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The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

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Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#101

Post by ajdlinux »

Fins wrote: post #37
GordonS wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Last time I was in Japan (a couple of months ago) I learned that at some stations they actually sell a station-access-only ticket (~JPY200 for a few hours IIRC) for people who want to go in to meet someone or to use the shops.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#102

Post by bschwindHN »

__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?

Funny to hear that here, that's my local train station :)

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#103

Post by saagarjha »

marak830 wrote: post #49
quantisan wrote: post #43

I witnessed a group of 20+ Latin American tourists boarding at some station and then getting off at Shinjuku the other day. One of them held the train door with his body while all 20+ of them strolled in the train nonchalantly. Then the same door blocker proceeded to scream out instructions to the rest of the group. They did the same thing on the way out. Usually there's a smooth flow of people entering and exiting a…

There is so much here that couldn't work as it does, without the implicit assumption that everyone is going to behave politely. Hell the polite queuing after a major earthquake for water and food is absolutely astounding. The foreigners who don't try to live up to the social standards while living here should be shunned by the local gaijins.

> local gaijins

Isn't this an oxymoron? I don't really know Japanese, but as far as I'm aware this means something along the lines of "local foreigners".

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#104

Post by pm215 »

bemmu wrote: post #86
lhorie wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people in japan says "the train will be there 1:11PM", they mean, "it'll be there 1:11:00PM sharp, not 1:10PM, not 1:12PM".

If you ride in the first car and look at the timetable the driver uses, you can see the timetable is accurate to the second. Here's a photo showing a driver's timetable. In the second row is a 20 second stop at Hazama, the train arrival time is 13:25:05 and departure 13:25:25. http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/asianrailroad/imgs/f/a/fa9e3956.j...

That timetable looks like it's on 5-second granularity, not 1-second. Which is still pretty tight -- the UK's working timetables are half-minute granularity. (The UK also demonstrates that it's not merely a matter of having an exact timetable, you also need to be able to keep to it in practice :-))

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#105

Post by chillydawg »

saagarjha wrote: post #103
marak830 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much here that couldn't work as it does, without the implicit assumption that everyone is going to behave politely. Hell the polite queuing after a major earthquake for water and food is absolutely astounding. The foreigners who don't try to live up to the social standards while living here should be shunned by the local gaijins.

> local gaijins Isn't this an oxymoron? I don't really know Japanese, but as far as I'm aware this means something along the lines of "local foreigners".

Aka expat community. Those who have already moved there should work to try to help newcomers integrate.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#106

Post by CaptainZapp »

sparkie wrote: post #66
contingencies wrote: post #23

I've been through mass transit systems in at least fifteen countries by this point. Japan (Osaka) didn't leave a huge impression, as plenty of countries in Asia have similar systems. Yesterday I caught the first inter-city mass transit in China from Guangzhou to Foshan, part of the aggressive infrastructural beginnings of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) megacity. The two cities' systems were evidently conceived and funde…

Osaka probably isn't a good representation of the rest of Japan's public transport and I can see why it wouldn't leave an impression. Particularly if you catch the slow JR between KIX and Namba. Osaka-jin are typically more laid-back and could perhaps even be considered 'disorderly' compared to the norm - they like to stand on the right side of escalators, but the entire rest of Japan stands on the left. This leaves…

"This leaves an initial bad impression in Kyoto central station, where you have many people arrive from Osaka and you end up with people stood on both sides of the escalators."

Thanks! That explains a lot.

It was pretty clear that you usually stand on the left, except in Osaka.

Kyoto, however, confused the hell out of me, because people sometimes stood on the left, sometimes on the right. Very un-Japanese, I dare say.

Now I know why.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#107

Post by CaptainZapp »

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.

That was the most interesting takeaway.

I was really wondering if train and tram conductors are practicing a low level version of kung-fu or so.

Now I know why they do that.

Very interesting & thanks for the link.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#108

Post by chopin »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #40

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 tr…

I didn't exactly use this line when visiting Japan last year, but I never had trouble with leaving at the correct station as everything was announced in latin writing as well (even Nikko and Hakkone wasn't a problem).

However in Tokyo I took a picture of every station sign I stepped over in order to find my way back :-).

I was ashamed of Germany (where I live) when visiting Japan especially when comparing public transport.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#109

Post by saagarjha »

chillydawg wrote: post #105
saagarjha wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> local gaijins Isn't this an oxymoron? I don't really know Japanese, but as far as I'm aware this means something along the lines of "local foreigners".

Aka expat community. Those who have already moved there should work to try to help newcomers integrate.

Aah, I guess they're still considered gaijins.

Re: The Psychology of Japanese Train Stations

#110

Post by Bromskloss »

saagarjha wrote: post #103
marak830 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much here that couldn't work as it does, without the implicit assumption that everyone is going to behave politely. Hell the polite queuing after a major earthquake for water and food is absolutely astounding. The foreigners who don't try to live up to the social standards while living here should be shunned by the local gaijins.

> local gaijins Isn't this an oxymoron? I don't really know Japanese, but as far as I'm aware this means something along the lines of "local foreigners".

I understood it as referring to non-Japanese people living in Japan, who should make sure that the clueless ones among their ranks behave.
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