Bruce Sterling - Shinkansen

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Bruce Sterling

bruces@well.sf.ca.us

Literary Freeware: Not For Commercial Use

From SCIENCE FICTION EYE #6

CATSCAN 6 "Shinkansen"

Let me tell you what the 21st Century feels like.

Imagine yourself at an international conference of industrial designers in

Nagoya, Japan. You're not an industrial designer yourself, and you're not

quite sure what you're doing there, but presumably some wealthy civic-

minded group of Nagoyans thought you might have entertainment value, so

they flew you in. You're in a cavernous laser-lit auditorium with 3,000

assorted Japanese, Finns, Germans, Americans, Yugoslavs, Italians, et al., all

wearing identical ID badges, except for a trenchant minority, who have

scribbled "Allons Nagoya" on their badges so that everybody will know

they're French.

There's a curved foam plug stuck in your ear with a thin gray cord

leading to a black plastic gadget the size of a deck of cards. This is an "ICR-

6000 Conference Receiver." It's a five-channel short-range radio, with a

blurry typed serial number stuck to it with a strip of Scotch Tape. You got

the receiver from a table manned by polite young hostesses, who were

passing out vast heaps of these items, like party favors. Of the five channels

offered, Number 1 is Japanese and Number 2 is, purportedly, English. You get

the strong impression that the French would have preferred Number 3 to be

French, but the Conference offers only two "official languages" and channels

3, 4 and 5 have static.

Muted festivities begin, in the best of taste. First a brief Kabuki skit is

offered, by two expatriate Canadians, dressed in traditional robes. Ardent

students of the Kabuki form, the two Canadians execute ritual moves of

exacting precision, accompanied by bizarre and highly stylized verbal

bellowing. They are, however, speaking not Japanese but English. After some

confusion you realize that this piece, "The Inherited Cramp," is meant to be a

comic performance. Weak culture-shocked chuckles arise here and there

from the

more adventurous members of the audience. Toward the end you

feel that you might get used to this kind of thing if you saw enough of it.

The performance ends to the warm applause of general relief. Assorted

bigwigs take the stage: a master of ceremonies, the keynote speaker, the

Mayor of Nagoya, the Speaker of the City Council, the Governor of the

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Bruce Sterling - Shinkansen

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