2007 10/05,
34th INTERNATIONAL HOME CARE AND REHABILIATION EXPO
@ ODAIBA BIG SIGHT TOKYO.
This is a giant, vast, humongous tradeshow. They got cranes for lifting disabled people, things to help old people eat food, prosthetics, a million "bed-goes-up, bed-goes-down" items, pc interfaces for various disabilities, and like a million tricked-out wheelchairs. Plus diapers. Oh, so many diapers. It is kind of a sneak preview of what getting old is about!
Also, unlike most tradeshows, it's not all salarimen. There's lots of customers rolling around, too. Plus just a huge amount of young-ass nurses roaming in packs (out of uniform, but still). Plus just random groups of high-school students, hipsters, and whoever else decided to show up. This makes it a much more cheerful, lively environment than you might expect from an incontinence festival.
Anyway, let's kick things off with the beds.
the "isu ni naru kaigo beddo" (the bed which becomes a support-chair) from ROAD WIDE. Check out how happy the dude is! He is not, i must add, a professional model. He's a customer! The top comes down. It's like a flower-print coffin-bed to give seniors an early taste of the grave! "Hey, there's roses and crysanthemums. This is gonna be awesome!"
Prostheses from Nakamura. The saleslady was like, "here, hold this! It's much lighter than the Brand X boobies!" It was, too.
Your host, in an "air shower."
happilet, from the happilet company. They put a toilet plus a mini-bidet in your bed, with a pump to siphon off the remains into the cute pink machine!
dream-shower from minato, makers of the Lift Chair Bath. . They have been selling this for 20 years! I' didn't get a picture of the other half of the machine - but they have a hospital gurney, where they wheel the patient into the shower capsule. I stuck my hand in - it's warm water sprayed from like 30 rotating nozzles. Dream shower provides a clean, safe bath with dignity. But that's not why I took the picture. I took the picture because dream shower is also porn. I will leave it to you guys to work out the complex metaphors involved.
Above, the tricked-out lowrider of baths. Pneumatic switches make it rise, lower, and tilt at an angle. All that's missing is the bass system and some cholo with a full-back tattoo of a rubber-ducky.
THey let everyone else ride this motherfucker but not us, so NO WEBLINK PROPS. That's the rules.
This was some kind of hoist to help the disabled people stand up. But if you swap the 80-something Alzheimer's patient for a hot young nurse, it turns into bondage porn, as Nature intended.
the amazingly named BOOK-TIME 5500, by "live+plus", a division of the "west ocean electrical machine calculating goods manufacturing place" corporaton. It looks like a computer screen, but actually it's a real book, with a lamp on the left. Small robot arms physically turn the pages and hold the book flat. And it's only $3400.
the sign reads, "robot that wipes your BUTT" (emphasis in the original).
from Okada Industries. To my great dismay, this is not on the market yet. You'll have to wipe your own butt until next fall. Don't blame me, i'm just the messenger!
Hello Kitty automatic toilet paper dispenser, for people who can't use both arms, coming this december from the good folks at korirai! Think about if you hooked this up to the butt-robot! You would be like the king of shitting.!!
minelet company : slogan (in English) EXCRETION CARE WILL CHANGE.
The full title of the contraption is, "Automatic excretion disposal device with safety confirmation function, Nursing Robot Minelet!"
video for you
I especially like how the chinese character on their poster reads –², or dream. Becuase clearly it is this model's dream to be modeling adult siphon-diapers instead of Parisian haute coture. Actually, diaper-models probably have more dignity, now that i think about it.
AAfex - contraption for the well-dressed salariman, complete with james-bond-style pee-holster hidden in your sock. From the Chicago Tokyo Group, makers of the wonderfully pornographic Birthing Rope, and Nick The Dragon .
below, accessories for you to trick out your AAfex.
Above, the portable toilet from uchie
A technician demonstrates the suka-tokuri-n (scat clean), a new product from paramount beds. The brochure reads, "for when you need to go to the toilet but are afraid of falling down. . . or when you need to go but can't make it that far. . .or when you can make it that far but just don't want to!"
Refer to Homer Simpson: "And here I've been using my lungs. . . . like a sucker! "
In case you're wondering what they are using for fake-pee nowadays, here is a sample:
Fake poo comes in the same exact squeeze-bottle they use for mayonaise in japan:
Me being me, I started to wonder -- what if there was a seperate tradeshow for makers of synthetic display waste?
They could have booths touting the realisticness of their product, ("We use real-time modeling to generate custom-made waste based on the average diet of your customers! Our Unique Insta-Doo mix-n-match chemical lab system allows us to model both vegetarian's poop and meat-eater's poop, and we are working on realeasing moose poop by 2012!" ) and in the back there would be seminars about using 3dCG simulators and internet marketing technology to address today's display-waste needs.
And then, what if there were a convention of artificial-waste-trade-show-promoters? Where they could talk about meeting the specific needs of artificial-waste-trade-shows (i.e. cleanup crews, the complaints from the girls'-doll-collector trade-show that is coming in the day after, what kind of lighting makes artificial waste look best, etc.)
And what if there was even a convention of convention convention -
Anyway.
below, chopsticks for japanese with CP, and foreigners.
adult diapers displayed in the style of traditional chouchin (paper lanterns)
The adult diaper company is called nepia tender!
Sunuzuren, um, excuse me, i mean Snoezelen Therapy, is a form of sensory therapy developed in Holland. In the '70s. Which should give you some idea.
It is a disco rave for retired people.
This particular disco is courtesy of rompa. slogan: Meeting the sensory learning needs of all generations.
Dachsund support.
This girl was there in full Japanese-version-of-hip-hop garb: air Jordons, hotpants, and a Baby Phat hoodie with Afro. I was like, what the fuck is she doing at the Geriatric Hospital Show? looking for Doctor Dre?
cyber legs.
robot arm attached to a wheelchair, that picks up food and feeds it to the customer, from ttools! mostly they make interfaces for PCs for blind people.
My Spoon, from Secom.
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