A new BoingBoing TV video brought back memories of a playground I used to frequent in Tokyo called Miyashita Park. It was a mile-long strip of gravel along the Yamanote Line between Shibuya and Harajuku which featured some scant playground equipment and a dried up pond. As a teenager, I got high for the first time on the Miyashita swings; that was also where we ended up with liquor store-bought cocktails on warm summer nights.
The park had a weird mix of couples making out, homeless people living peacefully under blue construction tarps, cops doing their early morning training drills, and kids like us just screwing around. I was always curious about the homeless people—they seemed to have a nice little life set up there, with makeshift kitchens on tree stumps and blankets set up like beds and water from the public toilet to wash their clothes in. The homeless in Japan never beg for money or food—they just make do with what they have, and then scrounge through trash when people aren't looking.
In a college creative writing class, I wrote a story featuring a bum from Miyashita and the sage advice he gave my friend Ben in exchange for a cheeseburger at the nearby McDonalds. So it was nice to see this video—it brought back memories. The video was shot in 2006, and they have since cleaned up Miyashita Park—repaved the streets, kicked out the bums, removed the blue tarps. I wonder where those guys went. Anyone know?
Update: A reader just wrote in saying he walked by there yesterday, and there were still a lot of homeless people living there peacefully.
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