The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
japantimes.co.jp
The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
1–10 of 100 posts
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#2This was truly lovely to read. A peek into how cultures change.
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#3My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years.
I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is good. I’m never going to be Chineses, same as he’s never going to be Japanese. If that bugs him why not go home? No one’s making him stay in Japan.
Change the things you can, accept the ones you can’t and if you can’t deal with that get out.
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#4My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…
> I’m never going to be Chineses, same as he’s never going to be Japanese. If that bugs him why not go home? No one’s making him stay in Japan.
I’m so happy to read this comment. I lived in Japan for 4 years and had the same feeling. People are always upset they’re not seen as Japanese despite the fact they are indeed not Japanese. I could see an argument if you were a child of a western parent, born and raised in Japan with Japanese values constantly having to remind people that you are a Japanese national but these are just foreigners living in Japan with a chip on their shoulder because they weren’t born Japanese.
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#5My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#6My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…
I think when you experience prejudice regarding your race, it’s unfair to characterize that as “stewing”.
Maybe you don’t find this article or his initial piece insightful; that’s fair enough.
But I also think it’s fair of him to shine a light on unfair treatment in the place he lives, without people suggesting - without irony - that he “go home”.
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#7My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…
You're presupposing a lot about the author's situation: maybe he's not in a situation where he can easily leave, or the things he likes about Japan outweigh occasionally being snubbed with an empty seat.
Clearly, he feels like it's just slight background noise in his life, but there's nothing wrong with being little annoyed that he's still being prejudged by the society he's living in after trying to fit in as best he can.
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#8I'd never sit in the last or even last 10% or so of seats on a subway train, as a healthy middle-aged man who isn't escorting a child or something. I'd also be highly suspect of a man who did that, and would be reluctant to sit next to him if I were disabled/woman/with-child/etc. Much more so in Japan. The illustration also shows him seated in a 'priority seat' where I'd never sit even if the train were empty. (This might just have been the illustrator, however.)
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#9My god, it must be so unpleasant to be the kind of person who thinks about that for the hours necessary to write an essay like the one he wrote ten years ago, and to continue stewing on it for ten years. I’ve lived in China for more than seven years and I definitely have an empty seat beside me on the metro more often than Chinese people and children and tourists say 老外(foreigner) regularly enough. So what? Life is g…
> I’m never going to be Chineses, same as he’s never going to be Japanese. If that bugs him why not go home? No one’s making him stay in Japan. I’m so happy to read this comment. I lived in Japan for 4 years and had the same feeling. People are always upset they’re not seen as Japanese despite the fact they are indeed not Japanese. I could see an argument if you were a child of a western parent, born and raised in Ja…
Separate but equal? Or not even equal?
Re: The empty seat on a crowded Japanese train
#10This guy should cash in on the empty seat by having a staged Japanese friend break the ice and sit very conspicuously during his approach and settling in to claim that empty seat. Maybe even with verbal announcements along the way, walking through a crowd from an adjacent car to meander next to the expected to be empty seat. If they could stage cameras about to capture reactions from the crowd that could be slightly entertaining, possibly more.