For the first time in a long time, I saw a compassionate act at a train station in Japan. Of all the places in Japan, train stations tend to be the worst examples of humanity. People shove each other, don’t apologize when bumping into each other, and routinely ignore all the rules while aboard the train. The station staff can be pretty mean too. If you get to the train door as they’re closing it, 99 times out of 100, they’ll just leave you there, waiting probably 15 minutes or more at that station. Today, however, I actually saw a train operator open the door for a woman as she was rushing to board the train. He very well could have left her there, waiting for the next train that wouldn’t come for another 18-20 minutes, but he opened the door and let her on. Unfortunately, this guy (or this instance) is a rarity. On another day, he may very well have left her there. Maybe he was in a chipper mood today. In a country where they love to use time limits and cutoff dates as excuses to be unreasonably unforgiving, it was nice to see a Japanese person show leniency and help a sister out.
Tag: train
15 minutes makes all the difference in the world to my morning commute. If I catch the 7:12 train, the station is easily navigable, the people all seem to be on the same busy page (trying to get to their train as quickly as possible) and there’s no sighing due to lack of seats. If I take the 7:29 train, the station’s jam-packed, the people seem to move as slow as they can (knowing full well other people are in a hurry) and the inside of the train car is a hot, smelly mess. On certain days, I can take an 8:06 train and it’s almost like being in first-class. Almost no one on the train, I can have a two-person seat all to myself, and there aren’t any old men rubbing up against me.
Should I be happy that no one wants to ever sit next to me on the train? I mean, Japanese people will usually only sit down next to me on the train if two conditions are met:
- No other seats but the one next to mine are available
- They’re so tired that they can’t bear to stand
If both of these conditions are met, then they’ll sit down next to me. We just pulled into a station and a good number of people got on, and nobody took the open seat next to me. I see a guy eyeing it, but he just can’t bring himself to take it. What could possibly be the reason he can’t sit next to me?
- he thinks foreigners smell
- standing helps his back pain that he got from sleeping on the floor at home because his wife doesn’t respect him and won’t let him sleep in the bed
- he thinks I’m gonna start speaking English to him and his feeble mind will melt
- he’s got a chubby and sitting down will only make it show through his pants worse
Could be any of those. But Japanese people never give me a good reason why. Some say it’s just prejudice. Maybe. But going solely on stereotypes, the kind of people you’d expect to hate foreigners (gruff old Japanese guys) never seem to have a problem sitting down next to me. It’s always younger people that go out of their way to stand in the aisle and avoid taking the perfectly good empty seat.
To answer my question though, I think I should be happy. It gives me a little extra room and I don’t have to deal with that question of what to do with the guy’s knee that keeps rubbing up against mine.
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