Mind Your Manners

While on the subway last week with visiting friends from the US, I was struck by how well-mannered Tokyo passengers really are. When riding, they don't talk loudly, they don't eat food and they keep cell phone chatter to an absolute minimum. Yet sometimes one encounters a transgression. Recently while riding the Oedo Line, I gazed downward and discovered the toes pictured above. They belonged to a snoozing salariman who had slipped off his loafers to air his feet, revealing his toe-socks (yes! toe socks!) for all to see. But for the most part, subway riders are very mindful of their surroundings. They tend to turn inward and focus on their cell phones, ipods, pocket computer games or bunkoban paperback books. And, as a result, Tokyo subway cars are astonishingly quiet. Even the crowded ones.

Lest anyone forget their good comportment, the manner posters mounted monthly in stations and subway cars will keep them in line with gentle reminders of how to behave. I first noticed manner posters when we lived here in the late 80s/early 90s. At that time, the Tokyo Metro had engaged a rather brilliant graphic designer to produce a year's worth of posters, each one bearing a well-mannered and visually captivating message. My favorite depicted a subway interior loaded with open umbrellas of all different colors and patterns. One was crowned by a tiny frog (too cute for my taste but this is Japan). The message? Don't forget your umbrella on the train. I liked the posters so much that I began asking the station master in Yutenji if I could have them. This caused a lot of teeth sucking but sometimes I scored. On his suggestion, I eventually made my way to the source: subway headquarters in Ueno.

Much to my surprise, a very pleasant and very pregnant foreign woman of about my age greeted me upon my arrival. How she landed a job working for the Tokyo Metro is beyond my ken. But, be that as it may, my new friend was a great help. After hearing my quest, she disappeared for a moment only to return with a large roll of posters, all in mint condition and all for me. The following year, the subway commissioned a new designer. Since the new work did not speak to me, I put my collection to rest.



More recently, manner posters have begun to garner my attention again, though not enough to trigger my collecting instinct. Suspended from a subway car ceiling, this one admonishes riders to apply their make-up at home. On the face of it, the wielding of a mascara wand while commuting seems like a minor infraction. Yet to many in Japan it is construed as a private matter that, as the poster says, ought to be handled elsewhere. What a contrast to the CTA.

All Tomatoes, All the Time

When I first glanced at this sign the other day in Daikanyama, it took a second or two for the partial outline of a tomato to come into focus. I quite like this graphic -- just enough information but not too much. And the rich, red is the perfect background color. The sign is announcing a tomato specialty restaurant where everything -- and I do mean everything -- contains tomatoes in some form. Since tomatoes are one of Abby's major food groups, I had to inspect more closely. Here is a quick round up of my findings:


As we chatted, the shop keeper took this platter from the cooler case below and gave me a deep purple tomato from Hokkaido to sample. Tomatoes taste much better when unrefrigerated.


Move over square watermelon and make room for this tomato gift assortment. It is so pretty -- the colors, the round form and the artful assembly -- it would almost be a shame to eat it. Probably not a problem.


Little cups containing different types of tomatoes from all over the country.


Tomato Tiramisu. I kid you not. Layers of house-made tomato jam sweeten the concoction but I have to like the idea of what I am eating. And this is a bit outside my comfort zone. Tomato Roll Cake? Let's not even go there.


A more conventional offering for home use: Beef Stew of the Tomato (for two people).


Table salt mixed with dried, pulverized tomato skin. I could not leave without buying this for the tomato lover.

Matruschka Furin

I covet this furin bell shaped like a matruschka doll -- two of my favorite things merged into one. A few years ago, matruschka frenzy struck Japan and suddenly the cheerful doll motifs were everywhere: on lunch boxes, paper products, wash cloths, etc. While I am fairly indifferent to the actual dolls, I quite like them as a graphic design element. But surely some other figure has taken her place by now, considering Japan's insatiable appetite for the new.

By contrast, furin have a long history and are definitely here to stay. When temperatures start to soar, out come these delightful bells: little domes of clear glass typically decorated with an image that evokes coolness, such as swimming goldfish, shaved ice confections, refreshing water melons etc. Not sure where matruschkas fit in.

