Number of visitors to Japan Expo 09
How many visitors we had to Japan Expo 09.
This is not an official report, but local free paper METRO has reported the number of visitors as 164,000.
The number is record high, and played an incomparable role in attracting guests among the other similar events.
Noteworthy is that this number is total man-days number. If someone visit it four days, the number is 4. Keeping the booth, I have noticed that many people came repeatedly through four days. There are so many big fans..
Then, why do they like Japan so much? Why did only Japan Expo attract people in this depression?
France is a country, where legal protection is complete for permanent position of workers. Working hours are only 36 hours and they have strict restriction on overtime work. There is no service work after working hours as in Japan. The conditions of nursing care and child rearing are assured incomparably better than in Japan.
This is an enviable thing, but it has also the other side of the coin. The liability of businesses are greater here, and the hollowing was accelerated. Main business were gone to the East Europe as Poland and Turkey and proportion of employed people to the population are smaller.
Condition of permanent worker are secured, but young people and foreign workers (immigrants) suffer repercussion. Answering to the questionnaire from us, many filled the profession space as unemployed.
One of my friends, a capable women at the age of 30, who are good at English and proficient at Power Point, never had a chance to be employed formally after her school. She is no exception. She could have only temporary work, and could not have authentic career. I have learned that many young people become conscious of this contradiction.
Many among those who like Japan are finding an impasse in French society. Many visit Japan Expo, spend a day playing costume and hanging around. Many come before it opens and are staying after it. For a while JAPAN accepts them so tenderly.
Of course they don’t know the real Japan. Answering to our questionnaire 49 among 50 said “I want to go to Japan,” but only one said “I have been in Japan.”
They form a imaginary country Japan on the base of the knowledge they have got from mangas and animes.
In this respect Japan Expo has a face of a festival of the young people who are suffering from the repercussion. That is why it attract more visitors in the depression.