Journeys into the Ring of Fire_4of4_Japan
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00:00As a geologist, I believe that civilisations around the world are driven by the rocks beneath
00:22our feet. In this series, I'll be travelling around the Pacific Rim to visit some of the
00:27most volatile places on Earth and discover how rocks are fundamental to human existence.
00:37I'm visiting the perilous volcanic landscapes of Indonesia, the geological booby traps of
00:47California and the hostile peaks of the Andes. In this programme, I will experience the breathtaking
01:00beauty of Japan, where a nation's culture has been inescapably defined by a geological
01:06curse.
01:27Japan is one of the most dramatic and beautiful places on Earth. But here, the geological
01:37forces that created this awesome landscape have also dealt the Japanese a harsh hand.
01:48The problem is, this kind of rugged landscape covers three quarters of the country. And
02:02it has forced the population onto a few small coastal plains, which have become some of
02:07the most overcrowded places on the planet. I'm fascinated by the impact geology can have
02:20on people's lives. And I'm going to discover what the consequences are for the 127 million
02:27people living here. I'll be finding out how this mountainous topography has shaped spirituality.
02:35And everything from living space... I can nearly touch both sides. Compact and beigy, or what?
02:43To etiquette. I don't think I can do that. And entertainment. And by the end, I hope to have discovered a secret of how Japan has overcome its geological curse.
03:05In Japan, three quarters of the country's population is crowded into massive urban areas,
03:14sprawling endlessly across its coastal plains. Packed in, cheap by jowl, these people are
03:24living in one of the most densely populated places on earth. You don't have to look far
03:38to find signs of a country where space is scarce. When it comes to building houses,
03:44every square centimetre is at a premium. Most houses and apartments here are over 20 percent
03:53smaller than in Western Europe. In the core of Tokyo's central business district, this
04:04much space, square metre, costs three quarters of a million pounds. Domestic housing suffers
04:11from high land values too. This is the Nakagin Tower in the heart of Tokyo. Here, the Japanese
04:22have made the most of the lack of space and created a monument to miniaturisation. I've
04:28come to see Seibi Yamashita, an international lawyer who has lived here for 15 years.
04:35Look at this place. This is amazing. I can nearly touch both sides. Compact and beigy, or what?
04:44It's like a big caravan. My mum and dad used to have a caravan. It's just like this. Where are
04:48your things? Oh, yes. This is my library. This is your library. Yes. I see that. This is my desk.
04:59Your desk. Look at that. And then I can work. That looks fine, actually, doesn't it? This is
05:06the refrigerator for something to drink. So where's your kitchen? Oh, there is no kitchen
05:12in the room. But what if you want to cook food? I buy hot food in the convenience store downstairs.
05:21So you have a convenience store downstairs? Yeah. How convenient. So where's your bed?
05:28Oh, this is the bed. This is the bed? Yeah. Well, like... No, no, no. I'm sorry.
05:35Right. It folds out. Like this. Well, that's not too bad, is it? This looks quite comfy,
05:44actually. Yes. But what's it actually like living in such a small place? That's enough for me.
05:52Enough for me. Right. Why do people live in such small rooms in Tokyo with this? Very expensive.
06:00Ah. Land of Tokyo. It's very expensive.
06:07I never expected to find an international lawyer living in five square metres.
06:13But it seems to accommodate Sebi and many others like him.
06:21If the urban plains are so claustrophobic and expensive, why don't the Japanese spread into
06:27the mountains like people do in many other parts of the world?
06:36This is a mystery I would like to solve, and I want to know if it's all down to the geology.
06:45Japan is an archipelago, a chain of islands extending along the eastern coast of Asia
06:51in the Pacific. The country is dominated by four main islands. The far north is on the
06:57same latitude as Montreal, and it stretches to Kyushu, which is as far south as Miami.
07:10According to legend, these Japanese islands were created by gods,
07:14who dipped a jewelled spear into a muddy sea and formed solid earth from its droplets.
07:21As a geologist, my view is no less poetic or dramatic.
07:34The earth is like a cracked boiled egg. Its surface is made up of a series of plates called
07:40tectonic plates. There's a huge one that covers the Pacific, and around its edges,
07:47around the Pacific rim, are incredibly violent forces.
07:52A zone of catastrophic earthquakes and volcanoes, known as a ring of fire, is created as a Pacific
07:58plate literally floats around on the earth's viscous interior, moving against the surrounding
08:04plates. With this tofu, I'm going to show you how Japan came to be in the danger zone,
08:10situated at the scene of massive collision. On the one side, two ocean plates, the Philippines
08:16and the Pacific, which are moving westward at about seven to eight centimetres a year,
08:21towards the Asian continental plate on the other side. Because the ocean plates are denser,
08:26heavier, they push down underneath the continental one. As they sunk deeper beneath it,
08:31they pushed the continental plate up into a ridge.
