An almost impossibly perfect country

Not so long ago, I went on a business trip to the Land of the Rising Sun to have some key discussions regarding setting up a Japanese version of my fashion magazine.  Why is it that I am thinking of doing it in Japan?  Simple: - Japanese women are the race that come closest to French women to being perfect (minus the word "effortlessly": - we will see why).

Japanese women famously have the highest life expectancy in the world of any major nation (by which I mean that the nation is not a microstate and therefore prone to extreme statistics) at 85.72 years according to the CIA's 2012 data.  However, according to the same data, women in metropolitan France are snapping at their heels with 84.80 years.  Now, one thing I want to make clear is that nobody comes close to French women in terms of being effortlessly perfect, but I thought I would write a bit about Japan, given that it is the country that comes closest, though the truth be told, it is still a long way away.

The first thing that is great about Japan is that the people there are effortlessly thin, just like in France.  A French women knows that being overweight to the extent of looking like one spends all day every day camped outside a McDonalds drive-by is the best thing one can do to make oneself look unsophisticated.  How do Japanese women do it?  Simple: - the same way as us French do it.  Japanese women have extremely dainty appetites and are close contenders in terms of how little they can eat and still feel full up.

One of the Americans present on my business trip was 'avin' the 'ump (a curious phrase my mother taught me) with a local contact of mine taking dainty nibbles from an ever-so-dainty bowl of ramen and then saying afterwards with a smug voice, "I'm foooll up!"  I desperately wanted my local Japanese contact to keep on egging her on and telling her what a blob of fat she was and I wanted to join in, but unfortunately, you sometimes have to refrain from doing things in order to keep the peace in the world of business.  Take a look at the sushi below.

Also, the Japanese understand the importance of food presentation: - one of the reasons Japanese women are almost as effortlessly perfect as French women is that they can see an immaculately presented dish and almost feel full just by looking at it.  On the other hand, I think the Japanese go a bit too far at times.  For instance, I read an article about the enormous amount of time Japanese mothers spend preparing colourful bento boxes for their children to take to school.  I find this a bit bizarre: - one thing French women are very good at is being efficient.

How is it that we French get by on 35-hour weeks and have one of the highest productivity rates in the world in terms of output per worker per hour worked?  Simple: - we are efficient and we know what will add value in terms of making us perfect and what is just a pointless waste of time.  If women are busy doing useless tasks in the home, how can they possibly find the time to pursue glamorous careers (e.g. starting a fashion magazine)?  I recall reading an article by Cécile Delarue, who talks about her grandmother Georgine and how she has an effortlessly simple recipe for pineapple cake.  One thing Japanese women don't seem to understand is that there is being perfect and there is being effortlessly perfect.  What is the point in being perfect if you have to put in so much effort to be that way and end up making yourself miserable as a result?  Why waste so much time making something that is, on the surface, sophisticated, but in the end, just as bland?  This leaves very little time for writing blogs like these to boast about how effortlessly perfect we French women are.

However, there are a couple of aspects of Japanese eating habits that take the lustre off their shine.  Firstly, when it comes to food ingredients, the Japanese haven't really grasped how this works.  You go into a Japanese food store and you look at the ingredients list of products and find loads of E-numbers.  Yeek!  If E-numbers appeared on an ingredients list in France, you would have pandemonium, with people running out the supermarket in terror!  Another example of this is Japan's obsession with perfect fruit.  The Japanese like to cultivate super-fruit with perfect appearances and all the nutrients concentrated into a smaller number of fruit.  A French woman much prefers her fruit to be natural and she knows that fruit is one area where the presentation rule differs: - bruised fruit is likely to have been on the outside of the tree, meaning that it had more exposure to the sun, meaning that it has a much more delicious flavour.  Unnatural methods of food cultivation are completely unnecessary when it comes to producing foods with beautiful flavours and I pity the Japanese who, in their ignorance, do not know this!  Another thing I dislike about Japanese eating habits is the fact that food is extremely bland in Japan: - sushi has to be flavoured with wasabi paste to give it something resembling a flavour!  A French woman likes foods to be rich: - the rich flavours of French foods help explain why we can feel full on so little food.  Reblochon de Savoie is something a French woman just adores!  It is used to make an extremely rich dish known as tartiflette.

Another area which puts the Japanese in second place when it comes to being perfect is trains.  Japan was the first nation in the world (1964) to delve into high-speed rail, with the 0 Series Shinkansen, which was capable of speeds of up to 210km/h initially and 220km/h between 1986 and its retirement in 2008.

Since then, Japanese train technology has progressed, though some of the Shinkansen look a bit ugly, e.g. the E6 Series Shinkansen (the most recent model) shown below.

However, they aren't all bad.  The Shinkansen have lovely dinky little seats designed for dainty Japanese people.  The American who was with me on the trip got the right 'ump on account of being such a big fat blob of fat and therefore unable to fit into the seats.  Also, there are some models of Shinkansen that are visually appealing, e.g. the 800 Series shown below.

Other points I would note about the Shinkansen are the fact that the fleet is not used on the conventional lines, so either one has to change to a local service or wait until the town becomes big enough to be worth connecting by Shinkansen.  One thing that is great about the French TGV network is the fact that the TGVs can go pretty much anywhere.  For instance, Montélimar wanted a TGV station when they were gradually building the line southwards towards Marseille.  I just adore visiting Montélimar (famous for producing Nougat) and the fact that I can get there using a direct train from Paris in just 3h01m!

Also, I love the ritzy-glitzy atmosphere of Monaco and the fact that I can get there by direct train from Paris!  Neither of these towns are big enough to be worth building TGV lines to as yet, but the TGVs travel along the routes which were built because they were worth building and then continue along the conventional lines.

Another problem with the Shinkansen system is that it is so horrifically expensive (though I managed to keep the cost down with a ticket that foreigners can buy outside of Japan).  I know of one story of a heart specialist who sits on the board of Médécins sans Frontières (please note that this was founded in France, even though its headquarters are now in Geneva) who travels by local train because of the Shinkansen being unaffordable.  This may be because of motor maintenance: - all the Shinkansen have used the EMU configuration and many later models have 100% motored axles, which gives good acceleration, but ups the maintenance costs.

On the other hand, it should be noted that one achievement that only France and Japan have ever achieved is to get a high-speed line to pay for itself.  I have read that the construction costs have only been recovered from the Paris-Lyon and Tokyo-Nagoya high-speed lines.

So there you have it.  One somewhere-near-perfect country and one completely perfect country.  It is nice to know that if one is too far away to practicably travel to France within the desired timescales, one can travel to its closest rival in terms of being perfect.  However, when it comes to being effortlessly perfect, no-one comes close to a French woman.