What’s Next From the Japanese

Their passenger trains offer “joyful cars” featuring floor shows, serene gardens or open-air settings that give riders the sensation of relaxing on a moving patio.

In their tiny bathrooms, the backs of toilets also function as sinks (to save space).

And in big cities, hicks from the countryside go on package tours complete with opportunities for stylish haircuts, purchasing fashionable clothes and a visit to a snobbish disco--where only three of the group are admitted, since rejection is considered part of the experience.

Get on board for an armchair ride through parts of Japanese culture that haven’t been imported here yet.

Your guide is New York-born, Los Angeles-bred Leonard Koren. He is a co-founder of the Los Angeles Fine Arts Squad (famed for pioneering public murals in the ‘60s), the former editor and publisher of Wet (the late, ultra-hip magazine devoted to pleasures of the bath) and currently the author of “283 Useful Ideas From Japan” (Chronicle Books).

An artist who has spent the last six years living in Tokyo and San Francisco, Koren has documented such accepted facts of Japanese life as the surgical removal of sweat glands (Japanese women with strong body odor are said to have difficulty getting married) and banks with no lines (after handing money and forms to a receptionist, customers may watch TV, wait in a comfy chair, read a magazine or help themselves to free tea).

You say you’re still adjusting to foam cups of Japanese noodles instantly cooked with boiling water? Get ready for the next generation of noodle-mania: Somen (thin wheat noodles) that flow before restaurant diners through a delicate, trough-like flume filled with ice-water--ready to be fetched with chopsticks and dipped in sauce.

Finally able to stomach sushi? Watch for wasabi (the green horseradish that typically accompanies sushi) to show up as an ice cream sensation. (In Tokyo, leading-edge ice cream parlors have ventured so far beyond 31 flavors that they now offer such treats as wasabi, sweet potato, oolong tea, tomato and lemon, black sesame seed, red bean and basil leaf confections.)

Still uncomfortable with cars that talk (yet another Japanese creation)? According to Koren, Japanese taxis not only have voice recordings that thank customers for taking the cab and remind them to take all their possessions when they leave, but they also offer back seats with sing-along machines, pay TVs and vibrators to relieve muscle tension. Published about two months ago, “283 Useful Ideas From Japan” has already gone into its second printing, according to the publisher.

New Edition on the Way

A Japanese edition is scheduled for publication later this month, said Koren recently as he relaxed in an old, coral sweat shirt and faded jeans on the patio of a Westside cafe.

But even in its English edition, he said, “the book is somewhat of a hit in Japan . . . because the Japanese are fascinated by foreigners’ perceptions of them. . . . They look at (the book) from a different point of view: social criticism. It’s forcing them to examine their consumer society.”

While the book is light in tone--illustrated, comic-book style, by Japanese artist Shack Mihara--Koren sees it as a serious attempt to share ideas that create more efficiency, comfort and entertainment in life.

So, instead of merely cataloguing the wackiest Japanese products, he chose to include strange-but-sensible services, marketing ideas and communications approaches--to relate Japanese thought processes as well as their results.

Indeed, Koren has so much respect for the Japanese approach to life that he didn’t want to see it become a humor target on “Late Night With David Letterman” or “The Tonight Show.” Thus he recently declined an invitation to be a guest on “Late Night” and decided not to send samples of products in his book to “The Tonight Show.”

“My publisher was a little miffed (at the turn-downs),” said Koren, 40, who acknowledges the entertainment value many find in his work. “There’s a certain kitsch/pop edge to most of these ideas. That’s the cultural territory I’m most drawn to.”

Koren clearly relishes the differences between East and West, both positive and negative. “You notice how sloppy and disjointed and chaotic everything here is by comparison,” he said of the United States. “Coming here, it almost feels like a Third World country. There, you have enormous social order but diminished individuality in a lot of areas. Here, you have enormous opportunities for self-expression. . . .”

That Closed-In Feeling

For a while after he began living in Tokyo, Koren felt claustrophobic (“I’m used to the California scale of things”). He even went through “an anti-consumerist phase”--becoming irritated when he would see discarded televisions or refrigerators sitting on the streets for collection, though they looked in working condition.

As he became better acquainted with the culture, Koren said he came to understand that the Japanese have seized on rampant consumerism because they have relatively limited opportunities for other forms of recreation. To wit: In Japan, Koren said, a game of golf easily costs $100 or more per person to play because golf-course-size land chunks are scarce. Space for homes and apartments is similarly limited. “When you don’t have that much space, you have to hasten the cycle of consumption, enjoyment, and then new consumption. When you don’t have a lot of space, you get tired of staring at the same old things every day,” Koren said.

Space limitations have also spawned numerous Japanese inventions, particularly items that are multifunctional. As an example, Koren cited the fact that some of the latest Japanese refrigerators have as many as six doors, with each compartment cooling food at a different temperature.

In addition to popularizing many uniquely Japanese ideas with his book, Koren sought to help even the balance of information between the East and West. “There’s very little information on Japan available to Americans and Europeans, whereas there’s a lot of information on Europe and America going into Japan.” In the United States, he said, the West Coast appears far more open to information about Japan than the East Coast.

“New Yorkers have no sympathy for this Eastern way of thinking. New Yorkers’ ties are still more with Europe,” Koren said, sounding equally amused and dismayed. “There wasn’t one New York publisher interested in this book. One publisher even said, ‘Japan has peaked.’ ”