibitive for tiny bars. Whereas Melbourne's licensing was more permissive and less expensive, resulting in an abundance of quirky and interesting venues. Possibly my favourite example was a tiny indy video game bar (it shut down during covid, I think). https://barsk.com.au/skgames/?p=done
This makes it extremely difficult for any new businesses to start, and massively advantages large chain businesses that have the ability to make the initial investment in securing a license, versus small or quirky businesses which just have no chance getting started.
People will drink a beer every set in a show, but they’re less likely to do that with coffee, soda, THC drink, or any other beverage except water, which most bar venues offer for free.
I'd ask you to consider the following thought experiment. If the regulatory barriers are lower to establish a nightlife business establishment without alcohol as an option, and a large number of people want to do activities without alcohol, why do these businesses not exist in significant numbers?
It's certainly not a novel concept to open a cafe or a late night board game location. If they were sustainable businesses economically, which barriers currently exist that prevent them from being present in cities to the same extent as bars?
I have no interest in a second coke or a third coffee. I can drink tea for days, but if it feels pricey I probably only have one or two. Real estate is expensive if that's your customer profile
In addition, alcohol lowers the bar for entertainment. Comedy, music, dancing, none of it has to be as good to satisfy if people are at least a bit tipsy, which makes the performers happier, and the customers happier.
Wish it weren't so (I don't drink alcohol, personally), but that's the economics of it.
What Japan does different is that it has sensible zoning laws that are designed around foot traffic rather than car traffic. Why don't you have small shops like this in the U.S.? Because of minimum parking space requirements for cars.
I would cross out "even" in that sentence, and then step back and admire it. This is one of the best things about Japan. For some bizarre reason there is an implicit assumption (at least in many places in Europe, especially Central Europe) that 12m2 of public shared city space should be reserved for your metal box on wheels and that it's somehow a right.
In comparison, even here in Europe there are tight rows of cars in almost every street, reducing space for greenery, eating up sidewalks, making street crossing dangerous and sometimes even making the street hard to navigate for the cars themselves, not to mention making quick stops for taxi drivers or food & grocery delivery cars almost impossible.
You have my sympathy.
An example is where I'm from, in Canada. Licensing for cars is easy. Business licenses are easy enough, if they're non-physical.
But opening a bar means at least $50k of licenses/compliance costs. To have a bar, you need to serve food. To serve food, there's minimum requirements for all sorts of things from electrical to ventilation to plumbing. So you need to apply to the city to do a study and plebiscite in the neighborhood to determine no one objects to your bar. You need to have an engineer sign off on your design and the fire department to sign off on that. Liquor license is $$$.
And that's before even bringing up the cost of the lease (1 year rent as deposit) or the actual construction costs (last I checked, over $400 per square foot).
There’s little need for efficient allocation of essentially infinite space outside of urban areas constrained by geological features. And in those places parking comes at a premium too even in Western countries.
Is that why highways that are 26 lanes wide are needed?
And this is how you end up with excellent public transport, no SUVs, and like the lowest traffic death rate in the world.
This is not true. In a big city there are plenty of locations without parking or rely on public street parking. The issues are the onerous zoning, licensing and insurance requirements.
(semi-rhetorical, but that's exactly the discussion we're having here, whether people should be allowed a backyard coffee shop)
> An astute observation that allowing markets to operate without onerous licensing schemes and regulations often has wonderful upsides
I suspect you are reading too much into this line from the article. Japan is a country full of bureaucratic regulations to the extent that it's often stifling -- especially compared to the US.
The overall lowered barrier to entry is largely a result of zoning laws differences between Japan and the US. In the US, zoning laws are largely permissive (you CAN build this here) where zoning laws in Japan are restrictive (you CANNOT build this here). This leads to huge differences in urban planning where Japan favours mixed-used development whereas the US has huge swaths of contiguous blocks separating residential and commercial zones.
Add to that, the cost of visibility is higher in the US because transportation is already car-centric. Small shops thrive on pedestrian traffic, which there is little of in the US outside core urban environments. NIMBY culture has killed much of urban diversity in America.
I see what you mean about the potential for abuse - maybe Big Money would buy all the houses and run small businesses from them? But regulations or taxes could be used to dissuade them. Theoretically, anyways.
I wondered if Japan does anything along those lines to avoid the problems you mentioned, but google ain't what it used to be and I wasn't able to find specifics.
The basics of Japan's Land use rules in english (only 8 pages; mostly tables/pictures and very straightforward): https://www.mlit.go.jp/common/001050453.pdf
- In the "Control of Building Use by Land Use Zones" you can see how even the most exclusive of zoning enables "Houses with other small scale function", Clinics, Schools or stores with very small footprints.
- Structures are restricted by the shape, shadow, and floor area.
- No mention of "single-family" housing.
A map (of Tokyo) overlaying the gradient of zoning from least to most permissive. You can see how the up-zoning follows the major roads: https://tokyochizu.github.io/zoning.html
https://catalog.data.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/dataset/t000008d00000...
It's a quarto site so if you navigate to the repository of the github page you can see the python code used to generate the map/choropleth.
This isn't actually possible because owning a lot of houses is not a good business. That's why almost all landlords are small-time and not corporate. Houses are depreciating assets, so if you own more of them it's just more chances you'll have to pay for a roof replacement.
In particular in Japan, houses are worth less than nothing and you may have to pay to demolish yours if you sell it! (Less true than it used to be because construction quality has gotten a lot better.)
