

Japan: Living in an Internet Cafe - Futurebot
http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/japan-disposable-workers-unemployment-jobs-crisis-economy-internet-cafe

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bane
I'm reminded of a very brief period when I was about 10 where my family found
themselves "in between homes". Having to foot long-term, but temporary living
ourselves, and not knowing how long we were going to be in that situation (a
year long lease wouldn't have worked), the four of us ended up at a cheap
motel for a couple months.

One of the enduring memories I have of such accommodations was the seedy
underbelly of society I was exposed to. Drug addicts wandering the halls,
mentally ill homeless spending their panhandling money for a night in a clean
bed with a hot shower...it culminated when a local, very high, gang member
mistook our room for another, and at 2 in the morning tried to force entry so
he could "cut the balls off of Tony". It was one of the few times I've ever
seen my father scared, with noplace to run and 3 other people he was
responsible for, I remember him rummaging through the room looking for any
kind of weapon. My grandmother ultimately convinced the gang member that he
had the wrong room and there was no Tony. He went down the hall and tried to
force entry into another room. The police never bothered to come.

As appealing as these kinds of places might seem for the startup hacker
culture, remember, cheap Japanese Internet Cafes won't necessarily translate
into cheap _American_ Internet Cafes, even with the same amenities.

(In Korea, they have something called Goshiwons [1], which are small cheap
rooms students rent out while studying for exams. They're usually near
universities and would seem like a much better hacker dorm than sleeping on
the dirty floor of an internet cafe.)

1 - [http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon](http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon)

~~~
fsckin
My family had similar "between home" experiences. I suspect these sorts of
experiences are not terribly uncommon, but I'll share a couple stories.

We stayed in a shady motel for 3 months. They hadn't paid the electric bill
and we found out in the middle of the second night there. Front desk clerk
waited for the technician to leave, then brings bolt cutters, a 2x4, and metal
shims to the master panel... 3 minutes later (and a little bit of my help)
power was back. Police visited daily, victimless felony arrests were quite
common.

In another occasion, we spent 10 months in a campground frequented by biker
gangs. To my parents' dismay, I made many friends (both my age and
significantly older) and learned how to fight, had my first kiss, and grew to
love heavy metal, got drunk for the first time, among other things.

------
ttflee
In China, the most majority of population staying overnight in a net-bar (the
Chinese term for net-cafe, though they are not serving alcohol particularly or
to youth illegally anyway), might be youth students who are not allowed to
hang out online at nights(, or even days), or immigrant workers who do not
have Internet access at their apartments.

And it is occasionally used as a cheap replacement to hotel for some people.

The conditions(, as much as I know,) are far poorer than the Japanese ones
shown in the photos, and many (maybe most of the) net-bars are open spaces,
that there were rumours that people had their World of Warcraft passwords(, or
maybe the passwords for value-add cards to WoW, which I cannot remember
clearly) stolen after someone peeked through CCTVs.

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aqrashik
Given that there are people who can't afford a place to live coupled with the
deflationary crisis, could someone explain to me what would be the issues, if
the Japanese government simply starts giving out a minimum amount of money
each month (as has been proposed for poorer countries where people actually
face starvation).

On the face of it, this solves two problems in one go, the poor have a basic
guaranteed income; and printing and distributing money solves the deflationary
spiral and pushes the currency towards inflation.

~~~
cpursley
"if the Japanese government simply starts giving out a minimum amount of money
each month"

Don't you see? These type of thinking is what has gotten western countries
(including Japan) into this crisis in the first place.

You can't print your way out of a crisis without harming savers (retired) and
young people (lower skilled, less experienced).

~~~
gbrindisi
> You can't print your way out of a crisis > without harming savers (retired)
> and > young people (lower skilled, less experienced).

As a youngster I am tired of hearing shit like this. Do you have any
historical example to show?

Because from what I've seen, post WWII countries came out of their crises
riding protectionist policies rather than sacrificing their last generation or
robbing their population. Like Korea.

~~~
speeder
Here in Brazil, the last attempt to print its way out of a crisis resulted
into 2000% inflation.

The government in late 1993 and early 1994 then created a new currency, that
would be pegged 1:1 with USD (later the pegging was removed, now it is about
2.2:1 ), and with limited supply. Also a bit time earlier, a president REMOVED
money from people savings, literally (ie: he told banks to set the saving
accounts to zero, and that is it).

This, along with some new laws about government spending fixed inflation and
allowed the economy to run smoothly again.

Then around the 2000s, when the leftist government arose, they decided to
solve poverty again by printing money and giving to the poor, at first it
seemly worked, with GDP growth peaking at around 8% in a year, and millions of
people leaving poverty and entering what here is called "lower middle class"
(actually, in US that would still be considered poverty... here "lower middle
class" is if you can rent something, and pay your own food, but rely on
government services to education, health and transportation).

The popularity of the socialist government soared (it reached around 70% at
its peak, that also peaked during the 8% growth year)...

