Juxtaposing Everyday Conveniences and Reality Escapism in Japan
So, as I was continuing my graduate school applications (seriously this time, for my career beyond Rakuten and Japan ), I was looking for a scanner around my neighborhood to turn some documents into PDF. Asking around no less than a dozen internet cafes ( they are supposed to be convenient , no?), convenience stores, photo shops, bookstores...basically anywhere that I can imagine having a scanner of some sort for business use. In the end, I had to give up and wait for discreetly using the one in my company.... I suppose this is another episode of convenient Japan being inconvenient . It is these times that I miss the underground economy in China where services and products of every sort can be found literally anywhere. But probably the key difference between the Chinese shop owners and the Japanese ones I visited today may be that the Chinese ones would do anything to come up something (whether be to buy a scanner, think of alternative ways of getting the PDF, introduce the nea