> owning a lot of houses is not a good business
Office buildings are generally larger, and the tenants are more professional and more likely to pay for maintenance themselves.
.. which sit on top of the ultimate appreciating asset: land.
> That's why almost all landlords are small-time and not corporate.
https://wustllawreview.org/2023/12/27/corporate-consolidatio...
"Ownership of the nation’s rental housing stock is in transition. The approximately twenty million rental properties in the United States, and fifty million rental units within those properties, have been steadily shifting from individual to corporate hands".
Rent is profitable and the housing shortage is difficult to solve.
> Rent is profitable and the housing shortage is difficult to solve.
If a home is being rented out it's not contributing to the housing shortage though.
That said I have to disagree that the housing shortage is difficult to solve, at least in a technical sense. It's due almost entirely to poor urban planning and infrastructure management. The problem is entirely political.
Then again, political issues can be some of the most difficult to make progress on so perhaps I agree after all.
I would imagine that a great deal of Tokyo's megalopolis fits nicely in the medium impact zone, allowing housing, small scale manufacturing and commerce to mingle in an organic way.
It's the small, local guy who with low margins who is not going to thrive in an environment where it's very difficult to get past all the hurdles to even start up.
> They have restaurants across the world, including in very tricky places like Venice, Italy.
(Btw, I like US McDonalds better than Japan's, but maybe I'm the only one that thinks this.)
This is a semi controversial opinion so, it’s interesting you feel the same way!
It is a somewhat hot topic in Australia, where we've always called it Maccas, but somehow Maccies has entered the lexicon here too.
> Maccies is better here as a rule.
Also, US has a mango pineapple smoothie that's really good. I refuse to look up how much sugar is in it.
After the war Germany had lost quite a lot of businesses, infrastructure, industry and farming. Also obviously lots of manpower. Produce was scarce and inflation was extremely high, so it was actually quite difficult to purchase anything even though people had money. the Allied Forces introduced price control on almost all essential good in order to stop inflation. That obviously did not work at all and most goods were actually traded in the black market, so you could actually buy bread by paying with cigarettes.
A German economist, Ludwig Erhardt advised to remove all price and legal controls and to replace the old mark by a new one, but the Allied Forces only agreed to the latest, so a new currency was introduced, the Deutsche Mark, replacing the old Reichsmark. That had no effect whatsoever. However, Mr. Erhardt, from his position as Director of Economic Administration, decided unilaterally to remove of the price fixing and other regulations. And literally overnight, German streets filled with sudden and unplanned pop up markets, everyone started to sell anything they didn't need, just by the street or from their front yard.
In 1949 Erhardt became Minister of Economy for 14 years, and later, in 1963, Chancellor.
When I lived in New York City (before COVID), I saw many local businesses get priced out of my neighborhood, only to be replaced by high-margin chains like Starbucks/H&M/etc. They were the only ones who could afford the rent!
Re 'more permissive and less expensive' - I think there was a time (20 years ago?) when Melbourne city would give a license basically anyone. There were bars in old convenience stores, out the back of record stores & barbers. Just so much fun.
If anything Japan is the opposite.
If you are in Kyoto, I recommend a similar style bar called Brown Sugar. They tend to have these types of names, for example, in Sapporo there is one called Jim Crow. [0] However, if in Sapporo, I recommend the half note. [1] Most bars and restaurants for that matter will not serve me because I do not speak Japanese, so they say. If I wanted a drink I would stick to Karaoke and jazz bars. I made some friends in Kyoto who were finishing their 4th year studying engineering at University of Kyoto who were from Africa -- these kids are African royalty. They spoke perfect fluent Japanese and they couldn't get access into bars that would let me in. So the names are fitting and likely they know exactly what they mean.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=sapporo+japan+bar+jim+crow
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=sapporo+japan+piano+ba+half+...
Anyway, in the interview, he talked about places that sound like what you are describing in the first paragraph but he called them kissas.
[0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rich-roll-podcast/...
Here in Australia, we have an incredibly robust system of Public Healthcare, just like japan, but taking financial risks is downright suicidal with our house prices.
Izakaya I would associate more with drinking and small plates of food, but not necessarily a catch-all for bars.
I think Australia and Japan have a surprisingly symbiotic cafe culture that's betting blurred together.
I think it's the only place I've been in my life where the coffee actually tastes like the tasting notes say it does. Even when they say "mojito", which was surprising.
That said, I’m guessing the “jazz izakaya” that gp mentioned would probably just be called a bar or izakaya, possibly with a thematic adjective added.
Basically in Japan Japanese words feel retro or else appropriate for personal and family life, while English words feel clean and modern/corporate/business-y.
So a Japanese word like kissaten gives the impression of somewhere from the 60s that's full of old people and you can't breathe because of all the cigarette smoke. But it also specifically means a coffee shop and not a bar I think, so there wouldn't be alcohol.
I’ve run into this a few times. And half of those times I was able to still get in by showing them a politely written message on the translate app saying that I am not going to require high maintenance and I can just use the translate app to communicate. And each time that happened, they were very generous hosts and both I and, it seems them, had a great time.
Let's imagine we discuss a tiny bar in New-York or Paris that wouldn't let asian or black people in. I doubt the discussion would be only about how this place is nice and cosy and everyone that could possibly get in should just try it.
It's like Japanese people have a free pass to be a*holes, but only them, because you know, Japan ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> Most bars and restaurants for that matter will not serve me because I do not speak Japanese, so they say.
