QUIET CITY

This is another one of those morning-on-the-train-to-the-big-city postings, so if you’re tired of those just browse around, take your time…

For me, one of the more addling aspects of commuting in Japan has always been, right from the very start of my participation in that fine art form, the number of announcements the announcers make on the trains.

When I first came here I used to wonder what in the world they could be talking about at such length to complete strangers, but now that I understand what they’re saying (when the sound system is passable) I don’t wonder all that much less. Maybe they love the sound of their own voices, maybe they have a daily word quota, but they go on and on beyond the necessary information, like simply the next stop (but six times?), transfer info, which side will be the exit, don’t forget your umbrella, but who cares about their kids or the trouble they’re having with their wives or their general health or their new car it sounds like sometimes, the way they babble on, just as you’re slipping into that very fine dream about the…

Anyway, this morning it was the usual to the tenth power because the announcer, a pretty good far-reaching tenor even without a mike, clearly loved his voice and loved to talk, but he had the sound turned up to max plus alpha and, being in his own little deaf cubicle in the last car, was unaware of the effect his every announcement was having on the poor pulp of passengers over the 45-minute ride.

If he had but glanced somewhere other than in the mirror as he made his looooong announcements he would have seen sleepers bounding awake, non-sleepers bouncing in their seats with his every blurrily announced phrase (he’d likely blown the speakers early on) “We’ve been there were going here and here and here and here we’ve been there and we’re going here and here and here and here there too thank you for taking the railway sorry the train is running a little late I say sorry the train is running a little late thank you for taking the railway don’t forget your umbrellas don’t forget your umbrellas thank you for taking the railway the exit is on the left the exit is on the left the exit is on the left there thank you for taking the railway platform x for destination y platform x for destination y thank you for taking the railway” on and on he went, even as we detrained on rubber legs.

When I got off my ears were ringing; I had never been thanked or directed so much so loudly in my life, and the teeming city seemed so quiet…