Meanwhile, Over in Japan��

After I arrived in Tokyo late last year, I felt as if I didn��t exist��until I got my multimedia Toshiba J-Phone phone up and running. There was an entire social scene that was coordinated in the moment, in the now, and until I was accessible in that same moment, I was missing out. Soon I also found myself e-mailing my family and friends back in America anytime, from any street corner.

The problem: People replied to me. Since it takes about 60 times as long to write a meaningful e-mail on a mobile phone keypad as it does on a computer keyboard (whether in English or Japanese), I began sending pictures instead. My J-Phone has a small camera (and mirror!) on the back. It captures images as tiny .jpg files that I can easily e-mail to any e-mail address or Net phone. Now I find myself sending short postcards from around Tokyo:

��Look at the roasted eel hearts I��m about to eat!��

When I��m running late for an appointment, I don��t just send a short note apologizing. I send an accompanying picture of myself, trapped in traffic and looking very, very sorry.

The first time you see a Japanese cell phone in the hands of an experienced user, you want one, bad. Japanese phones are smaller, lighter, and way cooler than American models. Visit any keitai shop in Japan (there��s one about every two blocks) and you can choose from hundreds of models and styles: pink, blue, green, folding, nonfolding, Hello Kitty. Most of the screens display thousands of crispy colors, even in direct sunlight. In fact, it��s virtually impossible to buy a phone with a monochrome screen in Japan anymore. Most can play music through small speakers that sound good enough to inspire spontaneous karaoke sessions on the sidewalk.

The Japanese cell phone carriers��led by the hugely successful DoCoMo (which has 40 million subscribers and, in the U.S., a 16 percent stake in AT&T Wireless)��have encouraged the development of a vast array of fast-loading content designed specifically for thumb surfers. Through their phones, the Japanese can find news and sports scores, stock quotes, movie times, and train schedules, just as you��d expect. But they can also download and play a tiny copy of Space Invaders anywhere, have their personal fortune told, or sign up for a few of the thousands of dating sites and flip through personal profiles��complete with color photos��on their long train rides home. Users pay about $23 per megabyte of information, and they spend $67 a month, on average. So far, few people have upgraded to DoCoMo��s truly 3G i-mode service (running at a very fast 384Kbps), in part because their current phones work so well already.

The irony is that most communication on these phones is silent, at least for people under the age of 40. It creates some interesting moments. Older folks lament the way Japanese kids walk heads-down and zombielike through the streets of Shibuya, thumbing messages to their friends. One friend held her phone in her lap and sent me messages while her boss lectured her on her unprofessional attitude.

I understand her compulsion. These phones are addictive. Before I hopped a plane back to America, I sent a bunch of sayonara e-mails to my Tokyo friends as I sat on the runway waiting for takeoff. Then I turned off the phone and immediately started looking forward to the moment I��d get back to the Ginza and turn it on again.

Copyright © 2002 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Yahoo! Internet Life.