08:35That ridge forms the basis of the Japanese archipelago.
08:39So it's no wonder this place is covered in towering peaks.
08:49In fact, 73% of Japan is made up of mountains.
08:55The mountains are the most important part of the Japanese archipelago.
08:58In fact, 73% of Japan is made up of mountains.
09:05The classic western view of this country being full of sheer rock faces,
09:09with vegetation clinging on for dear life, isn't wide of the mark.
09:15There are signs all over the place that this is a difficult place to live.
09:20There's steep winding roads, there's hanging villages and there's landslides.
09:24Here in the mountains, farming isn't easy. The soils are mostly bad.
09:28They're thin, stony, unstable, and heavy rains leach them of nutrients.
09:37But how has geology made these mountains so particularly hostile?
09:43I'm heading to central Honshu, to what are known as the Japanese Alps, in search of clues.
09:54The Alps, both here and in Europe, are relatively young in geological terms,
09:59and they're still being pushed up by all that buckling and warping.
10:04There hasn't been enough time for them to be eroded, worn down,
10:07smoothed off and levelled by the weather, and that's why they're still sharp and steep.
10:13Just like the European Alps, these mountains have been made even more rugged
10:17thanks to the work of nature's giant chisels.
10:19Glaciers are made up of fallen snow that, over many years,
10:24compresses into huge, thickened ice masses.
10:30Over time, the sheer weight of ice bears down on the rock below,
10:35cutting away at the landscape and scouring the mountains as it moves downhill.
10:42The ice is so thick that it's hard to see the bottom of the glacier.
10:45There aren't any of these great rivers of ice left in Japan today,
10:49but 18,000 years ago, there were plenty, and they left their calling cards.
10:59A telltale sign that this landscape has been carved by glaciers
11:02is the presence of these U-shaped valleys with their steep sides and their flat bottoms.
11:08The glaciers are a great source of water,
11:11with their steep sides and their flat bottoms.
11:15These were once V-shaped river valleys, but glaciers follow lines of least resistance,
11:21stealing the river valleys for themselves and scouring them into U-shapes.
11:29All that glacial sculpting makes for beautiful scenery,
11:34but this isn't the place for towns and villages.
11:41Instead, for the Japanese, it's a place for tourism.
11:47They turn up en masse in air-conditioned coaches, bringing their urban comforts with them.
12:02These steaming craters are also part of Japan's geological curse.
12:08Different forces of nature are at work here,
12:12but the problem is they're even less sympathetic to urban settlement.
12:21To show you what I mean, I'm heading to Kyushu Island,
12:25nearly 1,000 kilometres to the south.
12:28This is Mount Aso, which lies almost in the centre of Kyushu.
12:34It's pretty much continually active.
12:36Often, it's too dangerous to come here, certainly not without special equipment.
12:40The reason it's so dangerous is that down there,
12:43sulphur dioxide and other toxic gases are bubbling off the molten magma.
12:48That's the molten rock far beneath the surface of the mountain.
12:51It's a very dangerous place to come here,
12:53or bubbling off the molten magma.
12:55That's the molten rock far beneath the surface.
13:02If that magma gets to the surface, it goes bang.
13:05When it goes bang, you hide in those shelters.
13:11Mount Aso sits in the middle of one of the world's largest calderas.
13:15That's a feature created when a volcano collapses in on itself.
13:19This one is about 130 kilometres in circumference.
13:23You can see the edge of it just around there.
13:26MUSIC CONTINUES
13:48This place feels completely different
13:50from the Alpine landscape I've visited before.
13:55Those alpine peaks were young, but here I feel like I've arrived right at the birth
14:07of a new planet.
14:10It's as if I'm the only life form in a barren and forbidding wasteland.
14:14That might sound a bit depressing, but to me, this is geology heaven.
14:22Just like the ridge I visited earlier, Mount Aso owes its existence to those oceanic plates
14:28going down underneath the continental plate.
14:31As they slide deeper down underneath it, fluids leave it, pass upwards, and reduce the melting
14:37temperature of the overlying rocks.
14:40These melt to form magma, which forces its way up through cracks and fissures to the
14:44top, and when they get to the surface, it forms a volcano.
14:52This process of volcanic eruption and land-building is still very much alive today.
14:58In fact, about 60 of Japan's 186 volcanoes are still active.
15:04Japan is one of the most volatile places on Earth, and it's had more than its fair share
15:20of volcanic disaster.
15:29Just over 150 kilometres from Mount Aso is Mount Sakurajima.
15:35Here, all that magma pushing up and bursting through the fissures in the rocks makes for
15:42a very perilous environment.
15:49In 1779, over 140 people died during a huge eruption here.
