Only in Japan (日本 vol. 2)

Contemporary Japan is the world's greatest post-modern, post-materialist, post-everything experiment. It houses a society that, even by its own Confucian standards, is both sane and insane at once; a country where if the subway runs late, you are given an excuse form to take to your employer so you won't get in trouble; a country where countless plasma screens, neon lights, and concrete high-rises overlap with the most ultimate of minimalisms: Sushi, Zen, austere interior design and, the penultimate, Japanese etiquette.

A lot goes unspoken in Japan, but very little goes unseen. Trains run on time but are often delayed by earthquakes; salesmen are honest but never charge less than a mint; anything can be bought out of a vending machine, including sex; and almost everything harkens to the future in some way.

And what a bizarre, multi-coloured future it is.

The latest from the land of the rising sun:

Rail companies in Tokyo are handing out badges to pregnant women in the hope they prompt commuters to give up their seats on the capital's crowded trains.

The badges come in pink and blue and have the words "There is a baby in my stomach" printed on them.

... versus, say, the esophagus, liver, or kidney, of course — though I wouldn't be surprised if Tokyoites presume that the badges are simply a new way for police to combat recent waves of Asian crazed baby-eating cannibalism. I can see the ungrammatical Engrish logo now: Eat a baby, get rabelled!.

ありがとう!