Urban Camping

In Osaka there is a part of town which the locals call "overseas". It is full of homeless people.

In fact, it is very full - the space available for them is running out.

Recently, the number of homeless people has been increasing, and the number of tents made of the blue tarps (remember the cherry-blossom viewing?) in parks has increased visibly.

Along the river there is now an almost continuous string of little blue plastic homes, all neatly-made and tidily-kept. Now that the space furthest away from the walking path is fairly full, there has appeared a tent bang in the middle of some grass separating two paths.

Here it is:



On the tent is written:

"I am in debt for 300 Million Yen. And I am homeless. My CV: I graduated from Harvard"
(Thats 3M USD of debt)

Reading this, I firstly thought that this was a joke. Then I saw the CV bit, and I thought that he may be looking for a job. But finally I decided that he is drawing attention to how far he has fallen, how he really shouldn't be here, and that he can't help but pitch his tent in this central piece of real estate - a long-winded way of saying "I am very sorry for getting in the way and drawing attention to myself", which is a very Japanese reaction to almost anything, I believe.

I am sure there are many, many lessons for the market participant in here, but I'm still trying to digest this finding. Please feel free to insert your copy into the comment box below.