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The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

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Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#31

Post by hkmurakami »

jdtang13 wrote: post #22
JoeDaDude wrote: post #18

More on the shisa kanko Point-and-Call system here: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/pointing-and-calling-j... I've heard of people doing similar things with small children for safety reasons, things such as point both ways before crossing, and the old "fingers on noses before the door closes" for car doors.

This is such an awesome system. It completely makes sense that your mindfulness will increase when you integrate your full body with a task, using your eyesight, gestures, and voice. It's quite similar to jotting down notes using pen-and-pencil and enunciating the object of study in order to remember it well. It is even similar to prayer and meditation, where incense and singing increases your own awareness.

It's also used in the factories in Japan to reduce errors (I worked in one as part of my training there)

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#32

Post by paulific »

rangibaby wrote: post #25
__david__ wrote: post #19

I was very surprised to recognize one of the train-leaving jingles: https://youtu.be/470_2wt2t1o?t=41 Took me a second but I realized it was the same music that the old Mr. Do arcade machine (from 1982) plays when you get an extra man: https://youtu.be/5_BBQWed8Vk?t=434 So is this jingle an homage to the game, or did the game lift the melody from somewhere else?

It’s the theme song from Astro Boy https://youtu.be/KGq6z1mEU9Q

And they play it at Takadanobaba station which located in the area where Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, had his studio. (There is also a huge mural under the railway bridge outside featuring all of his characters)

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#33

Post by twblalock »

contingencies wrote: post #24
fein wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The likely answer is that the Japanese are an efficient people in general. It's not surprising that a group of people following the same social norms would have an efficient system for public transport.

Americans would first build a three level carpark and gas station, then a strip mall with a drug store, take-away coffee and donuts. Then they would privatize the publicly funded station, at which time the service quality would tank and the entire facility would fall in to a state of minimum repair. Or something like that.

In Japan, most of the rail network was privatized in the 1990s and it's still the best in the world. Nothing tanked.

Large department stores, malls, hotels, etc. are generally built into the major stations, and are often owned and operated by the rail companies. Most of them really do have drugstores, coffee shops and bakeries/donut shops. It's very convenient for commuters who need to shop on the way to/from work, and the money helps keep the trains running. If we did more of this in America, our transit companies would be better off.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#34

Post by paulific »

nlawalker wrote: post #28
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #5

Anecdote time... Tokyo train stations kinda suck. Coming from a few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, it was interesting to see just how little and how poorly translated English is there. (They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca) It was VERY DIFFICULT to figure out how their train colors worked, how Orange gets to Blue (it's a connect, but a couple blocks away). That Gi…

Just another anecdote alongside the others. Maybe I got lucky but I found the amount of written and spoken English in Japan, especially in the metropolitan areas, to be perfectly adequate. As for actually getting around, it's just a matter of having the right tools. I'm mostly sharing this for the benefit of anyone thinking of going to Japan. - The landscape of transit cards is confusing, and while many of them are s…

The variety in transit cards is mostly due to the variety of operators who use different systems. Japan Rail has Suica, Tokyo Subway lines use Passmo. Some regional operators have their own ones. As you say you can mostly use them interchangeably, probably because it is less trouble for everybody that way.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#35

Post by mikekchar »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #5

Anecdote time... Tokyo train stations kinda suck. Coming from a few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, it was interesting to see just how little and how poorly translated English is there. (They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca) It was VERY DIFFICULT to figure out how their train colors worked, how Orange gets to Blue (it's a connect, but a couple blocks away). That Gi…

I have some sympathy with this comment (although like other commenters I don't quite agree). I think some of this disconnect is cultural (or what you're used to). The most important thing to understand about Japanese trains is that there a many train companies. If you don't realise that, then you can easily get confused about the need to go to a completely different building across the road to get a transfer. Many stylised maps don't make it clear and I've been confused before. I'm guessing that the blue in your example is the Keisei line.

As for cards, Japan is still very much a cash based culture. Although you can use credit cards in most places now, if you had come 10 or 15 years ago you might have been astounded that you practically could not survive without carrying cash. Even now, if you go out to where I live (in the countryside), I don't think there is a single store that accepts credit cards. It used to be that the ATMs were only open during banking hours (what's the point in an ATM if it's only open when there is a teller available? ;-) ). I got into the habit of that time of carrying about $1000 all the time. Hell, the gas man would pass me on the street randomly, hand me my bill and expect that I would pay him on the spot. Different culture :-)

Anyway, I hope your trip was enjoyable otherwise. One more quick tip: If you come again and end up in a station without romaji train maps, you can corner one of the station attendants and they will find a way to help you somehow (also probably won't speak English, but I've seen them being very inventive).