On our Friday stand-ups we generally chat for a few minutes about what we're up to for the weekend, and my update is usually something along the lines of "I'm going to go outside and let New York happen to me". I'm feeling that wonder less and less here in the city as all the quirky, niche things have been driven out due to rent increases and are being replaced by their private equity owned, multi-national versions. But the ability of the city to spark wonder certainly exists in our environment here more than in most in the US since we navigate by foot and not typically by car.
I'd prefer optimizing for wonder than most other things.
Edit: Actually there used to be a Japanese cafe in my neighborhood called "House of Small Wonder", which was attached to an omakase spot. They had a big tree growing out of the middle of it, going up out the roof, with space for maybe 15 or less. It's now a Glossier makeup store.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_kissa
For the interested, Chris Broad (Abroad in Japan) interviewed the owner of such an establishment (Basie) located in Ichinoseki: https://youtube.com/watch?v=1-9RMSbl_Uo
> (There’s one that’s chock-full of Star Wars memorabilia, for example.)
I'd definitely like to know where this one is.
Tavern Pachimon Wars in Osaka seems like it fits the description
That made me cringe a bit. The whole look of the place is deliberate. I mean, somebody put in a lot of effort to make it look just that way. Notice how every inch of it is spotless and nothing could be said to be out of place.
>And the coffee was pretty good, too.
i wouldn't describe it as deliberate, but rather accepted and embraced. yes they're choosing to not update it and modernize and they like they way it looks, but its not like they took a clean modern space and deliberately aged it to look this way
> I’m not sure why it is that this obviously aging little structure doesn’t feel ugly or rundown.
as an aside, i feel it doesnt look ugly and rundown because it's largely natural materials and colors. it's normal for things in nature to look this way.
> It’s such a curious, almost uncanny, feeling to enter one of these places. The inside feels much bigger and grander than the outside.
It makes sense for people to have an innate desire to be in places that are, you know, good for people to be in. The most obvious way to tell if a place is good for you is if it carries evidence that it has historically been good to other people.
Maybe we have some subsconcious processing that picks up on signs of human activity. That means wear and tear, built things, modifications. The way humans leave their mark on an environment when they spent time on it. All of that spent time is like accumulated votes that "yup, this is a good human place."
At the same time, we don't want to find ourselves hanging out in a dumping ground, slag heap, or other environment that humans have left their mark in by expoiting it. That's not a good place to be, because it's not just used, it's used up. So what we want to look for is not just signs of human activity (which a landfill has in spades), but a certain kind of caring activity. Marks in the space that seem to have been done to leave it more appealing to be in.
I think that's what the author is picking up on here. These tiny, aged spaces have a deep accumulation of caring attention. They feel bigger than they are because we pick up on that huge information density of all of the past people that have left their mark on a place. The place isn't large spatially, but it's large in time.
It's the exact opposite of how walking into a giant mall or corporate office can still feel claustrophobic because there's nothing—no things—there, no sense of history or connection to any lived experience.
Now, you could do that with any space, like a machine shop. But the "good human place"-ness of the shop will depend on the forces that shape that shop. If all the forces are purely commercial, you're going to end up with something that works commercially, but might not be so human-friendly. I think the disconnect between bland American commercial spaces and more intimate Japanese ones is the relationship of the owner-proprietor to commercialism.
In the US, I have been in a few cafes where I had to step back outside to check if I had accidentally walked into someone's living room. Same for hostels; the best ones feel like you're in someone's home. Their layout was not driven by commercial interest, but by a person just wanting to feel cozy. The space is them.
Whereas a Starbucks isn't a person, it's a chemical factory. If the music is too loud, it doesn't matter if I complain; the factory workers (supposedly) can't control the music. If the air is too cold, it doesn't matter if I'm shivering; the factory workers are paid to make coffee, not care about my discomfort. Our human connection to the space is irrelevant to the manufacturing and selling of chemical stimulants.
Much of this is building codes. There are simply many things you can't do in an American business even if you want to, and not for bad reasons either, but eg electric, fire safety, ADA, employee safety rules are totally different than Japan and force you to have much larger and plainer spaces.
The big one that kills everything is parking minimums.
In the US our zoning is done very restrictively: in this place you can build a detached single family home with this kind of set back and up to this height. In this spot you can build low density commercial. Etc you can ONLY build what the zoning board says. Then there are also complications from HUD, like they dont give FHA loans for condos or if developments have straight roads.
In japan the national government has a zoning policy. The most common zoning is “light industrial”. But if you have a zoning policy, you can build anything at that level or below. So in light industrial you can build a coffee shop, or a house or an apartment or a machine shop.
But they still manage to keep the beautiful simplicity of life that makes their culture one of the world's richest.
Conformity is huge, there was even a row a few years ago when a school demanded to inspect girls underwear and make sure they're wearing the correct colored panties. Asking children to dye their hair black or straighten it is also not unheard of.
Shukumōkyosei literally means “to shrink and correct hair”. It’s a permanent straightening treatment that removes 70 to 90% of curls, volume, and frizz by chemically restructuring hair bonds.
My theory is, the level of rules, bureaucracy, and society pressure is why innovation and having children is just too hard. It's very hard to find the space live, but the rules based high pressure society is all they know since the end of WW2.
If you're interested, have a read about the Zen period, and the way it sort of liberated society. It's faced challenges since the Kamakura period (it's golden age) but it was a fascinating period of brilliant art, innovation and reform.
