My monthly jaunts to Japan are a good way to catch a glimpse of how things might unfold elsewhere in the near (or very distant) future. A year ago, I could sense a return to the land as weekend tour buses were no longer filled exclusively with octogenarians but also stuffed with teenage boys from the streets of Harajuku who found that a bit of mountain air opened up a whole new world of fashion opportunities.

While visiting a sake brewery in the foothills of the Japanese Alps, I saw a busload of late teenage or twentysomething boys with gravity-defying hair-dos spilling out of a coach and swarming around the farmers’ stalls to buy potatoes, local wine and a dizzying array of sweets made from chestnuts.

Soon after I spied more trendy agriculture-themed magazines popping up on the news-stands (most financed by advertisements for small farms for sale up and down the country), and then a wave of cover stories extolling the virtues of escaping the big cities and leading a low-cost, low-energy lifestyle swaddled in crunchy linen smocks, trousers and funky caps.

This agro movement went into high gear in late autumn when the Japanese government launched programmes to get the young and under-employed out into the fields and orchards to sample whether farm life might be for them.

Though there hasn’t yet been an all-out flight to toil in the fields of Europe and America – let alone the perfect lifestyle packaging that’s helped drive the trend in Japan – it is a socio-economic trend that is likely to take hold. Indeed, you only have to listen to the British government’s ambitions for greater food self-sufficiency to recognise that some slick marketeers will be needed to get young couples out of their comfortable urban dwellings and out on top of a tractor.

While not all Japanese tech trends take hold outside Japan, you didn’t have to be an IT analyst at Deutsche Bank to spot that the Japanese love of pint-sized, feather-light netbooks would shake things up for the likes of Apple, BlackBerry and Nokia. For a little too long now, I’ve been hearing rumours about the imminent arrival of Apple’s tablet-esque laptop, and this week Nokia jumped into the game by unveiling an ultralight computer that looks remarkably similar to the plastic rectangles my colleagues have been using on the Yamanote line for some time now.

In hospitality terms, the Japanese culture of innkeeping has had a foot in the future for centuries with its “our way or the highway” approach to service. After repeated attempts to vacation in other countries (Japan always wins when it comes to long-haul jaunts), it recently dawned on me that the reason I keep checking into ryokans is the luxurious lack of choice these Japanese inns offer. Where the trend for most hotel and resort operators has been to spoil guests with choice, the mama-san running the ryokan focuses on sourcing the best she can afford and never overdoing it.

For busy people who have to make decisions all day long, there are few experiences more liberating then checking into a ryokan and not having to worry about what to wear, when you should eat, what you should drink and when to go to bed. It’s all pre-programmed for you.

Little surprise, then, that a lot of press releases for new hotels in the west are now talking about a more Japanese approach to “curated luxury experiences” that do away with suffocating visitors with 25 types of bath salts and menus to “build your own minibar”.

When I touched down at Heathrow last week, I tried to reverse the exercise by imagining that I was a Japanese journalist looking for what visions of the future might be offered by a visit to the UK. As I raced to catch up with Mom, I had to endure the grating beeping of one of those buggies that transfer the handicapped and elderly (as well as the late and lazy) to and from the aircraft. At many airports these are nothing more than golf-carts with an airline logo pasted on the side. At Heathrow, however, they’ve come to symbolise all that’s wrong with a nation that’s governed by the absurdities of an overzealous health and safety mentality.

Completely enclosed in a plastic shell that has little air holes (it might also be bulletproof) and protected by a skirting unit to prevent small toddlers and rodents from getting caught underneath, they move so slowly and with such noise (they beep constantly rather than just toot their horn) that there’s a good chance they don’t even get their passengers to their departure gates on time.

On top of the four tiny wheels is a contraption that has been designed not to prevent injury or lawsuits but the use of common sense – by the operator and passengers alike. When I caught up with Mom I commented on this odd little vehicle and she tartly commented, “Oh that’s just the start. We’re soon going to have to wear helmets just to walk down the street because, heaven knows, you might trip.” Yes, dear reader, our future is one full of lawsuits – and safety appendages to prevent them.

Tyler Brûlé is editor-in-chief of Monocle
tyler.brule@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/brule