So, how do you fight stress? Probably by going to Laos and using the bus system. People could just wait patiently hours and hours for their bus, anywhere else it would be chaos. Mind you, the bus situation in Laos is pretty chaotic itself, you never know when a bus is going leave. Well, actually you might have an idea of when it is going to leave:  When the bus is completely packed, it's time to go!. Which also means that it could depart ahead of schedule. First time I took a bus I was told three different departure times: 5:30, 6 and 6:30 PM. Eventually, just after 6PM the bus left the Northern bus terminal at Luang Prabang only to go to the Southern bus terminal to pick up more passengers and then back again to the Northern terminal to get some more people. Unbelievable. And this happened right before a trip to the city of Luang Namtha, 310 kms north of Luang Prabang. in a record time of 10 hours. On the way back from Muang Sing to Luang Namtha (58 km) it was much the same story. I couldn't really figure out if the 8 AM pick-up truck had left earlier or didn't leave at all. The one at 9 never turned up so had to wait for the one at 11, which miracously left on time. But only to have a puncture a few kms after leaving Muang Sing. Still the whole experience was priceless, an inspiring reality check, and will do it again no matter how long I'll have to wait for a bus.

Back at Japanese train stations, people were fuming because the early morning train was 17 seconds late. Ironies of life. A reliable and punctual transportation system is a must for creating a healthy economy. That explains the differences in both countries' economies and why it's so difficult to get, apart from being a landlocked country, fresh sashimi in Laos. But all the Japanese obsession with speed, punctuality and building a powerful economy has created social problems such as kireru (snapping under pressure or stress), karoushi (death from overwork) and one of the highest suicide rates among industrialized countries, as well as a nation of long faces. More ironies of life.

In Laos, even though many people live in tremendously poor conditions they are still able to genuinely smile at you and be generous. Back in sanitized Japan as soon as you leave Airport customs you start noticing the long faces, the shoegazing, the heads buried between shoulders, the dragged feet, the unhappiness of a people living in the second most powerful economy in the world. The only time they show their teeth is to let out a growl and let you know that one more step near their Coach handbag they will bite off your bloody neck. Is this just pure post-holiday blues? A mirage? A typical case of a Western tourist romantic vision of what South-East Asia should be?

I don't know. My friend B from London agrees with me. She says that even though in India people are as poor as a church mouse they can still smile at you and say something nice. And she adds, the more we have the more demanding and obnoxious we become.

Masochist view of history. This is how some in Japan consider views for admitting wrongdoing in history. Is this the reason why many recent war films, "LORELEI", "OTOKOTACHI NO YAMATO", "ORE WA, KIMI NO TAME NI KOSO SHINI NI IKU" and so on have tried to change the emphasis on the Japanese arm forces as an invading force to that of a defensive force fighting to protect their country and family. Wait a minute! How about the emperor? Weren't they supposed to die for the emperor as well? Yes, of course but that's an extremely touchy topic better not to mention. That's why I love the ending of the film "THE SUN" by Alexander Sokurov. After Mr "Ah so" Hirohito gives his radio broadcast surrender he asks his chamberlain, played marvellously by Shiro Sano:

Hirohito: And what happened with this young man, the sound engineer who taped my speech to the people?
The Chamberlain: He committed hara-kiri.
Hirohito: Did you try to stop him?
The Chamberlain: No.

Another thing that really bothers me is that as many of these films are set at the very end of the war or during the Japanese economic recovery of the 1950s, you are given the impression that the era Showa ran from 1945 to 1989 rather than 1926-1989. A very clear example of this is the Showa photographic exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography titled Showa: Photography 1926-..... I'm sorry ...1945-1989. Its director is very quick to point out that the exhibition does not constitute an exercise in nostalgia. Nostalgia for a better past (As it is said in Spanish Cualquier tiempo pasado siempre fue mejor), even though done in several films with enormous panache, above all in "ALWAYS: SAN-CHOME NO YUHI" or "METRO NI NOTTE", it's, nevertheless, something not to be too proud of.
Thus, producer Chihiro Kameyama tells how the film "BUBBLE FICTION: BOOM OR BUST", another clear nostalgic look at a not so distant past: "was not made with nostalgia". Ah so!, so how is that the protagonist, who goes back in time to 1990 to look for her mother and save the country's economic bubble from bursting, after some initial misgiving, ends up loving the bubble era so much? As The International Military Tribunal for the Far East was the perfect excuse to avoid individual and collective responsibility among the Japanese population in "BUBBLE FICTION: BOOM OR BUST" banks, investment companies, property developers and even the government get off scot-free as an international conspiracy helped by a few disloyal and greedy Japanese are chosen as the culprits for the burst of the bubble. How good is that for revisionist history?  Ministry of Education take note.

Yasuo Baba, the director of the film says: "If we had made this movie five years ago, it would have been a much darker comedy. Even last year, when the script was approved, we asked ourselves if it was an appropriate theme. There are many people out there who were burned by the bubble and still have bad feelings about it." Was that so because if the film had been done five years ago it would have also been seen as a masochist view of history?

For a review of the film click here:
BUBBLE FICTION: BOOM OR BUST