I hope what I said doesn't come across as negative either. Like I said, it's a wonderful place and fascinating culture, it truly is, but it's as I said, not free nor is it at all simple.
(The next obvious question is always “why are you still there?” and the answer is because it’s a great place to work.)
In the early 20th century the trick in the "Ölcafé" (Beer Café) was to have a sandwich that _no one_ ate that you ordered with your beer and this then gets sent back and forth between customers and the cafe :)
There just so many examples like the ones mentioned in the article. When I lived in Chiang Mai I'd just take my bike to any direction and always find something - be it a small noodle cart or a cafe someone opened up in their back yard or a small bar right under an abandoned hotel.
It's incredible how many invisible effects viability of small businesses have on a society.
For example, consider the vines that are growing on that shed. Is that dirty? Should we clean them to get a pristine shed? Yes, you have to sweep the floor everyday to clean the dust, but should you cut down that small plant growing between the cracks of your building? Or the vines overtaking the roof? I think if you answers no to this, then you understand that sense of aesthetics.
For some people tho, they think its a bad thing (1), which I simply don't understand? I don't understand how people can willingly spend every couple of hours every week to trim their lawn to a pristine, perfect cube of grass. Is this beautiful? I think not. In my apartment, I have trees growing from the cracks of the building, and I think that's beautiful.
I don't know how they do it, it is not simply just being clean. I think parts of it is "allowing nature to take its course" which gives a typical structure depth and age.
1. https://www.reddit.com/r/landscaping/comments/vs1n0n/help_wh...
That’s not what you should be worrying about.
> I have trees growing from the cracks of the building, and I think that's beautiful.
It probably is beautiful. It may also be inconvenient or outright dangerous. As the trees continue to grow and expand the cracks, the building’s structure becomes ever more compromised. Maybe the cracks will expand and more rain will come in, causing mold and making your home less effective at keeping its temperature. Or maybe they’ll expand in a way that a whole wall will fall off.
Seeing plants sprouting from the ground in cities is fun and aesthetically pleasing, I agree. But it is not always safe to let them keep growing.
If we were talking about public infra where thousands will die if a structure fails prematurely, then sure, let's be careful about vines. But if a private land owner wishes to grow vines (or allow vines to grow) on their private building, I think it's fine.
I’m not talking about the building in the article, or even Japan specifically, but addressing the general point of trees and other growths which cause literal cracks and compromise structural integrity.
> If we were talking about public infra where thousands will die if a structure fails prematurely
That is exactly what I’m talking about. Well, maybe not thousands, even a four story building with a compromised structure can lead to unnecessary deaths.
Structural integrity or uniformity (or some other qualitative)? Yes, occasionally there is an actual structural problem (MSME here) but far, far more often things are torn down or discarded when a slight repair would suffice (other than the preference).
on what timescale though? and in an invisible way?
I believe buildings are seen as more temporary in japan than in the west; maybe point at which the damage is excessive would outlive the building?
Depends on how extensive the growth is and how structurally stable the thing is in the first place. But expect major problems on the decades-timescale.
> "and in an invisible way?"
Yes. This is the main problem with allowing unconstrained plant growth near/in/under structures - the degree of structural compromise is hard to assess (especially without spending a lot of $$$), and failure can be sudden. You're not gonna get as much warning as you'd want.
In the US it's a popular look to have vines growing against brick walls. They're beautiful but often hazardous for structural safety, especially if not proactively maintained and constantly monitored (which is $$$!)
[edit] I think overall the focus on the "pleasantly ramshackle" aesthetics of the shack misses the forest for the trees. There's a lot of daylight between "permit small businesses in possibly unsafe structures" and "western status quo norms for business licensure".
I think something Japan gets done really well is making it easy and inexpensive to run businesses, especially hobby businesses. There are a ton of policies that encourage this outcome, and we can and should adopt entire rafts of them without changing existing regs about the physical structural stability of said businesses ;)
Short enough to kill you or your direct descendants. These things can look fine for years and then collapse in one day.
> and in an invisible way?
Makes no difference how visible it is if you don’t understand the risk and do nothing until something happens. And the longer you wait, the harder it will be to remedy.
> I believe buildings are seen as more temporary in japan than in the west
I’m not talking about Japan, I’m addressing the general point.
They have this word called koselig that we don't have in English that means cozy plus a lot more things, and these Japanese coffee shops really do embody that word.
Coming from SF, a couple of thoughts came to mind: first: wow these bikes have been sitting here for a long time. And second: this must be a _really_ safe place, because in SF, a bike parked outside won't last a day or two.
Funny thing is: the area didn't look rundown or anything. It was clean and well maintained. Except for the bikes in vines.
I once went out of town for two weeks figuring much the same and came back to a freshly cut lawn and a five-day-old notice from the town posted at my door stating that I had three days to trim the lawn or they'd do it for $300.
I do ours because our lawn is 70% tumbleweeds (kochia) and cutting it before any of it can go to seed increases the chance that one day it will be only 30% kochia.
> I don't understand how people can willingly spend every couple of hours every week to trim their lawn to a pristine, perfect cube of grass.
The funny thing is that you will fine plenty of Western-style gardens in Japan too: perfectly trimmed, symmetrical, sometime even next to Japanese garden. Japanese aristocrats quite love this back in the day.
And I dont think that part of Japan is pretty when I visited it. I understand that its not all perfect, of course.
Both are very beautiful to me, because I haven never seen either of them.
