If President Bush`s idea of an economic recovery is getting people to shop the Japanese economy will not only completely recover but should easily surpass the U.S. in the next five to ten minutes pushing them into position to achieve world superpower status.

This is not to be crass towards what seems to be, in Japan (at least in the larger cities), the most popular form of entertainment. Nor is it meant to be a dig. The Japanese have been the most polite people of the few places I have been in the world. If I needed directions, I was pointed in the right direction, even walked to the correct subway by an elderly gentleman once. It is the obsession with stores and malls that leaves me shaking my head, unable to comprehend exactly who buys enough to keep these places in business.

In the airport in San Francisco while waiting for my flight to Van Couver and then Japan, I spoke with a Japanese woman, Mihon. In her early to mid 30's, she just finished visiting some friends and was heading home to Japan. To get an idea of what to expect I had a conversation with her. I explained I was moving to Japan to teach English and would be there for a year, maybe more, maybe less. We started with where I would be living, where she lives, food and drink. Inevitably all foreigner's also want to know about hobbies and what people do for fun. "What do you do for fun?" I asked her. First response: shopping.

I thought it was only one person one answer. It could be an individual hobby. I know plenty of people in the U.S. who thought of shopping as a hobby, though I still have difficulty accepting it as an activity one does in their spare time. Shopping is usually what one does when a pair of pants is ripped after too deep a crouch, no milk is in the refigerator or the toothpaste is found to be completely gone. It is not a hobby. It is based on necessity.

However, I must be wrong.

Just a block down from my hotel in Nagoya is Nagoya Station. On the surface it is a place where subways, bullet trains, express trains and local trains converge in a place central to the area. Daily commuters in their dark blue and gray suits, briefcases in hand, are quickly walking in every direction to catch a train to their office, a scene that starts before seven in the morning and extends to past nine in the evening. Lurking under the main floor are blocks of stores in the Termina and Unimall.

I could walk through the mall to Nagoya International Center, about eight or ten blocks, through two corridors of mall shops, restaraunts and cafes. These are nothing compred to the cavernous but brightly lit Sakae Station whose stores pour out of the underground and onto the surface streets taking over floors of buildings like a plague. People give directions by referencing shops. "At the Starbuck's walk up the stairs, look toward the TV tower, walk past three intersections in that direction until you come to the UJF bank on the corner, past the noodle shop..."

I ask some of the students what they do for fun to get the class started. More than a few have answered: shopping. Perhaps it is not one person's opinion. It seems from by brief observations this is a trend. Most trends fade out as quickly as they came into style, living a short life like a fly. Time will eventually tell. I stop short of considering what would happen if these underground malls failed leaving empty such a large space vacant between the train stations above ground and subways below. Scenes from Mad Max movies come to mind.

I remain confused as to the nature of shopping here and where they would put these items, because judging from my apartment, room is scarce for frivolous purchases and storage space virtually nonexistent. However, I appreciate the convenience. I am only a tourist here.

At the end, I think of Mihon`s last words on the subject. We were talking about the cost of livng in Japan and she finished the conversation with, "Salary doesn't last long."