City Love Companions

Osaka is the embodiment of Japan's famous hardworking mind-set. In a different way than Tokyo, though. I would say Osaka is the Yin to Tokyo’s Yang. It’s a little more chaotic, feminine, and indulging. There’s an on-going rivalry between the two cities. People from Osaka are jokingly called stingy and gluttonous. Might sound harsh but there's always a story behind a nickname. Historically, most of its population consisted of merchants. There's an interesting theme connecting Osaka and the origins of money in Europe. It began in late 17th century London. Goldsmiths used to store their clients’ gold and jewellery and gave out receipts. They took a cut from every deposit because people are greedy by nature. Before long everyone started trading using the receipts in place of the physic...

Tokyo is only recently becoming a city that people want to visit. The Japanese have been known as sceptical towards outsiders/foreigners: the gaijin, to say the least. The entire country was isolated from the world from 1639 to 1853. This isolationist foreign policy was called Sakoku. And curiously, this is the period when Japan developed the most. Not only Tokyo (known as Edo back then) underwent a massive growth, but also the most iconic parts of Japanese culture came to existence. The samurai, bonsai trees, tea ceremonies, roads, school, erotica, poetry, and sumo, even the kabuki theatre: all that happened because of the Sakoku. Maybe globalization isn’t the way to go? Maybe telling the Christians to piss off with their nonsense is the catalyst that the modern civilization needs? Fast...