I stopped typing on my laptop computer and looked up at is looming figure in a mixture of expectation and appreciation.
The tower, planned to reach the height of 634 m when completed, is now under construction.
The postwar Japan experienced rapid recovery and economic growth. People were still poor, but there was much hope and the future was perceived as bright.
The Tokyo Tower, completed in 1958 was a symbol of that era, depicted in a popular film ("Always san-chome no yuhi") recently.
More than 50 years later, The Tokyo Sky Tree is constructed into a new symbol. What Zeitgeist would it be seen to represent in the years to come, I wondered. I am living in it, yet I do not see clearly. Maybe things can be seen clearly only with the benefit of hindsight.
The Tree disappeared into the rear. After a concealed sigh, I went back to typing. The car reached the destination however before I could do any meaningful chunk of work.
The Tokyo Sky Tree, to be completed in 2011.
The Tokyo Tower, symbol of the postwar recovery of Japan.
2 comments:
As with Tokyo's unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Olympics and Mayor Ishihara's persistent desire for a "re-match", my pessimistic view is that the new Sky Tree is yet another sad representation of a struggling nation out of viable options other than to retrospectively replicate its prior success of over a generation ago - To me the new tower does not signify our coming future, but rather a fading past that our aging majority is so desperate to engrave in our memory, before we all die out. The inevitably repeated question is, therefore, how truly serious are we about our coming future?
Dear.Mr.Mogi
Thank you for the image picture of Tokyo sky tree.
I have been in Tokyo several times. But I have never been in Tokyo tower. Because I don't think it is not tell about Tokyo. I watched the movie "Tokyo tower and Okan, sometimes Oton". I think that understood what is Tokyo tower. But it does not tell about Tokyo. It is somebody who need to have something like that.
Uuu... everybody know this. I am sorry.
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