A few months after I arrived in Japan I noticed just how important space was in Tokyo. Beyond the obvious limitations afforded by a capital city with an extremely dense population, I started to notice how the management of space was also central to how a lot of things are done in this town - not just flats and habitations.
The impact of space, or lack of it, on how people live is the most obvious aspect of this, evident to anyone who comes here and spends a small amount of time looking at how and where people live. Coming from London, one of the things I’ve missed the most in my time living in Tokyo is house parties. Simply put they rarely happen in Tokyo, and when they do they’re not on the scale they are back in Europe. Instead people go out and party in an izakaya, a club or a karaoke booth. It’s fun but after a while it’s just not the same as a good old house party.
In a city where every bit of land is seemingly up for grabs, where doors appear in the most unimaginable locations and shops and entertainment are all located upwards of the street level, the limitations of space also impact the inside of flats, houses and public spaces. In terms of flats, and smaller offices, you end up realising soon enough that while space seems to be lacking there is always a way to make things fit. And the Japanese have developed a knack, and countless products, to help make the management of space inside cramped spaces as easy as possible.
And while the lack of space and the ingenious ways in which the Japanese circumvene it daily is an integral part of what makes Tokyo such a fascinating city and living here such a fascinating experience at times, it also has other inconvenient repercussions.
One of the most talked about repercussions of the this lack of space is the lack of privacy that results from having so many people cramped in increasingly smaller spaces. And from there stems other problems like assaults the likes on trains.
Which brings me neatly, kind of anyways, to another repercussion, on the city’s public transport system. More and more habitations in the same (or less) amount of space mean more people than would normally be found in one place. In turns this means more people in a train carriage or a bus than there should be.
Public transport rush hour can be a pain in any capital city, but in Tokyo it reaches new levels that I previously thought impossible. London is renowned for its atrocious rush hour on the underground, compounded by inexistent air con, consistent delays and technical failures and in the worst cases animalistic tendencies from commuters. You only have to look at the study that came out a few years back detailing how cattle in the E.U. had better transportation conditions than your average London commuter during rush hour. But Tokyo actually makes London seem slightly attractive.
Tokyo has two distincts peak rush hour times: the early morning and the late evening. I’ve never properly experienced the early morning one, thanks to lenient starting times in my jobs, apart from the weekend and the odd early departure on a day out. But, you only have to get your google on to find pictures and movies detailing how insane it can be. In fact early morning rush hour gets so bad in Tokyo’s major central stations that a lot of them employ ‘pushmen’, armed with white gloves and the directive to make people fit in a carriage regardless of any sense of comfort or humanity. Pack ‘em in tight, let rush hour sort ‘em out.
Late evening rush hour on the other hand, is something I only know too much about. Tokyo has no night time public transport system (though the JR trains stop around 1 and start again around 4.30 which puts London to shame, especially considering the pleasures of a night bus ride home). And so while London’s main rush hours are confined to morning and early evening, when people start and finish work, Tokyo also has a much later rush hour, which seems to start around 9 or 10 and lasts until the last train, between 12 and 1 depending on the line.
Much like the morning one, the late night rush hour totally redefines the idea of what is humanly tolerable when it comes to public transport. With no ‘pushmen’ at hand, it’s an exercise in chaos control as people shove themselves in carriages with absolutely no regard for anyone else or their own well being for that matter.
What you end up with is an hour or so period where pretty much every train is rammed to the absolute fullest. And then there is the last train home, which if missed involves a long walk, cab ride or night out. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a last train on any line that has left on time, one of the few instances when the Tokyo transport system will always be late, as people rush to get on (and I’m assuming drivers and station staff try and accommodate as many people as possible).
One of the interesting things about the late night rush hour (and which is I think less likely in the morning due to the presence of ‘pushmen’ intent on keeping trains on time) is how certain people walk up to a carriage already full to the brim and will wait in front of the open doors, reading, listening to music, whatever. And then as the driver announces the train’s imminent departure they’ll ‘casually’ walk into the carriage. Well walk might be a bit of a wishful thought, they become just another form in what amounts to a game of human Tetris.
And that’s what late night rush hour, and rush hour in general in Tokyo, reminds me off the most: Tetris. It’s just like one giant game of Tetris repeated night after night, body on top of body. You can forget any sense of comfort, that’s a given, but you can also expect to have your body submitted to various amounts of pain, struggle and effort depending on your size. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to tense my back to withold what felt like 200 hundred bodies pressing on me. Everytime the train starts or stops, it’s a painful experience.
If you’re used to it you find the little tricks that can make it a bit more bearable and reduce the amount of ‘fitting’ your body has to endure, just like you find tricks in a game of Tetris to keep those blocks disappearing as fast as possible. These include finding a corner space, which limits the amount of pressure you can be submitted to, or putting yourself near the doors, which involves exiting at every stop but at least leaves you free from the crush of the moving larger mass. You can forget getting a seat unless you start the journey somewhere far down the line where the rush is still minimal. If you’re unlucky, as I was recently, you end up in the middle of the standing corridor between doors and rows of seats and you’re essentially fucked. No two ways about it.
It’s not just pain and effort too. It’s also things like being totally unable to move any part of your body, apart from your head if you’re tall enough. Stuck in the mass of bodies in the corridors or open areas of the carriages, you got to pray that you won’t be moved enough that your feet lose grounding otherwise you’ll struggle to put them back down. Hands and arms are pretty much the first thing to become totally locked in the mass of human Tetris blocks. Again height helps here, but only in letting you grab a hold of something to withhold the pressure of the mass.
And while Tokyo trains tend to be a lot better than London in terms of air con and the such, that all goes out the window at rush hour where the mass of bodies makes the heat unbearable.
The way in which the Japanese seem to be able to fit themselves in this game of Tetris is one of the entertaining (if you can call it that) elements of the whole experience. It never ceases to amaze me when doors open on a horrendously packed train and no one comes out while another 20 people get in, somehow, someway. I remember once standing at the back of the queue for one of the last trains out of Shinjuku on the Chuo line. As the train pulled in and stopped, I saw how packed it was and how barely anyone had got out and there were a good 30 people in front of me (and the same amount in front of pretty much each carriage door). I thought there was no way in hell I’d make it in, only to find myself somehow sandwiched in tightly 2 minutes later and on my way home.
The whole experience is also a testament to the concept and importance of the group in Japanese society, and how an individual can put themselves through things that most in the west would consider ‘unthinkable’ for the benefit of the greater group. Yes some people do bitch and moan every once in a while, but by and large the whole rush hour happens in a pretty straightforward way. After all everyone wants the same thing, and therefore individual sacrifices like comfort, pain and so on are a small price to pay for the group to achieve its common goal.
It’s the same in London, and other capitals, however in London there is a lot more hassle, verbal abuse and commotion and overall sense of chaos then in Tokyo. While the chaos is still there, it’s a lot more controlled to an extent, not by certain people (apart from ‘pushmen’ in the morning) but by everyone at once.
In London, I always thought of rush hour more as something that always sent my stress levels spiking up. In Tokyo, the idea of Tetris was one of the first things to hit me because of how ‘normal’ the whole thing seemed even though it has a totally unreal and insane feel to it.
And amidst all this controlled chaos and games of Tetris, there are still people who find time to chat, play on their mobile phones, read a book or pass out drunk.
Only in Tokyo I guess.
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