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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2044 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 30, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Today on the morning train nothing of import happened. This is not unusual. I should say nothing happened that would make me want to write a haiku, or villanelle, or sestina, or whatever. It was a usual day. The usual day is as follows:

Wake: 4 a.m. Yes, 4 a.m. This is 5 days a week. You get used to it, even at my age. Do the usual hygiene things. Suit or whatever has been laid out by me the night previously, so insert myself into whatever getup I imagined.

Walk: To the train. I used to bicycle, but my bicycle of ten years eventually turned into a pile of moving junk and was a deathtrap with capricious gears and dubious brakes, so when the recycle truck guy came by chanting his chant for computers, bicycles, old fridges, I flagged him down, scraped off my ID sticker, and threw my bike in the back of his truck. Now I walk. This only sucks if it is raining. The walk at that hour is dark as a motherfuck in the winter, but this time of year is almost bright, and I find my best clear thinking happens at this time. All the rebuttals I might have made. all the best arguments I might make, every clear thought and esprit d'escalier I might have had in the previous week or day or two crystallizes at this time, on this walk. I see no one and say nothing and walk the whole length in silence. Sometimes I quietly sing Billy Joel's My Life and think of the proper piano chords I might play and that will get me a third of the way.

Arrive: At the station around 4:45. Yeah I get ready fast. It takes about 20 minutes to walk. Train leaves at 5:03. On the train is a bald construction worker guy who is always on the platform with me. He always squats on the platform, and plays apparently some inane mobile game on his phone--I heard the wakawaka sound this morning as he was playing it. One asshole old man who wears a bucket hat and button-down shirts with a suit. One woman with long, perfect legs down the end whose face I have never seen but who looks vaguely, from a distance, like a Japanese Ingrid Bergman to my Humphrey Bogart. I'll never speak to her. I love my wife, after all.

Ride: The train. The first of three. The first is the longest, a local, lasts around 40-ish minutes. I typically read a book, browse The Motte (TM), or do something like DuoLingo so I don't lose my place in the Diamond League.

Ride again: The next train This one is more of a subway and lasts about 10 minutes. For some reason this one is always overly cold. In the afternoon on the return version of this same commute you can sometimes see the prostitutes from Tobita shinchi heading home. That's a whole other post.

Eat: I have a coffee, usually from the McDonald's. Sometimes there is an old woman there who reminds me of Bathilda Bagshot from the Harry Potter movies--if you don't know what that means I guess you don't have kids the age of my sons, which is fine. Bathilda Bagshot in the films is actually a serpent, and there is a scene where she transmogrifies into said serpent (we later learn its name is Nagini, and even later learn this serpent is actually not Bathilda nor a serpent but originally a fairly hot Asian woman). Anyway that scene where the old woman reverts into a giant Anaconda-like magic snake thing is disturbing as hell, as far as disturbing CGI snake images in fantasy films go--and this woman at the McDonald's, I am not saying she is a magic evil snake Horcrux, but if somehow it turned out that she were let me say I would not be surprised, not in the slightest. Her voice is too deep. She possesses a dark look in her eyes; her irises and pupils are the same oily black. Not cool, is what I'm saying. Her sclera appears to be dun-colored. Something seems really really wrong. It's probably in my head.

Ride again: The final train. This train arrives 6:21. On it one finds those youthful souls returning from nights out. Girls in immodest dress, once two guys in tightish jeans holding hands as they slept on the bench with their mouths lolling open. Once a girl with raven hair and sneakers, looking like what I would imagine a girl who had spent some time in LA might look, lay half fallen over on the bench, drowsing off a drunk or a really good time, and whatever Bluetooth or other technical function allowed her Iphone to play music out of something besides its speakers had come undone, and her phone lay splat on the floor blurting out Hip Hop. Big no-no here.

Ever the hero, I walked over and sat beside her, knowing enough that I couldn't touch her even to wake her. I nevertheless tried to accomplish this by speaking to her with authority, lowering my voice intentionally, but keeping a kind tone. They say if you hear your own name when you are asleep you will wake--this is probably bullshit. Nevertheless I tried Yuki, and Misato, and Moe and similar, but nothing worked. She kept sleeping, her phone kept blatting out its insufferable American hiphop.