[1] The Essential Pruning Companion by John Malins
For one reason or another, the Japanese school of story-telling has a pretty prominent streak of this type of low-stakes, downtempo "slice of life" premise like this, that I find very satisfying. The director Hirokazu Koreeda has made many films of this type as well. For a while my wife and I would alternate watching Spanish films by Pedro Almodóvar and Koreeda on movie night, working through both catalogs, which somehow made a lot of sense together.
It’s far from exclusive to Hacker News. In fact, it doesn’t seem to be that prevalent here, as when it’s mentioned it at least tends to be in relevant context. Reddit, Tumblr, Imgur, and plenty of other communities both on and offline have an appreciation for Japanese culture.
> although I've come to realize that it's mostly Americans holding up an example of everything they feel they lack domestically, and in that sense isn't so much about Japan as it is about America
Also not related to America at all. It’s just as common in Europe and western countries in general. Generation probably plays a role. Find anyone who had their mind blown by an anime at a formative age, and you’ll find someone who to this day is likely to have some degree of fascination with Japan.
I'm honestly convinced it's a bit more prevalent in America, and I've explored this in earnest conversations with American friends. I don't mean to villify it either, as it makes a certain amount of sense. Their take is roughly that Japan is the benchmark case for a sufficiently alternative/different culture from an American POV and thus invites comparison. As in, yes, you could also cite equivalent examples in Europe (say, cozy hole-in-the-wall cafés in 200 year old structures with vines hanging off of them ...), but since the cultural overlap is much larger (or presumed to be), it's less striking. To quote one friend, "if you're going to make the comparison, why not go for the maximum you can?"
Add the surplus in shared history, the far greater exposure to Japanese products (e.g. car brands) inviting more interest, and so on.
Sure, you can find manga/anime fand pining for that Japanese lifestyle also in Europe, and Europeans are certainly no strangers to orientalism through the ages. But the incidence of finding "look at how the Japanese are doing it differently" in random mainstream media is a lot higher in US publications. And it's also largely been US-based consulting companies and/or organizations that have taken the hoishin and the kaizen and what not global in corporate culture and particularly in tech.
There’s a ridiculous number of Japan-centric things that make it to the front page compared to any other culture. Tech has always had a Japan obsession.
But is there a ridiculous number of Japan-centric things that make it to the front page compared to any other community? Are Japan-centric things discussed on HN more than Reddit, Tumblr, Imgur? Because that was my point; Japan is popular in general, not just popular on HN to the point it’s even worth singling out.
I do not care about other communities. I am discussing HN and the tech community herein and the phenomenon that occurs with Japan worship here.
But attaching the Japan label suddenly makes it more appealing as it invokes many distorted (and misinformed) aspects of Japan.
It's the same annoying vibe that Koreans get when they come across a foreigner who is into Kpop. Most Koreans do not care for Kpop as do most Japanese do not care for Anime.
Yet these exports create a parasocial relationship with a foreign country that when broken turn them into passive aggressive bigots.
The more you covet the harsher the rejection. Japanese and Korean society simply has no place for outsiders. Having a Japanese passport doesn't make you Japanese as it will not change your ancestral history, having your gender changed on your drivers license doesn't change the biological history and so on.
I think you're mostly right on the money on that, but I'll also say it doesn't have to be all fetishization. A lot of US Americans legitimately do live in places where you don't have access to cozy nightlife like that because it's not what the market provides, and if it's to your tastes, I can understand desiring it.
I lived and worked in South Korea for a number of years, and I really enjoyed some of the laid-back wine bars and whiskey bars there, made for working-age couples and small groups in their 20s to lounge around and talk with a drink. That kind of atmosphere is very commonly available there, but fairly hard to find in Berlin (where I live now), where bars more typically are tacky, sticky, and play terrible music so loud you have to yell at each other. I also miss the late-night coffeeshops a lot, where I spent many a night with the laptop doing FOSS stuff - your typical Berlin café closes no later than 7pm. There are exceptions to these rules but the sort of places I like are generally a lot harder to find.
Note I e.g. get the same opinion from Catalan friends in & about Berlin, who really miss their chill bars and street-side places from back home in Barcelona and similar. So this is again more of a "I like this foreign thing I can't have here as much" than it is about Japan.
I'm not so sure. Or, rather, reasons can differ. I'm not into anime at all, but every time I visit Japan (was just there in April, after not having visited since 2017), I am constantly finding little things and thinking "it's a shame we can't have that sort of thing in the US".
I'm generally positive on the concept of government regulation, but the US & US state governments tend to over-regulate so many things, like zoning and alcohol licensing (as mentioned in the article). Culture plays a part too, certainly.
On the arthouse circuit, I think he's best known for After Life, which is a bit more challenging (honestly: I found it a bit dull) but worth biting into.
Do you know that pang of melancholic joy-and-regret you feel after you've had a wonderful day and you know no matter how much you and the others involved try, you can probably never quite recreate that magic a second time? Grateful for the memory you'll always have, yet at the same time sad? That's how his movies feel to me, where I'm often both happy and sad I've seen them. It's pretty damn great when a movie can do that.
So maybe I would enjoy his other movies, if you liked them!
I almost opened a cafe/bar a couple years back, I even had a reservation deposit on a location, had the money to renovate it, had money put aside for it to fully fund the rent and utilities and staff for a year, but in the end I scrapped the idea because of the bureaucracy.