15:56Like the victims of Pompeii, most of those perished due to a terrifying series of explosions
16:01known as pyroclastic flows.
16:09These happen at ground level and are violent blasts of hot gases and deadly material like
16:15volcanic fragments such as pumice and glass shards.
16:20They move at high speed, 50 to 100 miles an hour.
16:25If you see one coming, it's too late.
16:44And Mount Sakurajima has been seriously dangerous ever since.
16:50At times during the last century, there have been up to 200 eruptions a year, earning it
16:55a place as one of the world's most active volcanoes.
17:01Half a million people live in the shadow of the mountain, in Kagoshima.
17:09Only a fishing port, the city is squeezed along the shoreline.
17:19In the foothills of Sakurajima, I meet Toru Manami, who has lived here all his life.
17:24He teaches local people about natural history and the legends of the mountain.
17:29So this is it.
17:30It's a Sakurajima.
17:31That's right.
17:32That's right.
17:33So what's it like when this thing actually blows off?
17:35Oh, today it's very quiet, like four or five years ago, that we had four or five times
17:41in a week.
17:42You see that lightning on top, and then huge, they're like mushroom-looking smoke.
17:47You've got a big mushroom cloud that goes way, way up?
17:50Way, way up.
17:51Imagine like the atomic bomb explodes, like huge in scale.
17:57But right after that, the thing that you don't like, ash falls.
18:02And then entire cities are covered with ash.
18:11Some years, over 30 million tons of ash are discharged, consisting of minute particles
18:16which can lodge deep in the lungs.
18:20Unsurprisingly, the people of Kagoshima have to be ready for an eruption at any moment.
18:32These pupils, running for their lives, are from the Ohu Elementary School.
18:41Protected by their hard hats, they dash for cover.
18:50Today it's only a drill, but they never know when it'll be for real.
18:56Is it really necessary?
18:57It is necessary.
18:59They have to get used to it.
19:00If they don't know how to manage themselves like that, in case of that volcano erupts,
19:06they cannot control themselves.
19:08It's a part of their lives.
19:14The people around here do all they can to control the power of the volcano.
19:31On Sakurajima, even rainfall can be deadly.
19:37Following downpours, the water mixes with the ash and rock.
19:42This creates huge rivers of debris.
19:45We geologists call them lahars.
19:47They sweep downhill, travelling at over 50 miles an hour.
20:00I'm standing in the path of one of those rocky rivers.
20:03A network of massive canals has been built all over the volcano, costing £2 billion.
20:10They divert the flows of muddy debris away from the people and straight down the mountain.
20:19The biggest flows are 600 cubic metres per second.
20:23That's equivalent to six double-decker buses rushing by every second.
20:27And last year, these canals were used 17 times.
20:32You're obviously not supposed to be here.
20:35I've been told to be very careful and keep my ears and eyes open,
20:37because you can't outrun one of those monsters.
20:43The next day, heavy rain brought a huge lahar down this very channel.
20:58I've got a feeling it isn't just the obvious physical dangers
21:02that keep the Japanese away from the volcanoes.
21:05There seems to be something more cultural, more spiritual going on in the mountains.
21:12At the Sakurajima shrine, worshippers believe the mountain is ruled by a god.
21:23Toru Manami takes me to a special service held in honour of this deity.
21:34So what's he doing now?
21:36He's asking the god of the volcano to protect the people from the anger of the god,
21:42and at the same time to pray for the goodness and good health of the people here.
21:48So do these people believe that there's a god in the volcano?
21:51Oh yes, they believe in a god.
21:56And what about the scientific aspects?
21:58At the same time, yes, they always look at the scientific point of view as well too, yes.
22:04So they believe in the science and they believe in the gods at the same time?
22:07Yes, they balance what they are looking for.
22:13So are all mountains important spiritually?
22:16Of course, the mountain itself is the house of a god.
22:19It is spiritually very, very important for the Japanese.
22:23Without the mountains, probably we think that we cannot live,
22:28so that we always have to ask the god of the mountain to be quiet and to live together with us.
22:39Maybe for the Japanese, these mountains are more of a sacred domain for the gods
22:44than a place for human habitation.
22:49A few kilometers away, the Island of Fire drummers have taken a much more strident approach in dealing with the mountain.
23:04Every summer, they set up shop in the middle of a field of lava flows,
23:09crashing their instruments as loudly as they can.
23:15Wow, five years ago.
23:18Satoru, what is this?
23:20Well, this is the typical traditional Japanese drum beating.
23:26Wow, and so what were they playing? What was the music?
23:29Well, the tune for that number is the Japanese drum beat.
23:34The Japanese drum beat?
23:36Yes, the Japanese drum beat.
23:39Wow, and so what were they playing? What was the music?
23:42Well, the tune for that number is the Japanese drum beat.
