The Art of Wasting Money

As a child I can remember my grandfather's frequent despair at the way money appeared to “burn a hole” in my pocket. Given a fiver, I could last no more than a day or two before the urge to spend would simply overwhelm me and I would be forced to buy some utterly forgettable sculpted plastic toy. To an extent this childhood habit of frivolousness has lingered into adulthood, however my arrival in Japan has shown me, thankfully, that I am not alone in my capacity to fritter away my funds. You see throwing hard earned yen down the drain is somewhat of a creative endevour in the land of the rising sun. Take a brief stroll around almost any small town in municipal Japan and you would be forgiven for thinking that the local town hall must be awash with cash, even if the town's residents don't seem to be particularly plush. Indeed, it can sometimes be quite a surreal experience exploring Japan's rural towns, never quite knowing, as you pass dilapidated housing and empty shops, when you might encounter a 50,000 seat baseball stadium, complete with rotating roof, cybernetic toiletry and a heated playing field.

Local government spending splurges most frequently manifest themselves in the magnificent public parks that seem to exist in nearly every Japanese town and village, no matter how small. The creation of such parks, often as public works projects, proves beneficial for local politicians as they provide employment for locals, generate prestige for the town, and create a useful public amenity. It is also widely acknowledged that contracting such work also creates a lot of scope for politicians to secure kickbacks from the local construction industry. Subsequently public parks in many small towns tend to have a dizzying array of facilities, which very often seem completely out of proportion to local needs. Examples range from small infrequently patronised parks that have three or more car parks, providing massive excess capacity, to one local park that I occasionally visit, which has three individual playgrounds right next to each other, as well as a monumental bird shaped bridge.

Even here in my beloved home town Gonohe, a relatively poor place, itself located in the poorest prefecture of all Japan, we have our own selection of prestige constructions. Take for example the local school. When it was built, Gonohe Junior High School was widely regarded as having the best facilities of any school in the entire Tohoku region (a large area of northern Japan). Such a lofty title is perhaps not so surprising given that the school's impressive collection of facilities includes a closed network TV system complete with recording studio, a sculpted Japanese garden with water features, and, most remarkably, a planetarium – all of which are lucky to be used once annually. Other surprises include the town library which must surely be one of the only libraries in the world to have its own flight simulator (if you think that is good, there is a town north of Gonohe whose library houses a painting by Picasso), and the local community centre is an impressively grand construction. It is hard to believe that all this can be found in town whose economy has been in the doldrums since long before the Japanese economic bubble burst.

The title for perhaps the most amusing waste of money, however, must surely go to the infamous ASPAM building in Aomori city. The giant triangular building, constructed out of glass and steel, which was designed specifically to provide the city with a memorable landmark. Located in the heart of the downtown, there is certainly no denying that ASPAM is an impressive sight when lit up at night. The trouble with the building, however, is that it failed to achieve its intended function. You see, when it was built, it was hoped that Aomori's glass pyramid would quickly turn into a cash-generator, securing high rents from local companies keen to have office space in such a 'prestigious' structure. This idea might have been fine if function had been allowed to triumph over form on the architect's drawing board, but those responsible for planning the construction of ASPAM were evidently more concerned about impressing people with looks rather than creating something with practical utility. It didn't take long, however, before the flaws in the design became clear to all: triangular buildings, with their impractical shaped rooms that diminish in size with each level, do not make for ideal office space. In the end Aomori's answer to the Trump Tower was forced to search for a new raison detre, eventually becoming a kind of glorified tourist office.

I guess as a Scot it is a bit cheeky of me to be commenting on the frivolous spending of Japanese politicians, when Scotland herself so recently threw such an extortionate amount of taxpayer's money at the new parliament building in Edinburgh. But you have to give credit to the Japanese, who, just as they did with the simple acts of putting flowers in a vase or folding bits of paper, have turned something fairly straightforward and mundane into an art form. My grandpa might have hated it, but there is something I almost admire about the incredible ways that my hosts in Japan can think of to waste their cash. Hell, they even wasted some of it on me.