Then we have currently 6.7% of yearly inflation (year to date data), 0.9% of
GDP growth (2012 data) and most of the inflation drivers is housing costs and
food (exactly the things that the "new middle class" could afford). Now the
government approval is 30% and we have already 5 weeks of protests and strikes
that never end, totally widespread, even to some crucial sectors (ie: several
states have the police threatening to strike, and there are also threats of a
military police strike, that is kinda ludicrous, because as military they
cannot legally strike, and more than one high ranking officer of the army
threatened a coup, with a general writing a anti-government text and all)

Printing your way out of crisis, only result in a sort of roller coaster
economy, it booms and suddenly bust, at first, people with the influx of money
start to spend a lot, and people build business to attend to them, then all
this influx money result in inflation, suddenly the economy start sputtering,
as inflation rises faster than GDP growth, and particularly food and housing
inflation rises faster than wages and government welfare, and you have a
vicious cycle of needing to print more money to save the population that
spends this money and generate more inflation, and your real wealth creation
sink.

EDIT: Oh, striker truckers are awesome too, because they are just parking
their trucks in the middle of the highways and fucking up everything... Never
piss off truckers when your economy rely completely on them because your
trains are shit or non-existant.

~~~
_delirium
> Printing your way out of crisis, only result in a sort of roller coaster
> economy

That can happen in similar situations if you _don 't_ as well, though.
Greece's typical response to financial crises until recently was currency
devaluation, i.e. massive but controlled step-function inflation. That
certainly has a lot of downsides. But now that Greece is in the Eurozone, it
can't do that. Even post-crisis, the inflation is very low; there is even
deflation if you look at local baskets of goods. But that has not kept the
economy off of the roller-coaster. It's just been a different roller coaster,
and likely a worse one (in the previous crises, Greece never had 65% youth
unemployment).

------
bahman2000
The other day a Lyft driver in SF told me that he's considering renting an
office space in Chinatown to live in. Gym membership to shower.

------
kijin
In Korea, lots of people live in Jjimjilbang
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jjimjilbang)).
It's like getting a gym membership, but without the gym and with much more
options for washing. You also get all the benefits that an internet cafe has
to offer (connectivity, snacks, etc.) but without having to curl up in a tiny
cubicle.

~~~
bane
Don't forget Goshiwons as well
[http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon](http://wiki.galbijim.com/Goshiwon)

------
perlpimp
Kinda reminds me of neuromancer privacy suites.

Far out.

------
f4stjack
This reminds me of Coffin Hotels in William Gibson's Neuromancer somehow...

------
toyg
Yeah, this is not news. I remember a BBC (?) reportage on the topic from 6+
years ago; at the time the angle was less about economic downturn (although
the local stagflation phenomenon was mentioned) and more on social awkwardness
/ otaku life being exploited by cafe owners (they can kick you out pretty much
at will). Sad to see things have not improved since.

------
wilfra
I stayed in these cafe's for about half of a month long trip through Japan.
Partly to save money on hotels, partly for the experience and partly because
their "internet cafes" are fucking awesome. I use quotes because they are
nothing like what people in the West think of when they hear that term. They
are designed for people to spend many, many hours in and are (generally) a
really fun and comfortable place to do so. Particularly if you like being
around college aged Japanese people and/or keep weird hours and/or spend lots
of time online.

I wouldn't want to live in one but probably would if SoMa had an equivalent -
and I imagine many others would as well.

~~~
sanukcm
> _I wouldn 't want to live in one but probably would if SoMa had an
> equivalent - and I imagine many others would as well._

I came to the comments hoping someone else felt this way, actually. I really,
really wish micro-accommodation would become a thing in American cities.

I'm moving to San Francisco after I graduate next spring. I would love it if
some sort of crossover between a co-working space, a Japanese airport "capsule
hotel"[1] and a hacker house type environment existed.

The hacker houses that exist now sound like a nice idea in theory[2] (being
around a bunch of interesting, like-minded people). In practice, however,
trying to get some sleep in a place like that sounds like - well, a nightmare.
Great when you first arrive and are meeting people and going to interviews or
whatever - not really viable over the long term for someone like me who values
his sleep.

In my mind, I see a place where I have:

* A clean, comfortably appointed, soundproof capsule for sleeping

* Access to a nice, luxury-gym-like shared bathroom

* Access to a co-working space / commons area for hacking

I'm not sure how realistic this is given government regulations, housing
prices, the number of people interested in actually paying for such a place,
etc. Sure would be cool though.

[1] -
[http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/01/12/1225986/0270...](http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2011/01/12/1225986/027006-capsule-
hotel-china.jpg)

[2] - [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/technology/at-hacker-
hoste...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/technology/at-hacker-hostels-
living-on-the-cheap-and-dreaming-of-digital-glory.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
EliRivers
_I really, really wish micro-accommodation would become a thing in American
cities._

Whilst I can understand your sentiment, I think a better solution would be
that American cities had decent-sized cheap accommodation that was also well
served by public amenities.

That said, I live in the UK, and when it comes to houses the British
population are just plain stupid, and they eagerly rush into ridiculous
housing at ridiculous prices.

~~~
cinquemb
_Whilst I can understand your sentiment, I think a better solution would be
that American cities had decent-sized cheap accommodation that was also well
served by public amenities._

Many cities do, just not the ones most people would probably rush off too
first… and it doesn't help with the increase in housing costs in "popular
cities".