23:46The literal translation for that is, like, quiet mountain suddenly erupts.
23:51So why are they actually doing it? Is there a purpose to this?
23:54Well, it's very traditional, and then also that they, the humanity against nature.
24:01So they're drumming against the volcano?
24:03Yes, yes, drumming against the volcano. That is correct, yeah.
24:06Is it very difficult?
24:07Well, it looks easy, but when you actually try it, it's not that easy.
24:13You can try it and see how it works.
24:15Let me try the big one.
24:16OK, all right, you can try that.
24:22It's quite high.
24:24It's quite sore in your hand.
24:29Wow, that's a big noise.
24:31Thank you very much.
24:33Do you know Scotland the Brave?
24:35Scotland the Brave?
24:46Whether you believe in the god of the volcano or not,
24:49Sakurajima is due for another eruption at any time.
24:55I think it's amazing how these people have come to terms with life in the shadow of the volcano.
25:01But for most Japanese, this kind of existence is quite simply a risk too far.
25:10As if the mountains aren't enough to force the people onto the plains,
25:15there's the weather too.
25:22Rather like us Brits, as a matter of routine,
25:25people always seem to greet each other by commenting on it.
25:28And the changing seasons attract plenty of media attention.
25:31Look, front page news on yesterday's paper.
25:34Rainy season ends across most of Honshu.
25:37So this rain isn't rainy season rain.
25:46The mountains are a barrier, creating contrasting climates on the east and west slopes.
25:53Winds blow air masses laden with moisture onto the western side of the peaks.
26:04In the winter, this leads to huge snowfalls, sometimes as deep as 10 metres.
26:10But on the eastern side of the mountains,
26:12the weather is much more suitable for human settlement.
26:18The air masses lose their snow by the time they reach the east.
26:26As luck would have it, that's exactly where the plains are.
26:31On top of that, there's a lot of snow.
26:34As luck would have it, that's exactly where the plains are.
26:39Unfortunately, they're mostly small, created by debris swept down from the mountains.
26:49To make things worse, those sheer mountains mean
26:52there are no gradual rising plains or hill country on the edge of the flatlands,
26:56which can be adapted for human use.
27:00The topography is dead flat and suddenly very steep.
27:05As a result, apart from a few patches of farmland and countryside,
27:10the plains are mostly crammed with people.
27:13And because they're hemmed in by steep slopes, once the plains have been settled,
27:17there's no more room for human settlement to expand.
27:21And now we've got to the real heart of the problem.
27:24The inhospitable volcanoes and mountains, which cover most of Japan,
27:28have forced the population onto the plains.
27:31I'm going to find out how this harsh geology has affected their lives.
27:41Japan has a vast population of 127 million people.
27:47The majority live in huge urban sprawls.
27:51Cities, towns and villages tend to merge into an indistinct blur of houses and humanity.
27:58The population density in Tokyo is a phenomenal 33,000 people per square mile.
28:05Located on the country's biggest plain, the Kanto Plain,
28:08Tokyo has spread beyond its political boundaries to form a massive urban complex.
28:13The actual population of this metropolis is estimated at 30 million people.
28:18Considered together, it's the world's largest urban complex.
28:23The first wave of population was attracted to these plains here
28:27because this was where you could grow rice, Japan's most important crop
28:31and the perfect complement to my sushi.
28:34But there's something else that drew a second wave of people here,
28:38and that's the fact that there's so much more to do.
28:41There's so much more to do, so much more to do, so much more to do,
28:45so much more to do, so much more to do, so much more to do.
28:50There's something else that drew a second wave of people onto the plain,
28:54Japan's post-war economic miracle.
29:12At the end of the Second World War, Japan was left with a legacy of defeat.
29:18Its economy had been devastated.
29:22And once again, geology had cursed it.
29:38Metals and minerals were very scarce.
29:41Japan needed to rebuild its manufacturing industry
29:44on the back of imported raw materials.
29:49The place for the ports and harbours was the plains,
29:53and there, too, was the land to build the manufacturing plants
29:56and house the workforce.
30:03Driven by an entrepreneurial spirit
30:06and fuelled by the low value of the yen,
30:09Japanese goods opened up export markets.
30:13Almost overnight, Japan managed to rebuild itself
30:17and become one of the world's most successful economies.
30:25During the 1980s, it was vying with the United States for the number one spot.
30:31The country has become one of the biggest
30:33and most technologically advanced producers
30:36of everything from ships, cars and machine tools
30:39to electronic equipment.
30:52Today, the Kanto area of Japan is home to the world's largest
30:57Today, the Kanto area alone produces nearly a third
31:01of Japan's entire gross domestic product.
31:04That's more goods than Great Britain.
31:08With rapid expansion and a chronic lack of space,
31:12the only option was to reclaim land from the sea.
