Privacy is a recent luxury.
Since the dawn of Homo sapiens around 300,000 years ago, our species has lived and died piled atop itself. From Pleistocene rock shelters to the advent of the modern teenager’s slammed bedroom door, humans were conceived, born, slept, ate, shat, argued, wept, danced, murdered, worked, and daydreamed mostly in company. Only kings and oddball mystics enjoyed such activities solo.
And so it goes even today, when you're walking across the world.
Imagine a life perennially on foot. You pass your days under the gaze of strangers in public spaces: farm roads, street corners, bazaars, parks, sidewalks, superhighways. You are a nomadic character on a global stage. In the absolutely finest corners of the Earth, where people know hardship yet have enough to spare (though not enough to erect walls or fences), this constant exposure can unlock kilometers of hospitality. Walking for 42 days across the kindly nation of Georgia, for instance, I was invited into village homes almost every night. But even being a guest burns psychic energy. So having four empty walls to stare at, in your own silent company, can sometimes amount to a blessing. Hence, the virtues of the lowly cybercafes of Japan.
They aren't the cybercafes of old.
Outside, Japan's cybercafes are typically brutalist cubes. Inside, they carry a whiff of impersonal order—and sometimes loneliness.
OUT OF EDEN WALK
Apart from unlimited Wi-Fi access and large online gaming consoles, Japan’s internet cafes offer hot showers and washing machines. They feature open bars with drinks, soft ice cream, and sometimes soup. Their walls are lined with vast manga comic book collections for those with that habit. Best of all are their private rooms. Locked behind closet-like doors arrayed in long hallways, they promise a cocoon of personal space. There you’ll find a desk that fits one elbow. A hook for your rucksack. And a sarcophagus-size cushion to collapse on.
All these amenities can be rented by the half hour. Intended clientele include overworked businessmen who missed their trains, drunk businessmen who require drying out, and young people seeking an external refuge from Japan’s famously cramped urban flats. During recent decades of economic stagnation, thousands of the underemployed have taken up residence in Japan’s cybercafes because they’re cheap. An eight-hour stint in a mini-room generally costs between $15 to $25.
All the world's within reach in a private room in a Japanese cybercafe. The tiny sleeping spaces can be rented by the half hour.
Photograph by Paul Salopek
While hiking 1,500 kilometers or more across Japan, my walking partners and I prefer staying at ryokans, traditional inns with their communal, family-run charms. But after tough spells of marching on asphalt, we doss down in cybercafes too. Their exteriors are typically brutalist cubes. Inside, they’re often dim and hushed and male. They carry a whiff of impersonal order—and sometimes loneliness. But all this is human too. I am following the pathways of the Stone Age ancestors across continents. The Kaikatsu Club and Media Café POPEYE cybercafes are simply another cave en route with shadows on the wall.