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#36

Post by twblalock »

nlawalker wrote: post #28
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #5

Anecdote time... Tokyo train stations kinda suck. Coming from a few weeks in Malaysia and Singapore, it was interesting to see just how little and how poorly translated English is there. (They speak Japanese and not English, but lets be honest about it being the lingua franca) It was VERY DIFFICULT to figure out how their train colors worked, how Orange gets to Blue (it's a connect, but a couple blocks away). That Gi…

Just another anecdote alongside the others. Maybe I got lucky but I found the amount of written and spoken English in Japan, especially in the metropolitan areas, to be perfectly adequate. As for actually getting around, it's just a matter of having the right tools. I'm mostly sharing this for the benefit of anyone thinking of going to Japan. - The landscape of transit cards is confusing, and while many of them are s…

> - The landscape of transit cards is confusing, and while many of them are still accepted in various places, the existence of such a wide variety is mostly a legacy thing as far as I could tell. I had a Suica card and it worked virtually everywhere I went in Japan, though I didn't venture off the beaten path.

I think this is correct. I first went to Japan in 2008, and the cards you had actually mattered. I went again last year, and I used a Suica all over the country without problems -- it was a Suica I bought in 2008, and it still worked and had money on it after sitting in a drawer for 9 years.

It seems like all of these cards equivalent now, at least for tourists -- for people who live there, I think there are some differences in the kinds of monthly passes you can get for each card.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#37

Post by Fins »

GordonS wrote: post #16
rpearl wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really had no trouble navigating Tokyo stations and I don't speak a word of Japanese besides すみません (excuse me/sorry to bother), so I'm quite surprised to see this comment! Google maps and other transit apps are really good in Tokyo, paying with suica/pasmo makes things quite smooth--just keep it topped up habitually when you go to a convenience store--and I didn't really have the trouble you seem to have had with c…

Not only do I not speak any Japanese, but I'm colour blind, and don't have any kind of subway or metro at home - and I had no issue navigating around Tokyo or Kyoto stations. And in Tokyo, on multiple occasions there was even an excessively helpful English-speaking Japanese stewardess that insisted on helping us from A to B.

Same here (well, I can manage a few basic phrases in Japanese, but that's about it). Navigating Japan's rail system was very easy. Well, unless you enter turnstiles at the station and then try to exit right from the same station, that seems to confuse SUICA a lot and you have to go through the manual lane...

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#38

Post by Aardwolf »

tbabb wrote: post #11

> Operating on the theory that exposure to blue light has a calming effect on one’s mood, rail stations installed these LED panels as a suicide-prevention measure Color me completely skeptical. That sounds like superstition to me. It reports that rates declined after installation, but if they preferentially installed the lights in areas with high rates of suicide, then we should expect to see https://en.wikipedia.org…

Yes, another article on HN a few days ago said blue light wakes you up while red light makes you sleepy (and I follow the science of that one more):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17117656

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#39

Post by timr »

lhorie wrote: post #26
themodelplumber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember riding on a train in Japan when some schoolgirls sitting across from me were just chatting in an excited way...nothing that seemed out of place, but man did they get it. Things seemed fine to me, especially on a hot summer day in an uncrowded train with the windows down (plenty of atmospheric noise). All of a sudden a conductor (not sure if you call him that, he was in the back end of the car) popped out o…

> All I could think was that he put on that intervention for us few foreigners Nah. In Japanese culture, it's simply considered rude to be loud in trains.

Still. I've never seen a conductor yell at anyone for being loud, especially in the cities. Maybe it happens in the inaka...

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#40

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

In my first experience with trains in Japan, I had to take a jaunt that included a leg from Nagoya to Matsusaka. The train ride was about 90 minutes, and I was anxious about knowing which station to exit. I anticipated that the signage would all be in Japanese. So I asked the station attendant in Nagoya how I'd know when to get off. He looked at my ticket and said, "The train will stop at 1:11PM. You get off."

The train stopped at promptly 1:11 PM, and I got off in Matsusaka.

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