Tokyo

Tokyo The late A.A. Gill, in his notorious ‘Mad in Japan’ essay, concluded that the only way you could make sense of Tokyo was to think of it as a vast open-air lunatic asylum, with inmates instead of residents. Gill would have loved Arisa. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything more stereotypically Japanese than Arisa. She’s a multilingual robot concierge at Nishi-Shinjuku station in central Tokyo, one of the thousands of new automatons installed in the city ahead of the Olympics next month. She has a rather creepy Doctor Who look to her — she could be Davros’s girlfriend — and she’s there to assist tourists.

Any long-term resident of Japan will know that ‘reading the air’, as the locals put it, is an essential skill for understanding what is really being communicated behind the glossy lacquer box patina of courtesy and understatement of Japanese discourse. Bad news is never expressed directly and you need to decode the subtle hints embedded in seemingly anodyne comments to get to the truth. For example, if a Japanese doctor ever tells you ‘it’s hard to say’ when you ask about your test results, it might be time to start getting your affairs in order.

Few politicians have come out of the corona crisis as well as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. As the face of the metropolitan area’s official response to the pandemic, the 68-year-old former cabinet minister has won plaudits for her nightly face-masked updates and guidance briefings. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a landslide in last week’s gubernatorial election. But with a recent surge in cases in the Tokyo area, Governor Koike has become embroiled in a war of words with the national government that could have long-term implications. The latest infection figures in Tokyo (which have risen to around 150 cases a day) have alarmed many, but as ever with corona stats, context is everything.

Japan’s Covid ‘State of Emergency’ is now officially over. Tokyo, the last of Japan’s 47 prefectures to be officially released from restrictions, was declared safe(ish) on Monday, meaning its cautious three-step programme of reopening all commercial premises and entertainment venues can begin. The war over Corona may have been won here, but with a host of competing theories and interested parties hoping to claim credit, the battle to decide how it happened is just beginning. Japan’s official death toll from Covid-19 has not yet reached 1,000. This is in a country of 126 million people with densely packed cities, where people live a cheek-by-jowl existence on public transport, in compact offices, snug bars and restaurants, and tiny living spaces.