Measured in volume, Japan lays the same amount of concrete as America does. It's hard to imagine a country the size of California or Alberta laying enough cement for all of the United States. Even living here its hard to imagine. Every river in Japan has a concrete retaining wall while most of the riverbeds have been cemented. Entire mountains are cloaked in grey. Buildings are torn down and rebuilt constantly. Over 60 percent of the shoreline is paved.

The worst of it is the stick wavers. For the past few months they've been repaving a strip of highway in front of my office. The work site is no more than three hundred meters, yet there are 16 stick wavers on duty. There are stick wavers on either end, warning of the neon sign warning of the stick wavers. There are stick wavers stationed at every street, no matter how little trafficked. There are even stick wavers in front of pylons. Everywhere you go in Japan, there are stick wavers.

I don't even care how ugly it is anymore. It's not my country. Until there is an international court of law trying countries for crimes against nature, there is very little the outside world can do. But what I want to know is, why can't the Japanese stop it? The government is using tax dollars to pave mountains in the middle of nowhere, so that the roads leading to nowhere don't get littered with falling peddles. I just don't get it.