Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

atlasobscura.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#41

Post by paulsutter »

titanix2 wrote: post #34
paulsutter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. In Japan most bicycles are left unlocked. You can leave your cellphone to hold your seat in a coffee shop. Things you lose get returned. My father lost his passport there and when he called, the embassy already had it.

No they’re not. Most bicycles are locked by the device that is builtin. Also bike registration exists for a reason: bike stealing is one of the most common crimes.

I lived there so I’ve seen it. Bikes are usually locked in the neighborhoods with a lot of foreigners (Roppongi, etc), but in most of Japan they aren’t. I’ve seen hundreds of bikes parked outside work without a single lock.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#42

Post by pacaro »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #25
coldtea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish there was more of this artisanship in the everyday city-life around us, to keep remind us how lovely life can really be. It's easy to forget sometimes. Modern cities and buildings are all about quick bucks and ROI. Even our costly monumental works (museums and such) are built by inflated-ego architects for the bucks, and with no sense of public beauty -- just their modernist or post-modernist personal ideolo…

Yes, this is very true and I think hints at the reason why those manhole covers can exist in Japan, whereas they'd be unthinkable in North America. The notion would be laughed out of any city budget here.

While they’re not quite in the same league, Seattle has some pretty incredible manhole covers too, there are 115 different designs, it would take quite a while to hunt them all down

https://seattle.curbed.com/2014/7/11/10076250/seattle-manhol...

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#43

Post by Retric »

NegatioN wrote: post #2

I remember this was one thing that really made an impact on me about Japan when I went there as an exchange student. "Even their manholes are thoroughly done and look amazing! What is even going on!?" They can still make me smile every now and again when I visit, and I really admire the "Japanese sense of" (I don't know if it's particular to Japan) putting lots of effort into something seemingly mundane; putting effo…

This has real upsides, but it’s a large part of why poverty is such an issue in Japan. It’s GDP was higher in 1995 for many reasons, but forgoing efficiency has real costs.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#44

Post by ams6110 »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #25
coldtea wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish there was more of this artisanship in the everyday city-life around us, to keep remind us how lovely life can really be. It's easy to forget sometimes. Modern cities and buildings are all about quick bucks and ROI. Even our costly monumental works (museums and such) are built by inflated-ego architects for the bucks, and with no sense of public beauty -- just their modernist or post-modernist personal ideolo…

Yes, this is very true and I think hints at the reason why those manhole covers can exist in Japan, whereas they'd be unthinkable in North America. The notion would be laughed out of any city budget here.

Doesn't necessarily take much of a budget to do these sorts if things. I've seen this for example in towns where the traffic light control boxes are colorfully painted by local artists.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#46

Post by GuiA »

spectramax wrote: post #3
NegatioN wrote: post #2

I remember this was one thing that really made an impact on me about Japan when I went there as an exchange student. "Even their manholes are thoroughly done and look amazing! What is even going on!?" They can still make me smile every now and again when I visit, and I really admire the "Japanese sense of" (I don't know if it's particular to Japan) putting lots of effort into something seemingly mundane; putting effo…

I think you'll enjoy Junichiro Tanizaki's essay: "In Praise of Shadows"[1] on Japanese aesthetics - from toilet design to art of Kintsukuroi. If you haven't read it, it was written more than 50 years ago[2] and still stands true about the Japanese aesthetic culture - it is amazing. [1][PDF] http://wwwedu.artcenter.edu/mertzel/spatial_scenography_1/Cl... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Praise_of_Shadows

I read this book recently and... yeah. It’s filled with stuff like him bemoaning how “western” chemistry and the periodic table of elements are, and speculating about how “Japanese physics” would be.

Oh and that’s not getting into the whole BS about purity and skin color he gets into.

It’s nihonjinron at its finest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#47

Post by Grue3 »

air7 wrote: post #13
coldtea wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it occasionally happens, in Japan they still have a sense of civic responsibility. They wouldn't do that. There's also the fact that you could (statistically) also forget your Macbook Pro in a crowded public park in Tokyo and come back 2 hours later to find it there untouched (and unstolen).

Wow. Was this ever (anecdotally) tested?

I once left my phone on a train in Kyoto. Managed to get it back in about 40 minutes with the help of station staff (it was a minor station so it was just one guy who didn't speak any English).

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#48

Post by egeozcan »

Rexxar wrote: post #31
panemic wrote: post #12

Aaah, atlasobscura, where every time I visit I get: "We value your privacy[1]" with one button saying "accept!". [1] "we clearly don't"

And if you just hide the popup you have an unscrollable page.

use this bookmarklet:

    javascript:(function(){(function () {var i, elements = document.querySelectorAll('body *');for (i = 0; i

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#49

Post by 1024core »

Oh Japan!

When I was first visiting Japan, I asked an architect friend of mine who had lived in Japan: what should I see?

His response: see how much attention to detail has been paid to even some of the most mundane things.

At first I was, WTF. I was looking for recommendations about places to see. But when I got there, his advice made total sense. I was not disappointed.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#50

Post by stordoff »

SllX wrote: post #20
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #8

Why do some of the manhole covers have English, not Japanese, text on them?

So in the same way that some Americans with no Asian ancestry in the slightest, or any spiritual inclinations towards the Tao or Buddhism or anything like that might get a tattoo or article of clothing with certain symbols, i.e. yin-yang, or some bit of Arabic or Chinese or Japanese writing as decoration , the Japanese take a similar attitude to English or Spanish or Christian (Catholic in particular) writing and sym…

Superdry is perhaps the most obvious example (in the opposite direction). In the same way that Japanese products often include gratuitous English, they include gratuitous Japanese on their clothes:

> The company's products include meaningless excerpts of Japanese text generated by machine translation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdry

Post reply on HN