Luxury in a Time of Austerity

In addition to the countless aftershocks, we had a fairly big earthquake last night. What’s the difference? Well, the earthquake we had last night was on a different fault line so it wasn’t an aftershock of the earthquake we had last Friday. Great, just what we needed.

I do want to clarify something very important. Compared to the people in Sendai that have been so affected by the tsunami, we, in Tokyo, have absolutely nothing to complain about.

With the nuclear reactor misbehaving, though, things are getting slightly worrisome here.

I have been thinking about some of the LUXURIES I have learned to live without. We have been asked to conserve energy because of the short power supply, so I only use one small light at night. I haven’t had my heating on since this whole crisis began. I make do with whatever I find in the stores to eat. We can live perfectly comfortably even without these things; how wasteful we have been!

And like I said, compared with the people up north, we are so fortunate!

But when I went to the LUXURY goods district of Ginza in Tokyo today, I was shocked at some of the blatant ways some corporations are wasting energy at a time we have all been asked to conserve. I got on my soapbox and just had to name and shame the bad guys. Here is the result: