In Brief: Tim Gunn on Tokyo

Tim Gunn, of PROJECT RUNWAY fame, recently commented:

I wish I were really well-traveled in terms of hundreds and hundreds of cities, but I’m not. The only thing that’s surprised me is how provincial some places seem. For me, Tokyo doesn’t feel like an international city the way London, New York and Paris do, in the fashion sense or in the cultural sense. It seems inward-looking and doesn’t seem like it has an international reach.

I was in Tokyo this summer, and Tim may have forgotten (or not known) that Tokyo is actually 27 different cities, each with its own flavor, own style of architecture, own cultural bent... at least this was my impression. So, I decided to check out the dictionary for a definition of provincial:

1. belonging or peculiar to some particular province; local: the provincial newspaper.
2. of or pertaining to the provinces: provincial customs; provincial dress.
3. having or showing the manners, viewpoints, etc., considered characteristic of unsophisticated inhabitants of a province; rustic; narrow or illiberal; parochial: a provincial point of view.
4. (often initial capital letter) Fine Arts. noting or pertaining to the styles of architecture, furniture, etc., found in the provinces, esp. when imitating styles currently or formerly in fashion in or around the capital: Italian Provincial.
5. History/Historical. of or pertaining to any of the American provinces of Great Britain.
–noun
6. a person who lives in or comes from the provinces.
7. a person who lacks urban sophistication or broad-mindedness.
8. Ecclesiastical.
a. the head of an ecclesiastical province.
b. a member of a religious order presiding over the order in a given district or province.

Turns out, Tim may be right. I think many parts of Tokyo are indeed "rustic" and "local." These happen to make Tokyo a wonderful experience.

My daughter, Kim, is presently writing a Senior thesis on Japan's tendency to be "inward." She leans toward the idea that Japan is not provincial, but nationalistic. Perhaps this is what Tim Gunn noticed on his visit to Tokyo.