I needed: a hospitality trade license , a certificate from the inspectors for food hygiene and public health, a certificate for fire/gas/electrical safety, registration with the customs office, staff needed to do training for food handling, and I needed to register the kitchen with the regional hygiene office. It's not unreasonable, but it's a lot of bureaucracy for something I wanted to do as a fun side project
That said, there are small places all over. this one might be relatively famous. It's next to a train track so not "quiet" but it's also in busy Tokyo.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FMY9QwWyiibWn9CcA
Another thing there are lots of are small restaurants that hold 5-12 people. There are of course the famous bars in Golden Gai and a few other places but there really are 1000s of these places if you know where to look if you're language skills are up for it. Often there is person running the "bar" but they have a menu of food they'll cook for you. Things like grilled fish, pork salad, omelette rice, etc... Basically Japanese home cooking. Lots of people become regulars at a place and it's like their 2nd home.
If you watched Odd Taxi, they hang out at a place like this.
There's one I was introduced to recently right here (https://maps.app.goo.gl/Tgsfou4HMbKiiD3L8). It's not going to be around much longer because it's run by a 96yr old lady who lives there. She doesn't speak any English. She ran it with her husband until he passed away. IIRC she's been there 57yrs
Another, I was introduced to bar recently, not far from the coffee place above. I found it interesting in particular because it was only open weekdays from 5pm to 10:30 on weekdays. Not open on weekends. I haven't asked if that brings in enough or if the person has other sources of income. I'll ask next time I visit. But 5.5 hours a day, 5 days a week + prep sound nice.
Another thing I find appealing about these small bar/restaurants/snacks, they seem like not a bad life. Working a USA style sports bar in the USA or beer restaurant like in Germany or regular restaurant with 10+ tables seems like a not so interesting job. Just running from table to table taking orders, carrying orders, being "busy". These Japanese places are a place to socialize and in particular to socialize with the owner so the owner generally has a nice time as well.
Several things help prevent it from feeling run down: 1) the music, 2) the fact that it's probably immaculate: no dust or dirt anywhere, 3) the rustic surfaces have a patina, but no physical degradation (rust/rot), and 4) it's well lit.
In a jazz cafe, I assume the music plays low most of the time and so it probably doesn't matter much.
But besides that, those speakers are placed terribly for stereo imaging. Even tucked in the cubby, why place them with the drivers together rather than apart? And those speakers appear to be dreadful anyway. A single 12" driver in a vented / untuned baffle with no midrange or tweeter elements?
So this is definitely set up for aesthetic, not sound quality.
"Now that I think about it, there was nothing in this shop that would tell you it isn’t still, say, 1960."
I'd go for 1980s based on the amplifier, turntable and speakers. It would be a radiogram, probably valve based, in actual 1960s. Nice though.
If you sum the stereo channels into mono then feeback present but inverted on each channel is cancelled out and the problem goes away like magic.
This seems to be lost knowledge but it's how old school sound systems[1] were able to have their turntables basically on top of a collection of speakers without feedback.
Many mixers back in the day, from people like Pioneer, used to have a mono/stereo switch for this purpose.
It's very easy to demonstrate this by placing a stylus on a stopped record, then tapping the record surface directly
The speakers are right next to each other so it's not like you're loosing stereo image.
1. I'm talking old school Jamaican and UK Sound Systems here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_system_(Jamaican)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44358442
(There could be another amplifier somewhere out of view.)
mostly forgot about it until reading this article because there is a lot to take in while visiting Japan from the US
Many restaurants and bars are small mom-and-pop places that gain clientele through neighborhood word-of-mouth, and don't invest in advertising.
Life Where I'm From, on zoning: https://youtu.be/wfm2xCKOCNk
Not Just Bikes, narrow streets: https://youtu.be/jlwQ2Y4By0U
When you're able to operate a place like that, your fixed costs (i.e. rent) are drastically lower and you are able to sell at lower prices because of it. With more housing, your employees don't need high wages to afford a basic apartment.
Issues like that, while perhaps sensible to someone, are barriers toward economic prosperity.
But a new oil change location? Approved, insured, permitted in 5 minutes. Construction done in 2 months.
We're really hellbent on making anything but the new highway to the new Wal-Mart and $60 Starbucks dinner (paid over time of course) for the kids on the way to soccer practice in the Jeep Wagoner illegal.
Housing is the biggest expenditure for people in America and many parts of the world. Housing is cheap is Japan so people can get by on much less.
That's not what its downstream from, that's restating the same thing in financial terms. What it's actually downstream from is that Japan is a fully urbanized society. The reason why Americans cannot implement this is because houses are their little homesteads and castles, Fukuyama used the term "suburban villager" for this attitude (also prevalent in Greece and Eastern Europe etc.)
If you operate a rental in any area outside of the core of the major cities, you are in the business of charging a huge monthly premium over a property value that is rapidly depreciating to zero. This is fundamentally different than the US.
That said, there are probably 0 employees and long hours involved.
It also doesn't have to be your primary source of income. If you can run it from a structure like this you could just operate a cocktail bar on the weekends. Even in the US I know of a small pizza place that offers takeout only on a few days each month and it's operated out of the owners mom's kitchen. Not sure how legal that is and turning that inti a sit-down place would certainly be an issue.
I hate to even sound like this, I hate the cynicism in my comment, and maybe the answer is to actually just do it and not declare premature defeat, but having watched how other initiatives in my own local area have gone I can't help but feel that we don't have the real secret weapon that works for places like Japan, and makes stuff like Star Trek work outside of all the fancy tech, and that's sufficiently advanced culture to not immediately race this all to the bottom.