Typically, a furin bell is suspended from a roof eave or balcony rail in summer. When the wind catches the paper strip suspended from its ringer, the bell chimes quietly. This gentle sound is a lovely reminder that the air is actually moving, even if it feels like 500 degrees out there. One year the girls took furin to camp. Not sure they had the same impact out in the wilds of Vermont. Back in Tokyo, I usually forget to hang up my elegant, hand blown version. Unfortunately this year was no exception. And now it is too late.

Though the heat still persists, the furin season is fast drawing to a close thanks, in part, to the mini-typhoon that blew through the city earlier this week. For a steady stretch, sheets of rain came down za-za (the Japanese equivalent of "cats and dogs"). I quite like a good rain, providing I am cozy inside.

Those few hours of watershed seem to have washed away much of the humidity that has plagued the city for weeks. The morning after the storm, when Pippi and I went out for our first walk, we got an inkling that fall is right around the corner. While I am always a little sad to see summer go, fall connotes fresh starts and new beginnings.

So Long, Suntory Stripes

If I had to name one thing in my refrigerator at all times it would be Suntory Soda hands down. We are huge fans of seltzer. Abby and Eve have been imbibing since babyhood when we put it in their bottles and sippy cups. Personally, I am partial to San Pellegrino -- it is a little less bubbly. But I am often overruled, hence the plethora of blue striped bottles. But those days are fading fast.

First a word or two about stripes. When it comes to stripes, it is hard to go wrong. Vertical or horizontal, they look great on clothing (you should see my shirt drawer), on paper, and, sometimes, even on buildings. They connote fun but also geometric order -- big accomplishments for a simple series of parallel lines.

Yet even I must admit that Suntory's striped bottle design was a little tired and in need of perking up if its beverage is to compete with the swank brands out there on the super market shelves. Replacing the cobalt blue color scheme with sophisticated navy was a step in the right direction. The lozenge-shaped label is another improvement. And the once shiny hardware is now uber-cool, brushed metal.

But the best part of the makeover is the ribbon of abstract white squares just below the bottle neck (hard to see in this picture, sorry). Initially I missed those stripes and regarded the redesign with an air of clinical indifference. That is, until I realized they're ice cubes! How cool is that??? Well-represented and realistic enough, you can practically hear them clinking in a glass, providing refreshment before the chilled drink has even gone down the gullet. I am amazed at the power of suggestion proffered by this simple visual device though it is a little hard to say good-bye to an old friend.

Double Dip

The other day I pulled up behind a delivery truck at the Nishi Azabu crossing. While waiting for the light to change, I studied the the company logo emblazoned on the truck's behind. It took me a moment or two to figure out that the sideways ice cream cones add up to a stylized "S" as in the brand name "Sanko". I quite like this graphic though it challenges my design sensibility. In America, the vertically oriented, cone-and-dome combo is such an icon -- I probably would not mess with this. But in Japan, where that association may not be so deeply entrenched, it is totally cool.

David's Door Prize

The other day, while waiting for the girls in front of the Matsukata House with Pippi, an unnamed school administrator asked me to give David this door prize from the school's recent golf outing. Intrigued by the box and its mysterious contents, I happily obliged but blanched when said official informed me that it contained "some plastic wrap I could use in the kitchen." The girls were horrified when they heard this! Where-oh-where was my snappy come back???

But let's put that sexist comment aside. There was something about the arrangement of the goods inside that caught my eye. In part it was the graphic design -- direct and to the point in a clinical sort of way. In part it was the artful orchestration of boxes of various shapes and sizes, each one tailored for function and space efficiency. And in part it was the vivid, primary colors -- lemons yellower than life, bagels (yes! bagels!) appealingly light brown and strawberries so red and luscious they practically jump off their cardboard, kurerappu box!

While some of the products are intended for re-use, the bulk are tsukai-suteru items, i.e. disposable. Left to my own devices, I make an effort to cut down on future landfill. In some ways Japan makes this easy since size appropriate food storage vessels are readily available -- there is a designated shape for every major food product, big or small. In my kitchen drawers alone there are individual soy sauce dispensers, triangular containers for rice ball transport and, thanks to a thoughtful friend, a deep, plastic box configured perfectly for a loaf of Japanese bread.