National Tide 1980

Everyone has troubles.

Although Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko are so happy now, they cannot make their lives perfect.

There are also countless troubles in relationships, career, and life, and they are no less than others.

But it is undeniable that their troubles are very different from ordinary people's.

Many of the things that trouble them may seem more like Versailles happiness to ordinary people.

If they really dare to complain in public, there is a high probability that they will arouse public anger and provoke public outrage.

Let’s take this car for example.

If you include the maroon Mercedes Benz 380SL produced in 1982 as a gift from Yamato Kanko.

Since Ning Weimin obtained his Japanese driver's license, he has actually obtained two cars for free.

They were all given to him by others, and they were all expensive large-displacement imported luxury cars.

Even in the current situation where the economic bubble is getting bigger and bigger, Tokyo, Japan, is home to a large number of world-class luxury cars.

If his two cars were to drive onto the road, they would not be lost in the cluttered street scene with hundreds of cars.

Still standing out from the crowd, very stylish and decent, enough to attract the envious eyes of men and women.

It should be said that he took advantage of it, and actually got more than 20 million yen in vain.

How can you explain that a man who came from China to dig out cakes on the ground should have such a blessing that even the Japanese covet?

Think again about the times when Keiko Matsumoto wanted to spend millions of yen to buy cars as gifts for him.

It makes people feel that there are no traces of the variables in life, which is really wonderful and interesting.

But the problem is that these two cars are not very practical, and they cause trouble to Ning Weimin, not just young and old.

As for the extended version of Cadillac, it's slightly better.

With Matsumoto Keiko's current status, if there are important talks and business activities, riding in such a car can at least enhance her appearance.

It also makes it easier for Ning Weimin to disguise himself as a driver and accompany him.

There are even complete facilities in the car, and the car glass in the back can completely block the outside view.

Not only does it ensure privacy, it also prevents reporters from taking secret photos.

Occasionally, if there is a chance, Ning Weimin can role-play with Matsumoto Keiko to enhance the fun.

For example, after meeting Akira Kurosawa that day, Ning Weimin did not send Keiko Matsumoto back.

Instead, he drove Keiko Matsumoto straight to Mount Takao, which overlooks the scenery of Tokyo.

After parking the car in an uninhabited place on the mountainside, Ning Weimin immediately turned into a gangster driver who took advantage of the situation and "rudely kidnapped" Matsumoto Keiko and got into the back compartment of the car.

Then I couldn't wait to stage a plot from William Wallace's novel "Rose Dream".

And I have to say, a movie queen is a movie queen.

Matsumoto Keiko's superb acting skills that can be displayed at any time without any preparation, almost made Ning Weimin mistakenly believe that her "beautiful face" and "frightened" were real.

But precisely because of this, Ning Weimin was deeply immersed in the subsequent violent shaking of the car and could not extricate himself.

Afterwards, he embraced Matsumoto Keiko in the car with a sense of satisfaction as they greeted the dusk together, admiring the cityscape of Tokyo with thousands of lights on at sunset.

He couldn't help but feel from the bottom of his heart that he was the luckiest man in this era.

It would be great to find a movie queen as my wife!

Maybe once you get married, you will never feel bored!

But then again, this is an extended version of Cadillac, with a total length of 9 meters.

In this car, Ning Weimin found it difficult to make turns when driving on the streets of Tokyo, let alone walking on mountain roads or at night.

Especially as the old saying goes, it's easier to go up a mountain than it is to go down.

Although the winding road in Mount Takao is well built, the sky was bright when we arrived, so there were no problems.

But that didn't work when we went back. It was already dark and the road was going downhill again.

As a result, when turning a corner, in order to avoid a car coming from the opposite direction, the chassis was knocked and the body of the car was rubbed.

In short, although Ning Weimin and Matsumoto Keiko's outdoor outing was indeed extremely exciting and hearty, they also paid a high price for it.

More than one million yen!

This game is fun, but it’s a bit too expensive.

Fortunately nothing happened to anyone.

Of course, the maintenance fee is paid by the insurance company, but don't forget that even daily maintenance of this kind of car is several times more expensive than ordinary cars, and the fuel consumption and taxes are also different.

You know, Japan uses 2000CC or above as the dividing line. Volkswagen models below this standard are used by ordinary people, and they issue common people's license plates with "5 prefixes".

Large-displacement cars in Japan belong to high-ranking officials, and the exclusive license plates for the wealthy class are "3" license plates.

