Asia | Japan's energy crisis
Try as Japan might to conserve electricity, its heavily air-conditioned retailers do not
By K.N.C. | TOKYO
WHY do so many stores in Japan keep their doors open, wasting precious energy by letting air-conditioning spill onto the sidewalk? "It is the culture, for Japanese," chirps a sales clerk at the Ginza store of Neal's Yard Remedies, a British chain of organic cosmetics. But the firm is British, I point out; should it not be a matter of British culture as well? "No, no, no," she rushed to explain: we are in Japan.