Arcade as Japanese Traditional Shopping and Business Culture

This paper examines the roles and meanings of arcades in Japan. The so-called arcade, to some extent resembles the roofed galleries and shophouses that exist in East Asia and Southeast Asia. In Taiwan, roofed galleries are characterized by a continuous pavement and are known as Tingtsuzao . In Japan, there are not any shophouses, however there are roofed galleries in which European style store fronts (passages) are a common feature. The style that covered a shopping street with an arcade has been usual for a business revitalization in Japan. That is, Japanese arcades were developed with the intention of revitalizing the economy. Such arcades also, happily, facilitate easy human relationships between merchants, sales personnel and customers. The paper considers the revitalizations and its realities of the shopping streets in Japanese inner-city, through showing the realities of many Japan's shopping arcades.