|
发表于 2012-1-13 19:28:28
|
显示全部楼层
VOX POPULI: In praise of pay phones
January 12, 2012
“Tengoku to Jigoku” (High and Low) is a masterpiece suspense movie about a kidnapping directed by Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998). The kidnapper calls the home of a company executive to give orders for the delivery of a ransom. After the sound of a dropping coin, the caller asks: “What are you doing shutting the curtains in broad daylight?”
The detectives who heard the recording single out phone booths from which the big house of the executive on top of a hill can be seen and tighten the noose around their target.
The game of wits shown in black and white would not have had the same impact in this era when cellphones are ubiquitous. Back in the Showa Era (1926-1989), the most common means of communication from outdoors was public pay phones whose number was limited. Personally, it was by public telephone that I knew whether I passed an entrance exam or heard the angry shouting of my boss.
The following passage appears in the book “Aka Denwa, Ao Denwa” (Red phone, blue phone) by Akira Kanemitsu, published during the 1960s when pay phones became widespread: “I used to look for red pay phones when I had business but nowadays, when I see a red pay phone, I remember things to do.” Cellphone text messages have taken over communication of trivial business and chatting.
Now that personal cellphones have become so common, it would be no exaggeration to say that practically the same number of phones as people are walking the streets. Meanwhile, the number of public pay phones that played a role in conveying all sorts of emotions such as delight, anger, sorrow and joy declined to a quarter since it topped 930,000 in 1985. The once ubiquitous red pay phones have long disappeared from storefronts and the familiar green ones are also rapidly vanishing.
However, a major advantage of public pay phones is that they are easier to get through at time of disasters. When cellphone services went down during the Great East Japan Earthquake, people who couldn’t get home because train and bus services stopped lined up in front of pay phones. The situation prompted Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. to show the locations of pay phones on its website starting spring.
Maps that show the locations of public toilets for people who enjoy walking as a sport or a pastime are common. Also as a haven to provide relief for people in need, public phones on street corners are starting to look reliable. As a member of the pay phone generation, I utter to myself that even old things can be useful.
--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 12 |
|