31:17It was a classic example of a country fighting back against geology.
31:27Once, this was part of Tokyo Bay,
31:30an expanse of marsh and seawater.
31:33Millions of tonnes of soil were bulldozed to create factory foundations.
31:45Wetlands were converted one by one
31:48into sites for steelworks, oil refineries,
31:51and electric power stations.
31:57Here, you can find the ultimate industrial real estate.
32:05Landfill is an expensive undertaking,
32:08but there might yet be an even higher price to pay.
32:14Japan lies in one of the most important industrial areas
32:17in the world.
32:20Japan lies in one of the most earthquake-active regions of the world.
32:24As the ocean plates collide against a continental one,
32:27they stick.
32:28The pressure builds up until suddenly it gives in
32:31and the ground starts to shake.
32:34You can feel hundreds of earthquakes each year.
32:37Most of them are too small to notice without equipment.
32:42But several are large enough to shake buildings,
32:46collapse shells, and throw things to the floor.
32:54This earthquake simulator at one of Tokyo's disaster prevention centres
32:58is used to teach people what to do when the big one strikes.
33:12And with these disaster volunteers
33:15and what we've been trained, the key thing to do
33:18is to get some protection on your head
33:21and get under a sturdy table
33:24to kind of duck in cover.
33:36The rigid walls of tall buildings
33:38can shatter under the pressure of an earthquake,
33:41but in Japan, special features are added to absorb these forces
33:45and make the superstructure flexible.
33:49Here at Tokyo's Nihon University,
33:51bendable braces have been designed for this new laboratory building.
33:57Professor Masayo Saito is the earthquake engineer responsible.
34:02Can you tell me about the system you've got here
34:04to reduce earthquake shaking?
34:06These bracing systems are arranged along the whole wall.
34:11A bracing system all the way along the wall.
34:14Hundreds of these braces ensure the laboratory
34:17is twice as flexible as a conventional building.
34:24As Professor Saito's model shows, when an earthquake hits,
34:27each brace contains a piston which acts like a shock absorber.
34:40It's dampening down everything.
34:43Beautiful.
34:45This is the safest place to be in Tokyo,
34:47standing here, holding on to this.
34:54And these buildings do need to be able to withstand huge seismic forces.
35:04In 1995, fires and widespread destruction
35:08were caused by the massive Kobe earthquake in western Japan.
35:12It killed 6,400 people and left 300,000 homeless.
35:20But the horror of what happened at Kobe
35:22is dwarfed by the Great Kanto earthquake,
35:25which in 1923 reduced Tokyo to rubble and killed 140,000 people.
35:32Tokyo's overdue for another great earthquake,
35:35and these low-lying reclaimed areas are particularly vulnerable.
35:44With some earthquakes, like this one in 1964,
35:48the shaking can loosen soil and earth particles
35:51so they mix with water and become suspended.
35:54The ground transforms into quicksand.
35:57This is called liquefaction.
35:59It causes the foundations of buildings to give way so that they collapse.
36:11Despite the perils of the plains,
36:13that's where geology forced the Japanese to create their economic miracle.
36:19But there is an upside to this geological lottery.
36:24Because the country's transport network
36:26serves vast urban areas on the coastal plains,
36:29it's incredibly cost-effective.
36:37Every kilometer of land is used for transportation.
36:41Every kilometer of infrastructure, such as motorways and railways,
36:45is able to reach far more people
36:47than the equivalent services in, say, Britain and America.
36:55So it pays to spend heavily on transport.
36:59The Japanese are building the fastest
37:02and most expensive railway in the world.
37:07The Super Maglev.
37:19The Super Maglev is the fastest and most expensive railway in the world.
37:25I feel like a train spotter.
37:29But these beautiful, sleek triumphs of engineering are just amazing.
37:34These trains don't run on wheels.
37:36They float on superconducting magnets.
37:46The technology may be German,
37:48but it's the Japanese who are prepared to spend no money on it.
37:54It takes 90 million pounds a kilometre to build the track.
37:58A price worth paying,
38:00because the train will connect vast urban centres.
38:15As titanium superconductors a few centimetres beneath my feet
38:19generate an immensely powerful magnetic force,
38:23the train is hurled forward.
38:26At this speed, it could make the journey from London to Glasgow
38:29in just over an hour.
38:34I can't believe it. We're doing 500 kilometres an hour.
38:37That's about 300 miles an hour.
38:39I feel a bit sick.
38:42Soon, the Japanese are to build a 560-kilometre-long track
38:46between Tokyo and Osaka.
38:54TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS
39:07The funnelling of so many passengers along the same routes
39:11certainly makes for efficient transport.
39:17But it does have a downside.
39:19Overcrowding.
39:24Here at Ikebukuro Metro Station,
39:26nearly half a million people pass through during the daily rush hour.