Eventually I get to my final stop and ride the bus to work, which as it happens is a hospital. There is a a cardiologist who rides the same bus as I do, but I never speak to him and he never speaks to me. I think we both realize that if we ever did speak we would have to then speak every day for eternity, and who wants that? Or maybe I'm just a rude shit.

This started out with me imagining it would be more interesting than it actually is. If you got this far, thank you. Happy Friday, all. I really enjoy this place, as crazy as some of you drive me with your bullshit.

Cause he wakes up in the morning

And he goes to work at five

And he comes back home at five-thirty

Gets the same train every time

And he's oh, so good

And he's oh, so fine

And he's oh, so healthy

In his body and his mind

He's a well respected man

I'm trying to think of a Kinks quote but I only come up with Come Dancin'

Not a bad read.

Spending over 4 hours on commuting every day sounds like hell to me. I admire your endurance. And wonder at how it could possibly be worth it.

And wonder at how it could possibly be worth it.

I mean, technically, if you like reading stuff, it's about 4 hours of rest time. Personally I feel comfortable in trains unless they're crowded.

Still, it's 4 hours out of the ~7 you get after work, so..

Still, I don't know. If I had work like that I'd wonder about maybe figuring out a four day working week and sleeping three nights in the city, so I'd get four nights at home.

I would genuinely be interested in hearing a similar play by play for the trip back at the end of the day.

Thanks. I might do just that next Friday fun thread.

Why couldn't you touch her shoulder or something?

I suppose it doesn't beggar credulity to imagine I could have, but for whatever reason intuition kicked in and I felt like it would have been untoward. I'm of two worlds--the Japanese, where even the wildest seeming transgressions are fine in the right context, and the American, where #takebackthenight from my university years, and, more recently, #Metoo, has probably dug its hooks into me to sufficient depth that I feel any physical contact that is uninvited is setting me up for accusation, and, worst-case scenario, martyrdom. I admit I probably should just subdue all that and act in the moment, but didn't. And probably wouldn't again.

But openly lightly touching someone on the shoulder or elbow while saying "excuse me" while watched by rest of the train?

Perhaps I don't understand Japan but this sounds more than a bit paranoid to me. But you probably know best.

Hindsight is clearer than I might prefer. I can only give you the vibe I felt at the time. Though I had not yet had the clarity provided by my morning coffee. I don't understand Japan that well, either. I did say the requisite すみません or "excuse me," but yeah, touching seemed off.

Given the context of being on a train, I'm a bit surprised you put most of the blame on your American background. I recall a fair bit of emphasis on cracking down on men groping/molesting women on trains (eg, with signage reminding men not to do so and encouraging women to report it) when I was there a few decades ago. Has that died down, or is my memory or impression of how seriously it was taken faulty in this case?

Hm. Maybe I am as you say "blaming" it on my American background. That's food for thought.

There are 女性専用車両 or women "only" train cars here, and in fact the car I usually ride is adjacent. But those are for instances of 痴漢　or chikan which essentially means "pervert" but in practice mans sleazy drunkass man who has lost his inhibitions and tries to cop a feel. You see signs at the station that being a chikan is bad (as if one needed to be told via sign) and that there are harsh penalties. Has it died down? I am not sure. Dads I know report their daughters, even at age 13 or so, have experienced discomfort or even unwanted brushing-up on trains. This suggests to me that it has not gone away. At the same time, the world here is different. Japanese women don't step up or protest, or they don't in the same way that say, an American, might imagine that they should. I don't even want to get into it, but they don't.

At the same time, touching a girl on the shoulder, well, I didn't think I'd be seen as a chikan in the Japanese sense, but a creep in the American sense. And as any man who isn't already a criminal pariah can attest, no appellation has quite the same sting.

Has it died down? I am not sure.

To be clear, I wasn't asking if such behavior had died down, but rather if the apparent furor over it had.

This suggests to me that it has not gone away. At the same time, the world here is different. Japanese women don't step up or protest, or they don't in the same way that say, an American, might imagine that they should. I don't even want to get into it, but they don't.

While this is true and I wouldn't expect her to cause a scene, I would be worried about her later reporting it to the station attendants. Being a foreigner sometimes excuses such things, but sometimes makes it worse. It'd certainly make it much easier to be identified if she were to, and I had perhaps the incorrect impression that the cultural norms against stirring the pot that typically make Japanese women reluctant to report such behavior weren't as big an obstacle if the perpetrator wasn't Japanese.

