I suppose it was the Baby Boomer generation that'll be the last to clearly recall the golden days of door-to-door salesmen, full-service gas stations and the humble milkman. Sure, I've been proselytized at and offered Girl Scout cookies, but I've never seen a real door-to-door saleman.
I've also got vague memories of full-service gas stations in my pre-teen years, remembering the last one in Castro Valley was a Chevron on Heyer and Center, but recalling it is like watching a yellowing film reel. Milkmen? No damn way.
Japan has them all though. Full-service gas is the norm here, not an exception, and one only pays a one or two yen premium for the experience. My friend in Hita, Luchie, is a milkman who wakes up early everyday to deliver that sweet sweet dairy. While riding around Hita with a friend last week I saw door-to-door insurance salesmen making their rounds, and just today a bread salesman just barged into our teacher's room at Kitayamada JHS and hunkered down with three trays of goodies. I bought three loaves.
Noticing that all these things that once were institutions of a bygone America I wondered just why Japan was still practicing them. They're all wildly inefficient, of course: gas attendants don't make the pump go faster, we can do the same work in the same time; door-to-door salesmen invade the tranquility of our homes and may or may not be trustworthy; and milk can be bought at any store while one buys their other groceries. Are these also institutions in Japan that the nation stubbornly refuses to loosen its grip on? Are these companies operating inefficiently or at a loss to provide make-work jobs? Are they creating such jobs to reduce unemployment? Is it mandated by the government or part of some wider social conscience?
Ah, such strange and ephemeral interests have I.
--Matt
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