Saturday, October 23, 2010

Portraits of Japanese firemen

osaka1998

A lot of manhole covers in Japan provide access to mains water for the fire services.

oka9875

About 85% of Japanese firefighters are volunteers, like in my villlage, that work at regular jobs and are called out for fires. many are local government officers.

oka64

There may be some female firefighters who actually fight fires, but most females members of the fire service do ancillary activities.

soja6437

What is noticeable about the images of firefighters on these manhole covers is that they are all cartoon characters.

soja6563

3 comments:

  1. I like how you pay attention to details like manholes! They're so easy to ignore, but I've never seen manholes like the ones in Japan. Beautiful depictions of temples, funny ones like these for firefighters and symbols particular to a neighborhood etc. Gotta love the manholes! :)

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  2. You gave me a strong feeling to come and visit Japan. Not only for all these beautiful and fantastic manholes, but for all theses details of Japanese daily life you pay attention to.

    I hope to be able to do so, one day, soon enough.

    Thank you, one more time. :)

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  3. Stunning! Anywhere other than Japan and they would all be stolen...

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