At the same time, touching a girl on the shoulder, well, I didn't think I'd be seen as a chikan in the Japanese sense, but a creep in the American sense. And as any man who isn't already a criminal pariah can attest, no appellation has quite the same sting.

Hmm...maybe I was the one projecting then. The impression I got while I was there was that there wasn't much of a distinction. EDIT: Or rather, that there wouldn't be much of a distinction in this situation--moving to touch a dozing girl on the shoulder looks a lot like testing the waters before actually molesting her.

I probably present myself as more of an accurate correspondent than is warranted. I have never read or heard of a foreigner who was accused of being a perv, molester, or chikan; the perpetrators are always Japanese. (Mind you, murderers, thieves, drug peddlers and whoremongers, yes, these are nearly always foreigners--or at leas the news stories with foreigners in such cases are sensationalized.)

Probably you're right in that if the perpetrator is foreign the accuser is more-or-less guaranteed at least a day in court. You seem to have a pretty accurate sense of things; I am not sure what I can add. I don't like making sweeping declarations, though I often do just that.

I very much enjoyed it. Especially this section:

Eventually I get to my final stop and ride the bus to work, which as it happens is a hospital. There is a a cardiologist who rides the same bus as I do, but I never speak to him and he never speaks to me. I think we both realize that if we ever did speak we would have to then speak every day for eternity, and who wants that?

Is a two hour commute common in Japan? It seems absurdly long to me, at least if you’re doing it more than once or twice a week. If daily, thats’s 20 hours a week on the commute!

In high school, my physics teacher commuted three days a week from a village in upstate New York (well, mid-state, maybe) to Manhattan. I think in his case he and his wife lived very simple lives (such that they got by on his part-time salary, although he was quite old), and they preferred the deep country, had chickens and things. A nice guy, but still, a big sacrifice. Nothing like finishing a long, hard day and realizing you have three hours to go before you can sit down on your own couch.

Wow, a reply. Thank you. Yeah, it's long as hell. Of my non-Japanese friends I am the only one with such a punishing commute, it's true. I've only been at this particular gig for about a year, but it's tenured so I will stay at least a year or two--and I'm no spring chicken so I may just call it and settle. I have kids to put through school, after all.

There is actually something called 単身赴任 or tanshin funin where dads live literally away from their families--as in, you have a wife and kids in Osaka, but you live in Tokyo and just send money home. So you don't commute, you just live way the hell away from your own family. That is not as uncommon as you might imagine. I don't think it contributes much toward family harmony, either. I would never do it. I am not sure how common long commutes are in Japan--I have been commuting this way for some time, and some of my students have nearly equally long commutes.

As for a "long hard day" it's for me just prepping, grading, and teaching, and most of that is done either standing stationary or sitting at a computer, and there are a helluva lot more rigorous jobs. I use the commute time to meditate and will probably start writing in those times. Mornings especially I find my brain is very alert.

What do they offer that made this arrangement seem like a good deal to you? If I understood your situation correctly, you are an anglophone foreigner with a tenured teaching position at a Japanese research/teaching hospital, and the mental flexibility to be undertaking real steps to culturally assimilate. I'm far removed from medicine, but based on my vague understanding of academic salaries and conditions across the world I would have pegged Japan as an unfortunate example where simultaneously the standards of medical research are among the highest in the world and academic salaries and non-monetary perks are unusually low for a country at that level of development; and on top of that, the commute you described? It's hard for me to imagine how there is no employer, country or even field that could offer you a better life.

Hmm. That's a good question. I suppose autonomy, a generous research budget including travel to international conferences, and some degree of clout. I have sons of an age where my pulling up stakes for an unknown would be irresponsible. We built a house. We have a community we like in a good location and I don't want us to move.

If I were still single, and had no kids, I might make a lot of different decisions. I've never been particularly cutthroat or ambitious beyond providing a reasonably comfortable standard of living for my wife and children. And oddly the commute for me is a very Zen experience, to use that term inaccurately and shallowly. I mean to say that it is meditative for me, and because left to my own devices I am very much a homebody, it thrusts me out into the world. Kind of like how my whole life I was profoundly shy, and chose a career where I have to lecture to 120 students in two languages. It's good for me. Well, probably. Keeps me from being too comfortable.

If this isn't a satisfactory answer, well, I am still thinking about your question.

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