It seems that the difference is only based on numbers, but in fact the difference is huge.

Why?

Just because taxes and expenses are completely different.

Owning a luxury car in Japan is equivalent to owning a real gold-eating beast.

For example, take Ning Weimin's extended Cadillac sedan.

The official selling price is 12 million yen, and based on the 23% item tax on the highest-end product, an additional 3.6 million yen will be required.

Including the 81,500 yen tax on vehicles with an engine displacement of 0 to 0 yen, the total is 3.68 million yen, and the biennial vehicle inspection fee of 200,000 yen is 3.88 million yen.

There is also compulsory insurance and optional insurance for 300,000 yen to prevent accidents.

Tax deductions and insurance alone are already the annual income of the working class. Who can afford this car if not a wealthy person?

But if you buy a Toyota Corolla with a displacement of 6, it will be very different.

The price is 1.45 million yen, and the item tax is 5%, so you only need to pay 80,000 yen.

Including the 39,500 yen tax for vehicles with an engine displacement of less than 30,000 yen, the total vehicle body inspection fee of 30,000 yen is only 340,000 yen.

Plus various insurance premiums of 70,000 yen.

The entire cost is only equivalent to the annual income of a salaried person in a single month.

The difference between the two is more than three million yen, which is enough to buy two new Toyota Corollas.

Therefore, it is clear to everyone which car to buy under the heavy tax.

And because of this tax policy, Japanese society has long formed a consensus - having a "3" license plate is a good thing.

This is exactly the same as the chain of contempt in Tokyo where people with a "Shinagawa" license plate are considered rich, and people who drive out are treated as superior to others.

But for the pragmatic Ning Weimin, spending money on this aspect would be better than using the money to hire someone to work for him.

In order to covet this vanity, it is equivalent to domestic wealthy people insisting on buying license plates with auspicious numbers such as "888" and "666", which is a meaningless and stupid behavior.

In fact, this license plate did not bring him any benefits.

Despite spending so much money, his stretched Cadillac is more likely to get stuck in traffic jams on Tokyo roads than any other vehicle.

Others can find opportunities to change lanes, but he cannot. This makes people unbalanced and irritated more than anything else.

Especially during rush hour, this Cadillac should never be driven out.

If you really dare to violate this taboo, you will never reach your destination if you don't survive the rush hour.

The average driving speed was not much faster than a person walking, and he heard the cars behind him honking their horns all the way.

Do you think Ning Weimin can't be upset?

Does this count as spending money to find suffering?

Even though this extended version of Cadillac is so expensive, it can still be driven after all.

Compared with this car, the Mercedes-Benz sports car is even less affordable, basically having it means not having it.

Ning Weimin never expected that Yamato Tourism would actually give him a convertible sports car for two people.

Although the performance is good and it is fashionable enough, it is completely useless.

Why did he take Matsumoto Keiko for a ride?

As soon as this is revealed, don’t you know why you should tell all the tabloid reporters that his relationship with Keiko Matsumoto is not normal?

Therefore, they can only drive this car by themselves, and most of the time they can only sit in the warehouse and eat dust.

Ning Weimin really regretted why he was so shy and didn't take the initiative to ask for a business-type four-seater car.

Now it's better, it's a big piece of chicken rib made by Mercedes-Benz. It's a pity to throw it away and it's tasteless to eat.

But this is nothing. The most troublesome thing is that the parking problem of these two cars is a life-threatening problem.

As we all know, Japan in the 1980s was a major automobile producer.

It is the hometown of Mitsubishi, Mazda, Suzuki and other various car brands.

And now, an advertisement for a Japanese car brand in mainland China - "Wherever there is a road, there is a Toyota car" has become well known and familiar to everyone.

But Japan is definitely not a big country that uses cars as a means of personal transportation. This is determined by Japan's narrow land area.

Japan has a large-scale modern highway network covering the whole country, which is not inferior to any developed country.

However, Japan’s population density is six times that of the United States and 40 times that of Canada.

Moreover, Japan is very mountainous and lacks large plains suitable for living like the United States and Canada.

Therefore, geographically speaking, Japan can be called a "narrow" country.

Even if we only count the area, the same highway system can support six times or forty times the traffic flow, which is difficult for gods to resist.

Therefore, it is not possible to use your own car for commuting, traffic jams occur around holiday sightseeing spots, and many traveling families are often stuck on highways.

