Tokyo Olympics 2020: What it's Been Like Living in Tokyo
My experience living in Tokyo as it prepares for the Olympics and fights the Covid-19 pandemic.
When Tokyo was announced as the location for the 2020 Olympics, it was a huge deal.
It represented the return of Japan to the forefront of the global stage, it turned Japanese words like “omotenashi” into marketable slogans, it further invigorated the push for foreign tourism, sparked new businesses, renovations and developments eying the year.
Ultimately, it gave hope to country that was being called stagnant.
Truth be told, I love the Olympics.
The Dream Team, Kerri Strug landing, Apollo Anton Ohno, Usain Bolt, Vince Carter’s massive dunk, Mosely on the moguls, Michael Phelps, the men’s swimming relay comeback, Beijing’s mind-blowing opening ceremony, Rikako Ikee’s coming back from leukemia. All of it.
I like seeing people from around the world who are at the top of what they do, come together and compete, and let me feel excitement and sense greatness in sports - most of which I would never watch or even know about if it weren’t for the Olympics.
I had always wanted to see the Olympics in person.
A friend and I talked about wanting to drive up from San Francisco to Vancouver for theirs. So of course when I was sitting in my apartment in Fukuoka watching the TV and “Tokyo 2020” was announced, it was just such a big thing. I’d have to stay a long time more in Japan, but I had a chance to live in the host country. I set this arbitrary date that I’d try to be in Japan at least until then.
So of course, when tickets became available, I had to try and get some.
Olympic Ticket Lottery
The process was tedious. You had to go on a site, to make an account that allowed you to go to another area to TRY to buy. For the first site, just to get in it said I was about the 900,000th person waiting to even make an account.
Finally after a few hours I got in, had to receive an automated phone call to confirm my identity, and then I could apply for tickets.
You could apply for up to 30 tickets, so if you’re going with another person, that’s 15 events. But for each event, you had to choose things like if it’s a medal round, what seating section you’re applying for - and of course these prices varied. It was a lottery.
And then the results came in.
Many in Japan were pissed because very few people got tickets and it seemed like there was more preference for foreigners. But my wife and I lucked out - between the two of us, we got 3 events, pretty good ones too. We got 2 medal round swimming events and 1 men’s basketball semifinal.
We had the option to buy, and they were not cheap. The basketball one was around USD $100 per person and swimming was about USD $700 per person. But we thought, it’s a once in a lifetime experience, so we bought all of them knowing we had the option to sell one back later.
But then the pandemic hit.
Tokyo’s Olympic Problems
The Tokyo Olympics had a lot of problems from the start.
There we’re rumors of inside deals, the logo being stolen, issues with the Zaha Hadid designed stadium and its replacement, Yoshiro Mori and his sexist comments, the shadiness of celebrated choreographer MIKIKO being pushed out after she designed the opening ceremony and replaced with someone who made rude remarks about Naomi Watanabe, the musician who bragged about severe bullying, the other who joked about the Holocaust…
You get the point.
Questionable handling of Covid-19
As Olympic problems mounted, Japan’s handling of the virus continued and is still getting mixed reviews.
Emergency declarations
There have been 4 emergency declarations in Tokyo.
Without the legal power to completely lockdown, these declarations have been largely focused on restricting night life - from closing shops early to banning alcohol sales. More recently, rules labeled as silly such as no drinking after 8PM or being only able to drink by yourself have been introduced.
Each time these declarations are lifted, the situation gets worse, and while the first 2 helped decrease people out and about, the last two haven’t really done anything.
Emergency declaration impact 1-4. Light purple represents people movement 2 weeks prior and dark purple represents the first day of the emergency. Based on a study of Docomo phone data in 5 areas of Tokyo.
It seems like people are a bit over the silliness.
Slow and tedious vaccine rollout
And while this was going on, in the critical months leading up to the already postponed Olympics, there’s a super slow vaccine rollout and just a lot of mixed messaging.
We have concerts and events being cancelled, businesses being asked to close early, and we have a push to bring in thousands of people from around the world for the Olympics.
Meanwhile, I finally received my voucher to qualify me to get the vaccine last week in mid-July. The actual timeline of getting the first jab however is September.
Olympics or Covid-19?
Of course all of this makes it look like the government has their priorities mixed up and isn’t acting in the best interest of their people.
It’s no surprise that there’s a lot of people pretty vocal about how crazy this all is. There’s been talk about the incompetence of the government and how it’s all about the money… Dentsu.
I too think that holding the Olympics during this situation is kind of nonsense.
The decision to do or not do the Olympics is not that simple.
We don’t really know all the details, however. If you look back at Twitter, you’ll find that people already had strong opinions for a while just based off of headline reading and mixed frustrations only to have new information come out later. And while the new information may not sway opinions, it does point to the fact that we still don’t really know everything other than it’s stupid and that the IOC is looking like a bunch of assholes.
One thing we overlook is the fact that the the government isn’t just one thing. There’s a lot of internal arguments going on.
For example, Olympic-related events were planned in various wards around Tokyo, but some ward governments were refusing the metropolitan government because of the potential liability.
And Dentsu… it’s easy to hate Dentsu, the agency that’s associated with “Karoshi” - death by overwork and Olympic greed.
But there’s not all that much talk about the small businesses that depend on work from them. Dentsu doesn’t put boots on the ground, it’s a lot of outsourcing to small and medium sized companies who then outsource to even smaller companies, freelancers and artists.
Those people are the ones whose livelihood depends on these kinds of projects.
If you’ve visited Tokyo in the past few years, you might’ve noticed a lot of the construction and renovations going on. There’s a lot of new things made for or at least made with the Olympics in mind. And their stopping or cancelling are bound to have an impact.
It’s just an unfortunate overall
Especially with this being such a huge event that was portrayed as a pivotal moment for a country, you can’t help but think that things would’ve been handled just a little bit better to make sure it happens in the best way.
Hope things will go well. If you want to watch my video on this, please check it out.