Hacker News Reader

Comment by alexcnwy | Hacker News Reader

I’m in Tokyo right now for work (my startup NumberBoost won an innovation competition with NTT Japan) and it’s so wild how simultaneously forward and backward things are here.

On the one hand, there are so many things they do here that make me feel like they’re in the future. On the other hand, every fifth person has a flip phone, the WiFi sucks, you can’t buy a travel SIM card at the mall, and there are CD/DVD stores everywhere.

I can’t help but feel part of their problem is how unwilling most local Japanese people I’ve met here are to break the rules.

View on HN

I noticed this too, a lot of Japanese society feels like it's stuck in the 90's. Even the little things like the graphics made for ads. Probably has something to do with having a conservative culture and the demographics/economic issues that began becoming a problem around then

After living more than 7 years in Japan, I think it's that a lot of Tokyo's tech infrastructure is build around the persona of a 45 year old male office worker and his specific needs. For example, Pasmo cards can be used to buy drinks (and other things) at the train station in addition to paying for the tickets.

Travel sim cards are available everywhere. Your local BIC, Yodabashi or electronics retailer sells them [1].

1: https://tokyocheapo.com/business/internet/prepaid-cheap-japa...

Those are data-only. You can't get a real SIM card without contract.

For example good luck getting mayonnaise with your fries at any of the fast food chains here. They have mayonnaise and they put it on burgers but they “CANNOT” give (or sell) it to you in a separate container for your fries.

mayonnaise has special properties regarding food spoilage, it can be legitimately poisonous when it turns bad.. which in food services, is a constant.

This isn’t the reason you can’t get mayo with fries in Japan, though. It’s a cultural barrier against deviating from the “rules,” no matter how small. Mayo isn’t on the menu as a condiment; sorry!

Example: I once had to fill out a form (as a designated corporate representative) authorizing myself to access our racks in an NTT data center and then fax it to the DC manager (who I knew personally) before he would let me in. During this entire process we were standing in the same room.

It used to annoy me when I first moved to Tokyo, but you eventually learn to live with it.

This surprises me, since there are a lot of Japanese obsessed with mayonnaise, putting it on everything including white rice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com