Over the last few decades, some of these shops have come under pressure and are starting to shut down rather than be passed down to the next generation of the family.

There is always something called a shotengai, a shopping street or series of shopping streets, sometimes covered with an arcade for protection from the rain, near any station. Is that accurate? Do you know of such places in Japan? Q: The impression I get from reading Higashino’s novels-especially Newcomer and Silent Parade -is that Tokyo has several streets lined with smallish mom-and-pop stores and businesses-restaurants, cafes, handcrafted goods, electronics sales and repair, that kind of thing. Whodunnit? Is it the vicar in the library? Is it the lady of the manor in her garden? No, it’s the ramen chef under the railway line or the watch-seller in the local park. The existence of a clear social structure with people in different professions is reminiscent of golden age thrillers, but at a more bourgeois level.

They did not expect to be wolf-whistled at or otherwise molested and they weren’t. I recall being astounded to see young women walking to and fro the bath with their senmenki (washing bowl) in their pajamas at night.

One way to save money was to rent an apartment with no bath or shower and instead use the sento, or public bath. Other than in really godforsaken dormitory towns, they are not dominant, the way they are in the US and the UK.) Here’s a good example of the civility thing and the community thing: When I moved to Tokyo in 1991, I had no money. (The city has all the boring brands like KFC, McDonalds etc., but people are not in thrall to them. The area around and leading to the station will be chock-a-block with shops, restaurants etc., many of which will be family run, and this will help foster a sense of community. Tokyo is very dense, with lots of houses all sitting on top of one another, and lots of clearly defined areas centered around subway and railways stations. It is not accepted wisdom, as it is in many big cities in the West, that stress confers the automatic right to be rude and impatient. Giles Murray: I suppose what makes Tokyo different is that, with the possible exception of the rush hour trains, everyone is very polite all the time, in a rather quaint, St.

Malice higashino