Toshiden: Exploring Japanese Urban Legends: Volume One

by Tara A. Devlin

  Due to this horrific accident the government was pushed into starting the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Project. In 1959, five routes were proposed, and after a fierce bidding war three routes were chosen, the three bridges we now have today. Construction began in 1969 with the first bridge, the Seto-Chuo Expressway, connecting Honshu to the mainland in 1988. Kobe-Awaji-Naruto Expressway followed in 1998 and the Nishiseto Expressway in 1999.

  It’s not too difficult to see how this urban legend came about. Shikoku has the smallest population of all Japan’s main islands; less than four million people in 2015, compared to 12 million in Kyushu, its closest neighbour, and five million in Hokkaido, a place mostly known for snow and bears. Yet there are three bridges linking it to the mainland, and to the general public their construction seemed to coincide with the Cold War. But a little digging shows that plans for several bridges have been underway since the early 1900s, long before the Cold War, and it was only because of the devastating toll that World War II took on Japan that they took so long to build.

  What you can understand by convenience store toilets

  Compared to other countries around the world, Japan is thought to be a comparatively safe country, but how about your town? As safe as Japan is, there are still many dangerous areas around the country. I’m going to introduce you to a simple method with which you can confirm just how safe your town is.

  First, I’d like you to go to the nearest convenience store. Once you look at the warning written on the toilet door, it will all become very clear.

  1. “You may freely use this toilet.”

  Areas with convenience stores that display this sign, meaning anyone can freely use their toilet, are considered to be relatively safe.

  2. “Please see attendant if you wish to use this toilet.”

  Areas where you need to see the convenience store staff in order to use the toilet are considered to be fairly average. Not good, but not bad.

  3. “Public not permitted to use toilet.”

  If you see a sign that denies the public any usage of the toilet, or even when there is no toilet built into the convenience store at all, these areas are considered to be fairly dangerous.

  So, now do you understand? As areas become more dangerous, convenience stores become a hotbed of crime and the establishments become less likely to loan them out. Especially those stores where there is no toilet to begin with, or it is never available for public use, it’s likely that the stores had trouble in the past with drug deals and illegal sales on premises and thus closed the toilets to public use.

  ABOUT

  Convenience stores are said to be the “mirror of the neighbourhood.” You can judge the local colour by the state its convenience store is in. If it’s well-kept, tidy, and welcoming, that reflects the area it’s located in. But, on the other hand…

  Although convenience stores in Japan are for the most part chains, the use of on-site toilets are up to each store manager, and each store manager has their own rules. So, supposing you go to one store in one city, then another from the same chain in a different city, the store rules may not necessarily be the same. One may allow you to use the toilet while another may not. It’s fairly common in bustling city centres for drunks to wander in at all hours of the night, leaving toilets dirty and unfit for general use. In some stores the staff may not want to deal with the constant mess day after day. As a side note, another note you may commonly see on convenience store toilet doors is “Thank you for always keeping this toilet clean.” The reason is the same as when you would see this sign in English. Telling people to keep a public toilet clean often results in the exact opposite effect thanks to the innate human desire to rebel against what we’re told. Yet when phrased in a polite manner that has zero hint of command, a simple “thank you” for an ongoing state, it is more likely to make people want to keep that state going. Simple human psychology.

  So looking back at the other signs, it’s not too difficult to see how this legend came to life, because there is a certain element of truth to it. From personal experience, it can be very difficult to find a convenience store with a toilet you can use in bigger cities such as Tokyo and Osaka, especially in rowdier districts, whereas nearly every convenience store in the countryside will have fairly clean toilets you can freely use at any hour of the day or night.

  But toilets are often hidden in blind spots and difficult for staff to see while they are working, so that makes them prime spots for shady dealings. If a particular store has a lot of trouble with such dealings, in the end it’s easier for them to close the toilets entirely, and each store manager can freely decide. Does that mean that each convenience store that refuses public access to its toilet is in a dangerous neighbourhood? Not necessarily. Maybe the manager just doesn’t want to clean it anymore. But there is a chance, and that’s how this particular legend came about.

  The professor’s note

  A professor from a certain university disappeared. At first his assistant thought he went on a trip, but he was unable to get in contact with the professor’s family either.

  He went straight to the professor’s house, but it was empty. He couldn’t find even a single piece of furniture. Starting to realise that something was wrong, the assistant returned to the lab so he could file a report with the police.

  But as he opened the professor’s drawer he saw a single piece of paper. It was a memo.

  “Perhaps this is a letter from the professor…?”

  He opened the memo, but when he read it he was shocked.

  “If you are reading this letter, you must leave the Kanto region right away. No, you must get as far away as possible. Don’t tell anyone about what you’ve seen here. If you do, it would cause widespread panic. But whatever you do, you mustn’t be in the Kanto region on this day of this month.”

