News from the Gaijin Ghetto

Travelling in the Gai-jin Ghetto

When we first moved to Tokyo we agreed we would wait for a year to buy a car because the public transportation here is absolutely amazing. People here actually time the arrival of trains to the minute -- if your waiting for the 18:44 train, you don't get on the train that gets to the platform at 18:42, 'cuz that isn't your train. Since there are express and local trains with differnt stops, you're generally better off going on the exact train you need rather than the first available. Anyway, the point is that you can count on the train arriving and departing exactly when it is supposed to arrive or depart. If the trains are ever late, the transit authorities provide you with a note for your job since otherwise your boss will not believe you that the train was delayed.

However, with 4 kids we found it quite trying to go to the grocery store daily just to try to keep up on our food needs (not to mention being unable to purchase goods at a lower price outside of the city) and more time consuming to get places (particularly to church, which is at most 10 minutes by car and 30-40 minutes via train). In addition, we found that we left our kids at home frequently since they didn't want to join us for the never-ending grocery shopping expeditions.

With that said, we were ready to stick it out until we discovered that the "bullet train" (which is how Tokyo-based people visit the rest of the country) is approximately $300-$1,000 per ticket. What that meant was that without a car, we could not easily afford to take our family outside of Tokyo and, for the price of one family trip on the Shinkasen (bullet train) to Kyoto, we could actually purchase a car. Thus, we now are the proud owners of the "ugliest car in Tokyo," a 1997 Toyota Ipsum painted in a shade of radioactive green that could make the blind acquire sight.

So why doesn't everyone drive here in Tokyo? The cars are cheap (our used Toyota, with an English-speaking Navi and a year's worth of liability insurance, was a bit over one month's "cost of living adjustment"), well made and generally immaculately maintained. The reason (for Russell and other public policy wonks) is that, in the greater Tokyo Metro area, you need to prove that you own the rights to a parking spot before you are allowed to register a car in your name. While the cars are affordable and plentiful, these parking spots are not. They come standard with most expat housing (which is double or triple the size of typical housing), but comparatively few middle- and even upper-middle-class folks have parking rights. Consequently, Tokyo has a disproportionate number of luxury cars, especially "poodle cars" such as Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. (A BMW or Benz is more or less ho-hum here in Tokyo.) Moreover, most people of all class levels are perfectly content to take the excellent, safe and clean public transportation. Since so many people eat out frequently, constant shopping isn't as much of an anguish for them as it is for us. And if they need to get somewhere in a hurry, cabs are plentiful. I guess the bottom line is that a mass-transit society works well for people who abide by the norms of that society (ie - few kids, not much need to travel outside the local region, willing to engage in frequent outside dining and entertainment), but not so well for Mormons from the States.