Re: [tlug] Where can I buy Debian CDs in Tokyo?

["Lyle H Saxon" <llletters@example.com>]

On 9/20/07, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@example.com> wrote:
> I was thinking more of the Billy Joel song that goes "Uptown girl,
> you've been living in your white class world" (or something like
> that).

But that's just New York.  From time I've spent in Boise, Sacramento,
San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, etc., I've heard of "downtown" in
each and every city but never "uptown".  Neil Young's song is closer
to the mark for the vast majority of US residents - not everyone lives
in New York you know!

> The uptown/downtown distinction has always been classist, and in the
> immortal words of that famed Japan-lover/basher Karel van Wolferen,
> "nowhere more so than in Japan".  Yama-no-te and all that.

Stateside only and only in New York I think.  "Downtown" in most US
cities (until the advent of "inner city" anyway) was simply the city
center which was also the business, shopping and entertainment
district.

> The least classist usage is the one you describe, .....

Huh?  What in the world are you talking about?  Maybe you're talking
about shitamachi here?  Remember - calling shitamachi "downtown" is
mutant non-English.  We're speaking English here, right?

> BTW, unlike Stuart, I like the class distinction.  I find out where
> "uptown" is, and then go anywhere else. :-)  Unless I'm going to the
> opera. :-) :-)

Yeah - whatever.  Shitamachi or "Low city" here and whatever those
crazy people in New York go for.  Class distinction had absolutely
nothing to do with the "downtown" areas of US cities until they got
old and then as they became something else, the term changed to "inner
city".  If you're homing in on the term "low class" that I used,
you're using it out-of-context and out-of-comprehension - I sloppily
used it (sorry) as the historical local view to point out that it is
NOT "downtown".  (Whether I should have said that or not, it never had
anything to do with my own views on the area in any shape or form.)
"Low city" is a good translation for "shitamachi" though.  Actually,
since tofu is tofu; karaoke is karaoke; karate is karate; sushi is
sushi; etc. etc., there's no need to translate shitamachi.  Shitamachi
is shatamachi.  Or it was anyway.  Tokyo is a lot more homogenized now
that it was back when the term meant something.  And it's a large
enough area that saying you 'll meet someone in shitamachi is heavy on
form and very light on practical information....

Lyle