When I hear stories like this...It really gets to me and just makes me want to go into politics and government even more. It's sad to hear a young man's dream is "office job."
  
Men make use of the internet service in the
private rooms of an internet cafe in Tokyo May 2, 2007. Some low-wage
earning young people who cannot afford apartments in Tokyo are choosing
to live in internet cafes, which are cheaper than a hotel and even
offer showers, microwaves and large libraries of manga to read.
By Sophie Hardach TOKYO (Reuters) - Takeshi Yamashita does not look like a homeless person. From his carefully distressed jeans to his casual-cool navy striped T-shirt, he is every bit the trendy Tokyoite. Yet
the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet
cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job
and his apartment.
It's cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and
hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower
where he can wash in the morning before heading off to one of his
temporary jobs ranging from cleaning to basic office work. Asked how long he plans to go on living like that, Yamashita smiles and shrugs. "I
hope the situation in Japan will improve. The new Japanese generation
doesn't have any money, and many young people don't have any
motivation. I don't have money, but I have a dream," he says, sitting
in a cubicle with a PC and a stack of comic books. So what is his dream?
"I don't know. Maybe some ordinary job in an office." Yamashita is one of Japan's many "freeters" -- a compound of "free" and "Arbeiter", the German word for "worker". A
by-product of the economic crisis that hit Japan and its lifelong
employment guarantees in the 1990s, freeters drift between odd jobs. Earning
around 1,000 yen ($8) per hour, they often struggle to pay the rent in
Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world where a modest 30
square meter (320 square foot) flat in a central location can easily
cost 150,000 yen ($1,250) a month.
Now the economy is recovering, but many freeters are missing out
on the upswing after years of unskilled work. Most expanding companies
prefer to recruit fresh university graduates or transfer basic jobs to
low-wage countries such as China. CYBER HOME As an Internet cafe owner in Tokyo's Ueno district, Masami Takahashi has had a close-up view of social change in Japan. Around the corner from his cafe, homeless people who cannot even afford a reclining seat sleep in cardboard boxes.
Chinese prostitutes in Japanese kimonos prop up drunken office
workers, or "salarymen", who will stumble into Masami's cafe for a nap
later in the night. The salarymen were the first to discover net
cafes as a cheap alternative to hotels after companies hurt by the
economic crisis stopped funding team drinks -- an essential part of
Japanese corporate culture -- followed by a night in a hotel. And
then there are customers for whom Takahashi's Internet point is home.
Takahashi, an affable host sporting a mullet and a blue track suit,
regularly sees freeters taking refuge at his cafe. He has even lent
money to some of them out of pity. "It shows how the social system is changing. It's a bit sad for us Japanese," he told Reuters, scratching his head.
At about 1,400 to 2,400 yen ($12-$20) for a night in a central
Internet cafe -- free soft drinks, TV, comics and Internet access
included -- prices beat those of Japan's famous "capsule hotels", where
guests sleep in plastic cells. This means that on a Friday night in Shibuya, one of Tokyo's main entertainment districts, the dimly lit cafes are packed. At
3 am, there is loud snoring from salarymen in suits, their shoes lined
up neatly outside each individual cubicle containing a reclining seat
or sofa, a computer and a clothes hanger. There are fashionable young women wearing high heels and short skirts, who missed the last train after a night out.
And there are those who use the discretion of a net cafe to their own advantage. "I
often come here with my boyfriend. Today we escaped from high-school
and came here," said 16-year-old Naomi, a schoolgirl in a white shirt,
tartan miniskirt and knee-high socks. Shyly sweeping aside her
long brown fringe, Naomi said she started going to net cafes with her
boyfriend at the age of 15, telling her parents she was sleeping at a
friend's place. "We usually spend all night talking and reading mangas, and in the morning we go to school".
"WORKING POOR" Like Yamashita, the freeter, many of the cyber homeless fade into this colorful crowd, finding anonymity as well as shelter. "The
younger ones don't look any different from other young people," said
Kazumasa Adachi, a manager at one of the more elegant net cafes where
staff wear suits and receive customers with the polite efficiency of
hotel receptionists. He recognizes cafe dwellers by the heavy bags they lug around.
"They are different from the real homeless because they belong to
the working poor, so they do have some money, whereas the ones on the
street have no money at all," he added. There is no official data
on the cyber cafe homeless. Japan's Welfare Ministry plans a wider
study on the phenomenon, according to a newspaper report, but in the
meantime, it is hard to gauge the scope of the problem or its social
impact. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many are freeters in
their mid-to-late-twenties, who stay in a net cafe for a couple of
months before settling for a more permanent housing solution. Those
who are older, poorer, with fewer chances of escaping their drifting
lifestyle, and sometimes too embarrassed to return home, find
themselves at the very bottom of cyber society.
They congregate in run-down Tokyo suburbs such as Kamata,
renting poorly ventilated, smoke-filled cubicles with reclining seats
for 100 yen an hour. "It's very uncomfortable. You can't really sleep," said one Kamata cafe guest who preferred not to be named.
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