  The assistant put the memo in his pocket and hurried to gather his things. For you see, the professor that disappeared was a world-famous authority in predicting earthquakes.

  ABOUT

  There was an American psychologist called Gordon Allport who proposed that how far a rumour would spread depended on its importance to the speaker multiplied by its level of ambiguity. The more important and ambiguous it was, the further it would spread.

  Japan is an island nation that sit on several fault lines. Earthquakes of all sizes are a daily occurrence although most aren’t felt by the public in general. Yet when large earthquakes do strike, they are devastating. We need only look at what happened in Fukushima to see the damage that can be done to modern Japan with a large enough earthquake. There have been countless news reports over the years of the ‘big one’ that’s coming. Government scientists have warned that the next mega quake could hit Japan within the next 30 years, based on data that massive tremors hit on a cycle lasting around 340 to 380 years.

  The fear of a big earthquake is constantly on the minds of the Japanese people, especially the damage it might cause to a city as large as Tokyo. With this legend we see both the importance to the speaker and the level of ambiguity is quite high. It’s not expressed exactly when the earthquake will hit, and with how important the topic is, it can spread explosively through the public like chain mail.

  This particular legend existed before the Fukushima earthquake, which has perhaps only strengthened it in recent years.

  Secret behind the Tokyo Marathon

  The Tokyo Marathon first took place in 2007, and every year more than 300,000 people apply. It is an extremely popular race in which anyone can run, and applicants are chosen via lottery. One of the reasons it is so popular is because the course runs through many popular sites through Tokyo, and you are able to run through major roads that you normally would not be able to. In order for that to happen, these major roads are closed for up to seven hours on race day. But why do they go to such efforts for such a large-scale tournament as this? In reality, there is a large national secret lurking behind this race.

  The real reason this race is held is to sim
ulate how the population would move during a large scale disaster in Tokyo. For example, if there was a large earthquake directly beneath Tokyo, a large number of people would need to evacuate the city at once. The government can measure how long it takes the runners to move from one area to the next and allows them to come up with new escape routes. You might say that the race is held in order to gather useful data in preparation of a great disaster.

  So how do they gather this sample data? Each runner is given an RC chip (a wireless IC chip) that the runners wear when they run. This chip works in conjunction with GPS to track where the runners move and how long it takes them to get there.

  Compared to other marathons, there are a comparatively high number of handicapped runners that take part as well. Using the data of those who assist them, the government can them come up with better escape routes for the future.

  ABOUT

  Despite how implausible it may seem at first, there’s some sound logic behind this legend and more than a kernel of truth as well. The National Crisis Management Resuscitation Organisation (NCMRO), a non-profit organisation, stated the following in papers titled “The significance behind administrating the Tokyo Marathon 2007.”

  “The significance behind administering the Tokyo Marathon 2007 is not just organising the race, but guidance training for returnees and collecting statistical data as well. There is invariably another side to holding such a large-scale race for the general public to participate in. The reason for that is because other risks may occur at the same time. Terrorism in particular has been on the rise in recent years, and events such as this make an easy target. Therefore, there must be some sort of return to counterbalance these risks. The return for holding a marathon for the public in a large city is crisis management organisation and training as well as the collection of data.”

  Seems pretty cut and dry, doesn’t it? There is inherently a risk that comes with any event of this size, but the NCMRO claims it’s counterbalanced by the data and training they can get that will be able to save lives in the future.

  As an interesting side note to this, the Tokyo Yakatabune Association of pleasure boats began offering free rides on the day of the Tokyo Marathon from 2009. This is reportedly to give supporters a taste of what might happen during a large-scale disaster, and acts as transportation training in the event that bridges become unusable during an earthquake.

  So while it’s unlikely that the Tokyo Marathon began expressly as a method of gathering data, it no doubt provides invaluable information to researchers and officials. They can then use this information to create simulations and provide better training and resources in the event something terrible really does happen in the city.

  There’s one more unrelated legend that states that, compared to other courses from around the world, the Tokyo Marathon course has a lot of return legs, resulting in the final course resembling a cross shape. The reason for this lies in Feng Shui; the runners following this course help the stagnant energy lying in Tokyo to flow, and supposedly each year after the marathon the flow of the magnetic field within the city rises sharply.

  Sony timer

  Rumour has it that Sony manufactured goods are created so that they will break down and stop working shortly after their warranty expires. This is done on purpose and is known as the “Sony timer.”

  ABOUT

  Also known as the “Sony kill switch,” this legend has been around since the 1970s, and claims that Sony builds their products to purposefully break down after the warranty has expired. This means people have to either repair their electronics or buy Sony’s latest and greatest, keeping the money rolling in.