The locality will plan where their high-rise/commercial district is, houses on side-streets are can all be triplexes with an option for a low-impact business as in the article, and secondary streets have dedicated businesses.
As an area's population grows the federal zoning allows that bigger buildings can be built - small apartment buildings instead of houses, etc. The locals can't pull-up the ladder behind them and say "no new houses", locking out young people and renters and transplants.
I assume that the problem in the US is more regulatory capture than culture. Starbucks doesn't want you to be able to sell coffee to your neighbors. And your neighbors don't want more housing to be built, because it might affect their home values. I've seen how home owners adamantly oppose these things.
And for decades we've been left with most new housing being built by developers as cheap as possible - clear cutting some space on the outskirts of town and throwing together cookie cutter houses, car dependent and without much of anywhere nearby to socialize. It's a shame that in a country of 330+ million people there's not more variance.
On and on up the chain I could go, turning this comment into a wall of text as we work our way up the cause and effect ladder until we ultimately arrive at the things a society values, aka its culture. Its ultimately all downstream of a society and culture that either is constantly looking for a loophole to grab whatever profit there is in a desperate race to the bottom, winner-takes-all struggle, or a society that prizes something different.
Several years ago our next door neighbor applied for a zoning variance to allow their home to be used as an AirBNB. All was fine for the first month or two, then a graduation party booked it, 20 vehicles show up and parked on all the neighbors yards, loud party late into the night, etc.
All of this was reported for noise violations, parking violations, etc. to both the police and to AirBNB. Neither took any action.
Months later a college fraternity booked this AirBNB for the entire summer. All of the above plus nightly backyard ragers going until 2 AM. Neither the police nor AirBNB did a damn thing about it. We reached out to zoning to see if we could protest the variance after the fact and told no, the only way for the variance to be revoked would be for the police to make so many calls to the house that it is deemed a public nuisance. Except the police won’t show for nuisance calls and even if they did it would take years of this for a hearing to be held which may or may not decide on our favor.
So… as much as I love the idea of the Japanese civic style. I would never give up strict zoning in America for it. People suck.
Japan has a set of regulations for airbnb rentals [0], depending on the size of the living space, whether it is owner-occupied, or is listed for more than half a year. There are sometimes inspections. Neighbors are notified and their complaints are taken seriously. Enforcement has been much more strict since 2018. Something like you mentioned would result in the airbnb license being revoked.
Airbnb spends a lot of money lobbying politicians in the US not to do such things, millions just at the federal level [0].
[0] https://mailmate.jp/blog/japan-airbnb-law
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/airbnb-inc/summary?id=D0000...
I don't know the story behind the structure, but it was a re-purposed storage shed [2] that someone was either subletting or owned outright. Probably the former -- the area is not remote, and is surrounded by new housing. Most likely is that some landowner is making a little bit of cash by renting out the space, and the business owner is exploiting the niche of having a cheap property so near to Nijo castle (a tourist black zone in Kyoto).
Setting aside the aesthetics, the most "Japan" thing about this is that it's possible at all to get a license to run a food establishment, electricity service, etc. in such a marginal space. It would never be allowed in the US.
Secondarily, leaseholder rights in Japan are pretty different than in other parts of the world. It's fairly common, even in major cities, to find underdeveloped, tiny little plots of land where there's a lessee who has a ~perpetual right to the space, independent of the "owner". Landowners will buy and sell the underlying rights to the rental cashflow, almost like a long-term bond, with no hope for redevelopment, and the lessee can independently sell the rental rights [3]. Again, I don't know if that's what is going on here, but it wouldn't surprise me. These kind of situations make it feasible for a business owner to invest in creating a business in what is essentially a potting shed -- one of the major risks would be that no one rationally would want to keep that old building in place in an area of Kyoto that could be more fully developed. But as you can see, this building is completely surrounded by new construction, and has been for many years.
[1] It's here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/3KtWnTAkmatMqN9b6
[2] I could be wrong about this part. The roof is tiled, which is pretty fancy for a shed. My recollection was that it was far too small to ever have been a house, but it's possible that it was originally a section of a larger machiya, which would make sense for the area and the geometry of the lot.
[3] This is sort of like mineral rights or air rights in the US. It's not a totally foreign concept to us, we just don't do it for houses or...shacks.
This streetview gives a better perspective on exactly what is around it -- you have new development in front and behind, and the area immediately to the front of the shop is a dedicated parking area for a nearby business. I suspect that the shop and the parking area are part of the same parcel, owned by the business.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0112669,135.7504895,3a,89.9y...
I'm down the rabbit hole of trying to find it now. Searching, in Japanese, for restaurants specifically in the Gunma country side that feature jazz, I found instead something else: "Cafe Front Load":
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/azuminojv/e/bbfb2695ee73ee9c27c2e4ba6...
Not the same one. But there is a record player with jazz.
The amp is not tube, but it is exotic for the purpose: a Yamaha PC2002M PA thing that requires 3U racks space.
These jazz vinyl -> record player -> exotic amp -> speakers type restaurants seem to be like mushrooms under the rain in Japan or something?
It may be like trying to find a replacement record needle in a haystack.
When my partner and I travel, we don't do a ton of planning for specifics so if we're in a big city we'll usually pick a neighborhood or 2 for the day and bebop around until we're tired. The start to any day is almost always finding a coffee shop and doing the crossword during our first cup. In Europe depending on the city this can be difficult because a lot of coffee shops just pump out overextracted espresso and then give the option to add water for an americano. There's still tons of amazing cafes in the European cities I've visited. Some really memorable ones are Café Tacuba in Lucerne, Faro in Rome, and Monks Coffee Roasters. in Amsterdam.
