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| JR manners sign |
A picture dedicated to my dear friend Lily, who has been staying with me in Tokyo this week. The picture made me chuckle, as it's exactly what happens. It's quite disappointing how many *non priority people* use priority seats. Outside priority seats it's survival of the fittest. With a 1,3 and 6 year old - none of whom can reach the over head straps to stop them falling over if the train lurches - Lily is far more deserving of a seat than most of the people who can be found in the priority seats.... I think only once in three days did anyone offer a seat to her, and that was a nice lady who let her boys take the front seat on the Yurikamome monorail.
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| A rude man |
The kind of person who sits in the priority seats can be seen in the picture on the right - a man who after physically pushing me out of the way to slide into the seat (regular seats not priority) on my way home this evening, would no doubt have been content to sit, pretend to sleep and 'think of excuses' had a person bent over with a walking stick stood in front of him. One of my other friends in Tokyo was carrying her just two year old and asked someone in the priority seats if they wouldn't mind standing - and was met with expletives in otherwise impeccable American English..... from a mid 20s, well dressed Japanese woman. (Admittedly extremely unusual.)
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| The Baby Badge |
Sometimes it's tricky though. I'm quite happy to give up my seat (easy to be generous in this respect when I am rarely on the train for more than 25 mins) and have few compunctions about suggesting to someone else that they stand for a fellow traveller who obviously needs a seat, (some times to Hiro's embarrassed dismay....) but less obviously pregnant people are tricky. I got a death glare a while back from someone, whom I presume was unfortunately proportioned rather than pregnant as I had assumed... That has prompted me to sit on trains and ruminate on whether it is worse to insult the person in front of me by misjudging them as pregnant, or worse to not give up my seat for her.... Fortunately the railways issue a baby badge (above) that alerts people to the fact the person wearing the badge (usually attached to their bag) is pregnant. How effective it is in persuading people to give up a seat? Probably not very when I see people burrow into their mobile phone while Lily trys to balance three little people ....
All that said though we had fun on the trains - checking out the Shinkansen zipping past, watching the speedometre in the drivers carriages, doing chin ups on the over head straps ;) With one adult, it would have been a lot less fun.
