English Story

世界上走路速度最快的地方

在世界各国的大都市中,日本东京可能是最繁忙的一个,为什么这么说呢?因为这里的民众步行速度实在是太快了,任何时候都感觉到他们“行色匆匆”。

The sheer level of energy is the most striking aspect of Japan's capital city. Tokyo remains a glittering example of the 'miracle' of post World War II Japan. Streets are lined with tiny specialist shops and bustling restaurants, most of which stay open late into the night. Close to the soaring office blocks exist pockets of another Tokyo - an old wooden house, a Japanese inn, an old lady in a kimono sweeping the pavement outside her home with a straw broom. More than anything else, Tokyo is a place where the urgent rhythms of consumer culture collide with the quieter moments that linger from older traditions. As far as efficiencies and pressures are concerned, people in this beautiful modern city often in high speed, means walking too fast. Many scientists supposed it shows the high pressure of Japanese.

Especially Ginza(银座), despite its disaster-ridden history and propensity for shape-changing, Ginza has become synonymous with conspicuous consumption and excessive shopping. At the end of the 19th century, after fire razed it to the ground, it was rebuilt in a London-cum-faux-Parisian style with brick buildings and wide boulevards that mimicked the Champs Elysees. Since then, earthquakes and WWII carpet-bombing has seen it gradually transform from continental chic to trans-atlantic functional, but it still pulls the crowds. There are full of shopping centre, restaurant and other kinds of recreation ground. That means lots of people. So, don’t walking around the street slowly and calm in Ginza unless you are in shopping mall. Anyway, it is a dangerous thing in Tokyo and I’m sure you don’t want be a strange guy.