During my first visit to Tokyo, on a business trip in 2016, I took a long walk in the lavish park that surrounds Meiji Shrine. It was a glorious Sunday morning and the inevitable crowds had not yet intruded on this island of calm at the center of the bustling metropolis. I was enveloped by the tranquility of the place when suddenly, maybe two hundred meters ahead, I spotted a gardener who swept the wide footpath using something like a grotesquely oversized broom.