The Train in Tokyo

Five months have elapsed since I left Tokyo, and I feel moved to comment on the public transport system there, for it was often on my mind last year. 

First, I should acknowledge that the train and subway service does have its good points: the network is comprehensive, if bewildering to the uninitiated, and you never have to wait very long on the platform. On the Nambu Line, for example, which I rode daily for 3 months, trains came every 5 minutes or so. They are also reasonably priced and safe, lacking the armies of pickpockets that prey on tourists using public transport in European capitals. 


Moreover, journeys can be a rich source of humour after the event.  A Canadian friend of mine once recounted how his carriage had been so packed that he was forced to stand with his crotch pressed firmly into the backside of the man standing in front of him throughout the commute.

The view from Tokyo Tower

The bad far outweighs the good, though. You soon learn that foreigners – or ‘abroad people’, to quote one of my former students – are not entirely welcome. We pay, which is a good thing, but that's about it. Many were the occasions where locals declined to sit next to me on packed trains, despite the fact that all the other seats in the carriage were occupied.
 

In the fall, as the temperature nosedives, the capital's trains provide one of the least healthy environments imaginable. One of the fundamental tenets of Japanese society is that you attend work, even if you can barely stand. (The sole exception, I was told, is if you have influenza.) The trains are therefore crammed with people in white masks spreading germs. The silence of the crushed morning commute is punctuated with the sniffs and coughs of Japanese workers who should be in bed, or at least lying on the floor on a futon. 

Those who are not sick must be very susceptible to catching something, for the majority look utterly shattered. Unless you’ve seen them, it’s difficult to understand how exhausted the average Japanese commuter looks. They sit with their heads slumped forward, dead to the world. Either that or their heads loll ever further to one side, until they touch the shoulder of their neighbour. I recall a high school kid standing by the doors during an evening journey. He was desperately trying to fight off sleep and could literally hardly stay upright. His eyes were shut and his knees kept buckling, but he had just enough strength in his legs to catch himself. 

The carriages often smell too. It is a curious odour, a mixture of old, unwashed clothes, bad breath, sweat and stale cigarette smoke. The unmistakable sweet aroma of alcohol also features with regularity; indeed, I have stood next to men in suits on the way to work who reeked of booze.

There are certain rules which are meant to be obeyed on the train. For one, speaking on your cellphone is da-me, or unacceptable. I once took a call on a busy evening train. This was so objectionable to the high school student sitting below me that he got up and moved, but not before glowering at me for a few seconds to demonstrate my faux-pas. Eating pungent food is likewise frowned upon, as is drinking alcohol, although I occasionally saw young blonde-haired rebels flouting the last of these conventions. Nor should women apply make-up. 

 I found the adverts (or ‘CM’, to use the preferred Japanese term) that were screened inside the carriage irritating too, like the one promoting a fridge whose USP was a really big drawer. The same ones seemed to be on week after week. And yet I admit that I found myself staring at the screen like a zombie, for it served as a tiny form of escape from the awfulness of the journey.


There's no alternative to using the train and subway in Tokyo, though. It's an intolerable fact of life. I am grateful I will not have to endure it again.