Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#51

Post by nihonde » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

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 never lock my bike. I know bike theft happens a few times per month because it is the only crime ever mentioned in our kairanban (a kind of neighborhood newsletter). My impression is that only high-end road/mountain bikes or very nice mamachari would be targeted. The easy solution is to ride a $200 Chinese bike and experience the tremendous freedom of taking on the extremely low risk. My local grocery store/mall has literally a thousand bikes parked at any time, and I would say about half don’t even bother with the built-in rear wheel lock.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#52

Post by kalleboo » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 10:56 PM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #41

titanix2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I live in a more rural part of Japan where you can count the foreigners on your two hands and I find it hard to believe you can even see how many bikes have their ubiquitous ring locks[0] locked among hundreds of bikes

[0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/kPKjx.jpg

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#53

Post by james_s_tayler » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:00 PM UTC

cerealbad wrote: post #40

Is Japan a benevolent dictatorship (psuedo-imperial corporate fascism and guaranteed political monopolies) in exchange for social cohesion. Is there an equivalent concept to a zaibatsu in a republic or democracy? Monopolies here are hidden behind the trident of usury, corporation and government spending; beyond terms like corporate capture, manufacturing consent, military/health/tech/energy industrial complex, conspi…

Yeah, it's kind of funny. The extreme social cohesion itself forms a sort of dictatorship. Although it's a distributed dictatorship. Every one of your peers is a dictator.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#54

Post by james_s_tayler » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:14 PM UTC

stordoff wrote: post #50

SllX wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I really love this brand because it's just a troll brand but it became popular. Because 'oh look it's got funky asian writing on it' cool factor. It's just perfect. Every time I walk passed someone wearing that shit and read what the hell it says I crack up laughing.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#55

Post by kenhwang » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:27 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #4

If they are too beautiful people might walk away with them.

That's my thought as well. There's a bunch of street signs that constantly get stolen when I'm at, and those are nowhere near as beautiful or novel as these manhole covers.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#56

Post by ekianjo » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #49

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.

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

Counter example, about every residential building is so damn ugly, so I am not sure where the attention to details has gone there. I could go on on how poorly designed work offices are, how poorly designed the furniture is in general (enabling IKEA to actually have a market here), and that's enough to refute that kind of blanket statement.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#57

Post by wst_ » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

spectramax wrote: post #14

cbhl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe to fit in better with the surrounding neighborhood? There's a lot of English on signs in Tokyo; in part because foreign cultures are cool, and in part because it's friendlier to tourists. (They also have the Olympics coming up in 2020.)

Japan always had English signs since I remember visiting it. Even small towns have English street names and billboards. All subway and JR stations, busses and taxis have English information. Also, all post offices have at least one person that can speak English. It’s surprising given the fact that China (more so than Korea) have serious lack of English signs. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just unfriendly for touri…

That is not true. Maybe except for the stations' names. Ten years ago you couldn hardly find any English on the streets. Tokyo 2020 changed a lot.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#58

Post by ekianjo » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

cerealbad wrote: post #40

Is Japan a benevolent dictatorship (psuedo-imperial corporate fascism and guaranteed political monopolies) in exchange for social cohesion. Is there an equivalent concept to a zaibatsu in a republic or democracy? Monopolies here are hidden behind the trident of usury, corporation and government spending; beyond terms like corporate capture, manufacturing consent, military/health/tech/energy industrial complex, conspi…

> Is there an equivalent concept to a zaibatsu in a republic or democracy?

No, because zaibatsu are, as you hint, derived by a powerful government that meddles into economic affairs to allow such things to occur.

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#59

Post by bookofjoe » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:47 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #45

1. How durable is the paint? When it wears away do they repaint? 2. I could see US cities doing this, except they would probably use the space for advertising. This would be annoying.

Domino's "Paving For Pizza":https://www.eater.com/2018/9/7/17831586/dominos-potholes-pav...

Re: Japan’s elaborate, colorful manhole covers

#60

Post by ekianjo » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #18

Fun fact: they sometimes make them with celebrities, which happen to be cause public outrage later in their career, causing issues with what to do with the manholes. Recently Pierre Taki was arrested for Cocaine, and the manhole with him on it is in an interesting debate, the town is thinking about covering it: https://news.nicovideo.jp/watch/nw4980896

> with celebrities, which happen to be cause public outrage later in their career,

That's the funny thing about Japan. Regarding outrage and celebrities. I have seen that over and over in the past 10 years, it goes like that (not talking about manholes here):

- Celebrity X is super popular and well loved

- Celebrity X gets into trouble for something that is frowned upon in society.

- Mass media rush to eat Celebrity X alive and paint them as a horrible person.

- Celebrity X will do public apologies on TV.

- Suddenly all media ties/advertising ties with Celebrity X are severed. In fact, you won't see or hear about Celebrity X for quite a while (usually a couple of years).

- Then, without any prior notice, suddenly you will see Celebrity X coming back on a talking show at some point, "just to test the waters".

- Celebrity X becomes accepted again, just because time has passed.

It's... largely nonsensical.

Note: exception for drugs. People who have done drugs are usually burned forever. For example, the famous band "Dreams Come True" used to have 3 members, and one of them was arrested for drugs at some point, and since then the band continued with 2 members only, and all material they show about "the past of Dreams Come True" is carefully edited to remove any memory of that person. It's like he had never existed. Astonishing.