39:30Even though these trains run every minute, not everybody can get on.
39:34These guys in the caps are shovers.
39:37They regulate access to the train
39:39and then they squeeze on as many passengers as possible.
39:46So far, I've discovered how Japan's savage landscape
39:50has turned the population into a small area.
39:57But wherever they can,
39:59the Japanese have turned this geological adversity to their advantage.
40:04Now, I want to find out just how far the effects of living
40:08in these overcrowded planes have reverberated
40:11throughout the country's culture.
40:13TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS
40:20Wherever I go in Japan,
40:22it occurs to me that all the people I meet
40:24are incredibly welcoming and polite.
40:28In fact, the Japanese are famous throughout the world for their good manners.
40:34Their rules of etiquette are very different from our own
40:37and can leave Western visitors completely bamboozled.
40:44TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS
40:50I want to find out whether good manners
40:53are a coping mechanism for an overcrowded society.
40:57So I've come to the Ogasawara School,
41:00where Japanese etiquette has been taught for 33 generations.
41:04SINGING
41:12Hello.
41:20Sayuri Maeda is my guide to some of these perplexing rules.
41:27Everyone is so polite in Japan.
41:29Can you teach me some Japanese manners?
41:31OK. Let's start the bowing.
41:33OK.
41:34The first one is like this.
41:38OK.
41:39It's almost five degrees.
41:41And this is to say hello or something.
41:45And the second one is like this.
41:49And this is almost 30 degrees.
41:51And this is for say thank you or say goodbye or something.
41:57OK.
41:58And the third one is like this.
42:00Oh, my God.
42:02This is 45 degrees.
42:0445?
42:05Yes. This is for apologise.
42:07The fourth one is like this.
42:10I don't think I can do that.
42:12Almost 90 degrees.
42:1490?
42:15Yes.
42:16This is for emperor or god.
42:19Thank goodness. Can I get up?
42:21Yeah, you can go up.
42:22Oh, it really...
42:23It's the back of your chest.
42:25It's like a fitness exercise.
42:27Yes, that's right.
42:28It's very good for you, I guess.
42:31But etiquette doesn't stop at bowing.
42:34There are lots of rules for conducting yourself in Japanese society.
42:38I've noticed they give presents to each other all the time.
42:44Why are presents so important in Japan?
42:47Almost every summer and winter time,
42:49we give the present to build a good relationship to the others.
42:53OK.
42:54So maintaining good relationships between people through presents.
42:57Yes, that's right.
42:58What a good idea. That's lovely.
43:02Of course, choosing the right present is always important.
43:05But in Japan, the way you wrap it also has a special significance.
43:12In this case, the wrapping is carefully shaped like a bird, the crane,
43:16which sends a powerful message.
43:19The crane is a symbol of long life and happy...
43:25Crane, the bird.
43:26That's right. That's a very symbolised bird for Japanese.
43:30That's great.
43:31That's the head and the tail, yeah?
43:33That's right.
43:34That's absolutely beautiful.
43:41Look at that.
43:42That is exquisite.
43:44Thank you very much.
43:45You're welcome.
43:46Even the most minute detail is important
43:49when building relationships in Japan.
43:52I've got this theory that in Japan,
43:54good manners and politeness are to do with overcrowding,
43:57that people being squeezed in.
43:59Do you think that's the case?
44:00It's actually now, it's so.
44:02But it goes back about 700 years ago.
44:06The samurai warriors, it's for the manners for the samurai warriors,
44:11but it's very useful in modern Japanese lifestyle.
44:16Who would have thought that this swashbuckling samurai
44:20could have created such refinement?
44:29It seems it's fine Japanese etiquette.
44:32Isn't Japanese etiquette very important?
44:35It's very important.
44:36It's very important to us.
44:38It's very important to us.
44:39It's very important to us.
44:40It's very important to us.
44:41It's very important to us.
44:43It seems this fine Japanese etiquette
44:45isn't just a response to post-war overcrowding.
44:48It's been long embedded in much of the country's culture.
44:52Japanese people were pre-equipped with a coping mechanism
44:56for the lack of space, good manners.
45:03But I want to find signs of how they reacted to overcrowding
45:07after the fact.
45:08I'm looking for something more recent.
45:10It's time to see how the Japanese spend their spare time.
45:15You might think this a bit extreme,
45:17but to me, everything you're about to see
45:20is actually down to geology.
45:24Inside here is a rather strange-looking game.
45:27It's actually the largest industry in Japan.
45:30Few people outside the country have ever heard of it,
45:33but it's the world's biggest gambling enterprise.
45:35Vegas is small change compared to this.
45:41This is pachinko.
45:48Pachinko employs a third of a million people,
45:51three times more than the steel industry.
45:59It accounts for a staggering 5% of Japan's gross national product.
