Rational Design

The shower in my hotel room in Hamamatsu had thermostatic control. After I set the temperature, I did not receive a steady alternation of hot and cold as others on my floor flushed toilets or started or stopped their showers. Thermostatic. Temperature stays the same.

When I stepped out of the shower, an area of the bathroom mirror was clear; behind it was an electric heater. No squeaky, unsatisfactory wiping with a towel necessary.

Little things.

The high-speed train from Tokyo came through the city center. When we stepped off with our luggage it was a half-block walk to the hotel. My dad’s stories of selling artificial flavorings and books in the US of the 1930s were similar; train to the city center, then a short walk or cab ride to a nearby hotel. Not a 40-minute traffic odyssey from an outlying airport, followed by a $35-a-night parking charge.

The train wasn’t slow. Like the high-speed train I rode a year ago in Spain, this one ran at 180-mph in open country, slowing to 100 through no-stop stations. I could look down from my hotel room to see ten tracks and the station, 32 floors below. Trains came through every few minutes. Steel wheels and steel rails – no magnetic levitation.

As I took notice of these small conveniences I thought of the first time I took apart a Japanese motorcycle engine. There were all its parts, neatly laid out in the upper crankcase half. I was impressed by its rational 'design for manufacturing', for as such an engine moved along the build line, parts went into it is sequence – crankshaft, shift drum and kick-start shaft, then two gearbox shafts. Shifting could be verified easily. Then sealant, followed by the lower case half and its bolts.

I had some previous experience with English engines, with their hodge-podge mixture of old and new features; “Rotate the crankshaft to bring the piston to 5/16” before top center on the compression stroke. With a smart rap, seat the timing sprocket on the tapered shaft of the magneto and do up the retaining nut.”

Were they serious? Friction on a taper is all that retains ignition timing? On a vibrating motorcycle? Japanese engines were all splines and keyways, with timing marks that I could actually find. They seemed sensible to me.

Japan is small and a lot of people live on the flat outwash plains that surround its spine of volcanic mountains. Maybe small conveniences, polite behavior, and rational arrangements are a necessity to keep life there moving smoothly. My train ticket showed me where to wait on the platform for car #6, on which my seat would be 3C. No anxiety, no argument. Overhead signs listed the next three trains to arrive, and their destinations. Same once aboard – displays alerting passengers to station stops ahead. It was calm on the train. Others slept.

On my ANA 777 flights, attendants presented perfectly composed faces that appeared never to have encountered life’s troubles. Sure, that can’t be real, but it was soothing.

A persistent criticism of Japanese motorcycles that I have been hearing for 50 years is that “they lack soul”, that “they are appliances.”

When I put bread into a toaster, I am the dull conformist who expects to get back toast. When we go away for the weekend, we would not be cheered to discover the fridge had quirkily, creatively interrupted its routine by quitting, spoiling all our food. I rode English motorcycles that required (1) kicking over to verify oil circulation (2) turn on fuel petcock(s) (3) pull compression release and rotate engine just past compression (4) move magneto lever to full retard (5) tickle carburetor float until top of gearbox is clean (6) move enrichment lever to ‘start’ (7) with a confident, swinging movement, throw yourself upward to come down forcibly on the commencer lever (repeat as required).

Today’s soulless alternative is ‘press start’. I don’t know about you, but I find adequate resident ‘soul’ in family life, renewing my driver’s license, and waiting in security lines at airports. I don’t need to find it in motorbikes or in showers that alternately freeze and scald.