The air did not move. There was no involuntary contact with the myriad bags and packages just out of the shops. The reason could be found in the special mixture from which this city originated: it fell asleep as a fishermen’s village and woke up as an urban conglomerate with 37 million people, one of the largest in the world, 8 million of whom live in the city centre.

Tokyo inhabitants have learnt to live quietly, without treading on each other’s toes. In the pencil-houses (chitchana) which occupy pavement slivers barely 60-centimetres wide. Or in the flying apartments of luxury high-rises, called okusion.