In Tokyo, we actually started off with a pretty mediocre coffee because nothing opened before 10 besides a cafe chain, but after we got adjusted we couldn't stop finding great spots. The first day we were going to the national museum and found AOYAMA COFFEE ROASTER in Yanaka. At first the owner was a bit standoffish because we were 2 Americans coming in at the very beginning of the day and I assume she has a lot of bad experiences with tourists, but we started talking after she noticed my portafilter/coffee plant tattoo and had a really great time. For the rest of the week, we walked into shop after shop that had at most 4 or 5 seats with one barista making drinks and each one felt special.
The one that connected me most to this post was the one from our day in Sumida City when we were going to a bunch of small museums (highly recommend the Hokusai museum). We stopped into CHILL OUT COFFEE &...RECORDS and it was one of the coziest coffee experiences I've ever had. The shop is a coffee bar with a couch and a couple of chairs. I forget what kind of cup I had but I remember it being just a really balanced cup with a little bit of berry and chocolate notes. I wish we could've stayed longer but after about 15 minutes a family of tourists with 2 toddlers came in and we figured it was time to go after we finished our drinks.
In Seoul, the shops we visited were all a lot bigger but one thing I couldn't help noticing was that all of the baristas were so deliberate in their movements. This is something that was probably true of folks in shops in general in Tokyo and Seoul, but I noticed it with baristas because I tend to think about it a lot when I'm making drinks at home. You could show me a silhouette of baristas making drinks in Tokyo and some western city and it would be night and day. I feel like that goes a long way in illustrating the differences between eastern and western culture even though we're all making and enjoying the same hot bean water.
Ooh they have a website now! https://misuyabari.com/
- gorgeous 3-seat wine bar inside my laundromat
- hidden sushi restaurant in friends garage
- hole-in-the wall coffee shop with only cushion seats on the floor and $1.50 breakfast sandos, frequented almost exclusively by writing clubs
- corner store with half-stocked shelves, still using a cash register that printed receipts with a mechanical typewriter
Wabi-sabi spaces are awesome regardless where in the world they are. Portals? Even better. Awesome post.
https://archive.thevinylfactory.com/features/kankodori-karao...
Edit: someone else posted the address in this thread.
Did you have a recommendation or two for less visited but unique areas we could walk around? Thank you!
I really love Shimogamo Shrine and the whole Demachiyanagi Area including over to Ichijoji. It doesn't get too busy and the Demachiyanagi Shotengai shopping street is wonderful to walk up and down and see the interesting stores inside, it's covered too so great for the rainy season! There's a cool cinema in there as well as some fascinating book shops. Queue up for Futaba if you want some traditional Japanese sweets but it might be a long wait.
Also the walk up to Shimogamo Shrine from Demachiyanagi Station is so peaceful, especially during the week. I do sound tours around that area capturing interesting sound with field recorders that I provide. It's a very interesting place to find soundscapes and 'hear' Kyoto instead of just see it! If that sounds interesting: https://ohayo.substack.com/p/kyoto-sound-walks
And if you're into sake there's the Fushimi Sake village which doesn't get too busy and is really nice to just stroll around and visit the shops and museums. There's also a river tour. There's another interesting old school undercover shopping street there as well.
Hope you enjoy your last two days here!
The sound walks look amazing! We've got a couple kids so can't do it but I'm gonna send that link to my friends.
https://www.hifido.co.jp/sold/10-50554-58488-00.html?LNG=E
https://hifi-wiki.com/index.php/Luxman_SQ_505X
There's a pair of bookshelf speakers above the Luxman that are probably what it's driving. Very generic looking, those speakers could be almost anything. Maybe Tannoy Revolution R1 based on what appears to be an oval badge below the grill cloth?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/177053328835
The two speakers on their side are subwoofers, likely with JBL drivers, possibly in DIY cabinets. The Luxman can't possibly be driving them (not nearly enough power). The subs may not be functional and the cabinets are just being used as a table?
Here's a similar DIY subwoofer cabinet and drivers for sale:
* Poor economic mobility
* Individual compliance with the social contract
* Liberty to run small businesses
* Good land use laws
Perfect mobility is awful because all the capable people get to maximize earnings. The better The Sort (as patio11 calls it) the more capable people move out of doing things with high positive externalities.
Maybe you mean poor job mobility for office work. Economic mobility as a whole is high enough for whole towns and villages to become desolate as former residents decamp for the cities.
I think it is also an inaccurate view of the world that most capable people drop their passions in pursuit of a career and monetary gain. not only that, but talent is multidimensional, and being a great engineer does not imply making great rice wine under different circumstances
poverty, and lack of social mobility, is largely a curse of wasted potential, not a silver lining of talent molded into artisanal goods
The "more meaning" business is cope because as societies add more ability to excel, people of ability switch into economically rewarding activities at a high rate.
There's a nice middle where you can exploit them for positive externalities. In the past, through religion (many monks were undoubtedly great researchers) and today through a mediocre (but not awful) society.
Not five minutes. Fifty years and five minutes.
Lots of people in North America work in jobs with positive externalities (teachers, nurses, etc) and they're generally treated like shit compared to 9-5 office workers. I don't think the issue is that the former is group is less capable, they're just not sociopathic resource-collecting robots.