46:10What's pachinko to do with geology and overcrowding?
46:17Well, it's all to do with the mountains.
46:21There simply isn't enough room for the landscape
46:24to be dotted with football fields and sprawling golf courses.
46:30Pachinko is the remedy.
46:32It requires hardly any space.
46:34In fact, the Japanese have adapted it
46:37to take up even less room than the original US design.
46:42Modelled on an American horizontal pinball game,
46:45the machine was tilted vertically.
46:48Now you can seriously pack them in.
46:56To me, this really is a product of Japan's geological lottery,
47:01where land is at a premium.
47:04Although this room is crowded, these people seem unaware of each other.
47:08Nor do they hear, consciously, the incessant deafening noise.
47:17This is all about just one person facing one machine,
47:21having a dialogue with little steel balls.
47:25Excuse me, what are you doing?
47:28The ball goes here.
47:30Oh, in here? I thought it was in here.
47:32So it comes down here and you want to get it in there.
47:35Right.
47:36True.
47:37All right.
47:38It's just getting, OK.
47:40Whoa, whoa.
47:44Ah! Did you see it?
47:46Yeah!
47:47Oh!
47:48Ah!
47:49Ah!
47:50Ah!
47:51Ah!
47:52Ah!
47:53Did you see it?
47:54Yeah!
47:55You got it!
47:58These machines are a wonderful form of miniaturisation.
48:03Instead of a football pitch, there are square centimetres of backboard.
48:07Instead of players, tiny nails.
48:09Instead of footballs, tiny steel balls.
48:17I wonder if this reduction in size is always created by a lack of space,
48:22or is it that the Japanese find a beauty in small things?
48:29Konnichiwa.
48:30I'm here to meet Emiko Miyashima, a poet and lover of Japanese literature.
48:36Emiko, what is this place?
48:39Oh, this is a haiku pub, a very famous haiku pub in Japan.
48:43This was run by Masajo Suzuki, a famous female poet
48:47who happens to be his grandmother.
48:49Oh, really?
48:50Yes.
48:51A haiku pub, that's great.
48:53Yeah, it's like a haiku mecca for haiku poets.
48:56Right, so what exactly is haiku?
48:58Haiku is a short form of Japanese poetry.
49:01Haiku, read in Japanese, takes only one breath.
49:04Right.
49:05Yes.
49:06Wow.
49:08Haiku poets regularly gather at the pub to appreciate each other's poetry.
49:13It's called a kukai.
49:16Today is a weekly meeting of Emiko's group.
49:21A beer with your haiku.
49:22Sláinte, sláinte, sláinte.
49:25What does that mean, like a long life?
49:27It's Gaelic, Scottish for down the hatch.
49:32Everyone submits poems anonymously and then reads out their favourite.
49:45A child riding number eight with the horse.
49:49Oh, yes!
49:50Oh, that's beautiful, you can really say that.
49:52That's eternity, right?
49:56That's yours.
49:57That's mine?
49:58Yes.
49:59Oh!
50:00Congratulations.
50:03You're a haiku poet now.
50:04I didn't recognise it, I didn't recognise it.
50:06May I read mine in English, Scottish?
50:09Yes, yes.
50:10OK, it's Mount Fuji, melting snow, rocks revealed.
50:17Beautiful.
50:18Did you like it?
50:20In different places or always here?
50:24And the conviviality continued for hours.
50:27Who would have thought that poems merely 17 syllables long
50:31could so touch the imagination?
50:35I simply love haiku, its shortness, because it's more...
50:39It is just my size.
50:41Maybe it's something in my genes to prefer those smaller, shorter things.
50:50In the great cities of Japan, there are hidden wonders
50:54which blend the appreciation of the miniature with the need to save space.
51:00On the 11th floor of a 20-storey skyscraper in the middle of Tokyo
51:05is a small terrace.
51:07And it's here that you step into another world.
51:10This is a miniature garden.
51:20The garden belongs to the famous architect Kisho Kurokawa,
51:25who also designed the Nakagin Tower,
51:27where Saebi, the international lawyer, lives.
51:30That's Kurokawa.
51:31That's right.
51:32Pleased to meet you.
51:34What a beautiful garden you have.
51:36It's very small, but this is a typical traditional garden.
51:40You say small, but it's very big.
51:42It's very big.
51:43It's very big.
51:44It's very small, but this is a typical traditional garden.
51:47You say small, but it's very big for Tokyo, I think, for central Tokyo.
51:51Yes, sometimes it's expressing a natural landscape.
51:58Each feature in the garden evokes something larger.
52:02We have a waterfall there,
52:05and then a lake.
52:07This is a lake.
52:08Wow.
52:09Yeah.
52:10And the lake is spread to the, you know,
52:13this is white sand, means water.
52:16Right, yes.
52:17This is water.
