"Louise Bremner" <dame_zumari@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1g752ph.1wbf3d91e24gN%dame_zumari@yahoo.com...
> Adam Whyte-Settlar <grawillers@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I was haunted by one lady who was possessed of disbelief that
> > > we had fridges, washing machines, telephones and the same
> > > Japanese cars as they had.
> >
> > Iv'e mentioned this before but in Edinburgh in 1976 one Merkan tourist
asked
> > me, in all seriousness, if we had 'phones in Inverness.
>
> Some time last year, several street vendors in Akihabara[1] were trying
> to sell huge stacks of antique Macs[2] for 500 yen[3] each. I have
> picture somewhere of one bloke sitting on a Plus, because it was cheaper
> than a chair. Although many people were cooing in nostalgia at seeing
> the old B&W desktop, no-one was buying.
>
> I asked one of the vendors where they had come from. He said there had
> been a drive throughout the churches and schools of the US, to collect
> outdated (but servicable) computers and send them off to less fortunate
> countries where such equipment would be welcomed. Such as Japan. He'd
> bought a container-load at auction at the docks, in the hopes that
> someone might want them for decorating or something, and was regretting
> it.
>
> [1] "The" district in Tokyo for the latest in electronic goodies.
>
> [2]  I mean Pluses and SEs and IIs in various stages of decreptitude--it
> was interesting to see that the old beige colour turns a remarkable
> shade of orange under bad storage conditions.
>
> [3] Somewhere between 2 and 3 quid, depending on which stage of the
> Dance of the Demented Yo-yo the yen has reached at that point.

Do you live in Japan, Louise?
If so, do the street vendors still make and sell Yakitori?
And is the night rent with the cry "Osoba!"?
And do they still have small "Mom and Pop" Saki stands where the glasses
sit, filled to the brim, in hot water, waiting for a customer?
And do they still sell Bento at the railroad stations?
And are the Honey wagons still given a wide berth by the wildest drivers in
the world?
And is the view from Sakai bridge as beautiful as it was forty years ago?
And is Mariko now an old woman with grandchildren of her own?
(I'll stop now and wipe a tear from me eye)