  THE TRUTH

  Sony in Japan is aware of the “Sony timer” phrase and in 2006 denied that such a system exists. While it is true that many of their products seem to break down after one year of use, and thus after the warranty is void, there is no evidence that this is done on purpose in order to force people into spending more money. If such a device existed that would cause products to cease working after one year, hobbyists and technicians would likely have discovered it by now, but no such device has ever been found. Supposing such a device did actually exist and no-one had yet discovered it over the last 40-odd years, it’s still strange that not one single person has ever leaked news of its existence. Such a leak would be devastating to Sony, and there would be no shortage of takers wishing to expose the truth.

  The term “Sony timer” originally came about as a form of sarcasm over how easily Sony products tend to break. There’s nothing deliberately malicious going on underneath the surface. While many products may stop working after a year or two, many more last much longer, going five, ten or twenty years without a problem. All consumer electronics are destined to fail eventually, and the Sony timer myth is just that; sarcasm that came about due to the often less than stellar craftsmanship of popular electronic goods.

  Curse of Colonel Sanders

  On October 16, 1985, the Hanshin Tigers won the Japan Championship Series for the first time in 21 years. Fans celebrated wildly into the night; nothing could put a damper on their spirits. Fans made their way to the shopping district of Dotonbori and, one after the other, jumped into the river from the Ebisu Bridge.

  At the climax of their excitement, however, a certain incident took place. One group of fans grabbed the statue of Colonel Sanders from the front of Kentucky Fried Chicken and threw it in the air in celebration. They felt the statue resembled Randy Bass, an American player and that year’s MVP. But they got carried away, and the statue was then thrown into the river.

  Ever since then the Colonel has held a grudge, and the Hanshin Tigers have been unable to achieve victory again.

  ABOUT

  This legend is incredibly well known in Japan. They even spoke about it where I lived, way out in the countryside of West Japan, over 30 years later. The Colonel’s curse lives on.

  The Hanshin Tigers are a baseball team from Osaka, the second largest city in Japan. They are forever the underdog to the Yomiuri Giants from Tokyo, yet in 1985 they finally managed to beat them and secure the championship. In contrast to Tokyo, people from Osaka are known to be fun, easy-going, and somewhat cheeky. The celebrations of the fans made it all the way to downtown, and as people yelled out the player’s names, a fan resembling them would jump into the river in celebration. With a lack of foreign fans around at the time, they grabbed the nearby statue of Colonel Sanders instead and tossed him into the river.

  As with many other sports curses, the blame soon fell upon him when the Tigers were unable to repeat their success in later years. The Tigers managed to make it to the finals in 2003 and KFC stores in both Kobe and Osaka moved their statues inside so fans couldn’t have a repeat performance of years earlier. The new statue to replace the old one in Dotonbori was also bolted down.

  On March 10, 2009, the statue was finally recovered from the Dotonbori River, although it was missing its left hand and glasses. These were replaced, and the statue moved to the KFC branch near Koshien Stadium. But the originals are still missing, and it’s said the curse can’t be broken until both the original glasses and left hand are found.

  Pedestrian road signs

  You often see road signs throughout the city with a parent and child holding hands. This sign means the road is for pedestrians only, but there’s a terrible secret hidden behind the design.

  Several decades ago, a photographer was taking photos of children playing at the park. Amongst these children he saw a father with a felt hat, holding hands with a little girl as he walked. Seeing such a harmonious sight, the man snapped a picture without thinking.

  Around that time the government was holding a design contest for the public to submit their ideas for a new pedestrian’s only road sign. The man submitted his photo of the father and girl, and amazingly his picture was chosen. That design is the one you see on road signs today.

  However, a few months later, the man was reading the newspaper at home when he saw an a
rticle that sent a chill down his spine. It was an article about the kidnap and murder of a little girl. The perpetrator had been caught, and there was no doubt about it, both the man and the little girl in the photos were the same ones he took the photo of at the park that day.

  So what you see on the pedestrian road signs isn’t really a parent and child holding hands, it’s a kidnapper and the little girl he snatched away.

  ABOUT

  You can find the road sign on Google if you look for it, but it is admittedly creepy looking. It’s not hard to see why someone would make up this story about a kidnapper, because it basically looks like Slenderman snatching a little girl away. There is, however, no truth to the rumours. No design contest was ever held in Japan for the pedestrian’s only road sign. It’s based on the common design you can find throughout Europe.

  This rumour supposedly came about because of the German president Gustav Heinemann. In 1970, he mentioned the design that was used in his own country made him think of a kidnapper, and it was from those comments that the story sprang to life. The story then made its way to Japan where the same signs were also being used. Thanks to Heinemann’s comments, the sign was changed in Germany, but you can still find the original in Japan today.

  Caramel grooves

  As everyone knows, you can find grooves carved into the surface of pieces of caramel. But rather than just making sure the pieces of caramel don’t stick to their wrappers, there’s another vital role these grooves play.