52:18This is water.
52:19The huge wetland.
52:20Flood plain, so sometimes sand.
52:22And then the island is scattered.
52:26It certainly looks like a real landscape to me.
52:29I could imagine if I was in the Japanese Alps or somewhere,
52:33this would look just perfect.
52:35Yeah, this is a way for the Japanese people
52:37to enjoy the imagination of the real landscape.
52:41So you live in the middle of Tokyo,
52:43but you have your very own Japanese Alps.
52:45Yes.
52:51The garden leads to that most enigmatic of Japanese buildings,
52:55the tea house.
52:56This is small.
52:58Originally designed by the samurai,
53:01a sanctuary from a violent world.
53:04This space is the space of art, space for imagination.
53:09So that's why this calligraphy means
53:12it's the inside of the bottle.
53:14It means the cosmos is here in the small tea ceremony house.
53:21Even such a small space, you have a cosmos.
53:24So the room is our cosmos here.
53:26Yeah.
53:28Centuries ago, the inventors of the tea house
53:31didn't need to worry about space,
53:33nevertheless they chose to make it small.
53:38By doing so, they created an inner space
53:41in which the imagination could flourish.
53:45The geology which puts a squeeze on much of Japanese life
53:49doesn't fully explain their fascination with the miniature.
53:53There's a joy found in small things which pervades this country.
54:04The Japanese natural affinity with miniaturisation
54:08played a crucial part in the post-war economic miracle.
54:16When it came to the development and mass manufacture
54:19of pocket-sized electronic goods,
54:21Japan was leagues ahead of the rest.
54:28It didn't matter that the country had few resources.
54:31They had the perfect mindset to make and market these goods.
54:37But geology played a starring role in this success too.
54:42It all began in 1955
54:44when the forerunner of the Sony Corporation
54:46put out the first pocket-sized transistor radio, the TR-2K.
54:55This was the first made-in-Japan item
54:57to overrun one of the world's largest radio stations,
55:00to overrun world markets since the folding fan.
55:04The transistor was actually invented in the US,
55:07but it was the Japanese who made it a marketable item.
55:10A few years after the first,
55:12Sony came out with an even smaller model, the TR-620.
55:21This was then the world's smallest radio.
55:24It was a phenomenal success story.
55:27The even tinier TR-730 soon followed.
55:34Sony went on to develop the Walkman
55:36and first tested it on the Japanese market.
55:42The resulting success allowed Sony to become a world-beater
55:46and led the way for Japan
55:48to dominate the global consumer electronics market for decades.
55:53But why did the Walkman do so well here?
55:56It's all down to the rocks.
55:59As we've seen, it's because of the rocks that we get overcrowding,
56:03and it's because of the overcrowding
56:05that people here crave personal space.
56:09As people are crammed into trains and buses on their way to work,
56:13these stereos enable them to fulfil a fundamental human desire.
56:18They can create their own personal cosmos.
56:22In the old days, you could make your own psychological space
56:25by contemplating the riddles of Zen through meditation.
56:29Nowadays, you can create it with headphones.
56:32In this way, the spirit of Zen lives on in mobile phones,
56:36which even show soap operas and your favourite documentaries.
56:40Commuters that are crushed together on trains are touching physically,
56:44but thanks to miniaturised technology,
56:46they're separated mentally by barriers of sound and vision.
57:02Japan is a land of great challenges,
57:05a place whose rocky surface has been violently shaped
57:09by the huge forces beneath our feet.
57:12This geology has tempered the Japanese people
57:15and given them a steely resilience.
57:20In rebuilding their defeated nation from the decimation of war,
57:24the inhabitants of this magnificent archipelago
57:27had to dig deep into the reserves of ingenuity
57:30and understanding of the world around them.
57:33It's little wonder that their success
57:35has given them the opportunity to build a new world.
57:39And the miracle means Japanese industrial might
57:42reaches across the world,
57:44a potent influence in most developed economies.
57:52Now the tectonic forces,
57:54which pose an ever-present menace here,
57:56affect us all.
57:58Another major earthquake in Tokyo
58:00would be devastating for the country's economy.
58:03If it happens, Japan won't be the only nation in the firing line.
58:08So many countries have a stake in the financial markets here
58:12that the effects of such a disaster
58:14would reverberate around the world.
58:18The impact of an earthquake on Japan's economy
58:21would be devastating for the country's economy.
58:24The effects of such a disaster would reverberate around the world.
58:36Food writer Stefan Gates is on a culinary adventure
58:39to some of the world's hot spots,
58:41discovering how refugees in the camps of northern Uganda
58:44survive on their UN food rations.
58:46That's on Tuesday at 8.30.
58:48Tonight, Arena, on the passing of London's Routemaster buses.
58:52Next.
58:54Next.
58:55Next.