The Japanese therefore understand that it is impossible for them to build a "country on wheels" like the United States.

So in terms of transportation construction, Japan is an enlarged version of Singapore.

Use the method of vigorously expanding public transportation to deal with the horrific traffic flow.

Therefore, the vast majority of Japanese people use public transportation, such as subways, trams, and buses to commute to and from get off work.

During rush hours, there are dedicated people on the subway to push people up, and the windows are covered with "three-dimensional photos".

Even Japanese people who are able to drive to and from get off work are often willing to take the subway.

There are two reasons.

First, the work intensity in Japan is high. People are often very tired after get off work, and the accident rate when driving is relatively high.

Although the subway is crowded, life is still at stake.

Another problem is that I can’t afford parking and can’t find a parking lot.

Because land prices are high, parking fees in Japan are high. Public parking lots in more prosperous places do not charge by the hour, but by ten minutes as a unit and settled once.

If you are not in a large commercial center or shopping mall that provides free parking, the cost of parking is a huge expense.

For example, in a high-end business district like Ginza, the parking fee for ten minutes can be as high as 500 yen.

Not only is it not cheaper to stop for an hour, it is also more expensive, 3,300 yen, which is already much higher than the salary of ordinary white-collar workers.

If you really work for a whole day and end up spending half of your salary on parking fees and the rest of the money on maintaining your car, wouldn’t that be the behavior of a fool?

What's more, even if there is free parking, the free time is only one hour.

In addition, due to the high car ownership rate in Japan, even paid parking lots are often overcrowded with cars and it is impossible to park in them.

In places like Ginza, it takes an average of forty minutes to get a parking space.

This matter became even more difficult for Ning Weimin, because his Cadillac had to occupy the parking spaces of two cars.

Not to mention doubling the cost, the key is that the waiting time also has to be doubled.

When he was in Ginza, he had the terrifying experience of waiting for two and a half hours to park his car.

Finally, there is one more thing. Japan's traffic rules are very strict. The penalty for parking anywhere is at least 20,000 yen per time.

Don't think about finding a place where it won't get in the way like in China.

The Japanese police do not recognize relatives at all. Even if a congressman's car dares to park indiscriminately, he will still punish him.

So you can imagine how Ning Weimin feels about the two cars he owns?

That's a big trouble, two big pits!

Fortunately, he had money and a large warehouse to store the Mercedes-Benz convertible that was temporarily unused, otherwise he wouldn't be able to play at all.

He now understands why Japanese taxis are so expensive and yet people still accept them readily.

And why can second-hand cars in Japan be so cheap? Some cars can even be sold for free, which can be cheaper than better bicycles.

To put it bluntly, owning a car for personal use in Japan is a thankless and expensive undertaking, so you must proceed with caution.

Anyway, after doing this twice, he has a long memory.

I can accept any kind of gift from now on, but I definitely don’t want a car.

It's not too important whether it's money or not, the key thing is how troublesome it is!

He really can't afford to worry about this, and he can't afford to make such a mess!

The car is unsatisfactory, and so is the house, no different.

Yes, under the general trend of the economic bubble and with the help of several bank interest rate cuts, real estate prices in Tokyo entered a period of skyrocketing from the beginning of 1986.

Although there are only more than two months left before the April inventory, the three core areas are the fastest growing areas in Tokyo and are the leaders.

Ning Weimin's net worth also gained weight.

At present, the value of his real estate alone is as high as 4 billion yen, which has tripled compared with the capital he initially invested.

But the problem is, houses have gone up, taxes have become heavier, and there are too many things to worry about.

Yes, Ning Weimin fully considered the issue of tax avoidance before buying a house.

Although he has fully thought about it and adopted the optimal strategy, no matter what, as long as he buys a house in Japan, he cannot escape the two taxes and must pay them every year.

Those are fixed assets tax and urban planning tax.

These two taxes can be simply understood as real estate taxes, which means that taxes must be paid every year for the real estate purchased. Although the tax rate is fixed, the assessment method is indeed based on the market price of the real estate.

In other words, the more the price of real estate rises, the more the three percent tax will be charged each year.

Like this year, Ning Weimin contributed 75 million yen to the Japanese government based on the evaluation standard of 2.5 billion yen.

It's like giving a house to the Japanese government for free.

This doesn't mean it's going to cost him his life. How can he not feel pain?