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Yamanote
More than just a commuter train line
At what percent occupancy rate can you no longer turn over the pages of your paperback book in a train? "Please don't
throw yourself in front of the train during rush hour!"
The day on which "Iced Bommerlunder" [1] echoed through the railway cars.
The Yamanote line is the metallic realization of the insane concept that 30 million people can try to live together in a
single city and lead ordered lives in the process. The normalcy of these lives is safeguarded by the railway lines that
expand into every part of the moloch of Tokyo like arteries. The heart of this iron circulatory system is the commuter
train "Yamanote". It runs in a circle around the center of the city of Tokyo in both directions: clockwise and
counterclockwise. Whoever sits down in a Yamanote train will be back at his train station of departure 29 train stations
and approximately 60 minutes later. All those typical Tokyo photos that show railway guards squeezing passengers into the
last free square meter of a train or herds of businessmen streaming out of one come from the Yamanote line.
Each of these hybrid commuter trains is as long as a German long-distance one: ten cars, almost 300 meters. Thus, if I
board the train at the wrong end and have to walk along the entire departure platform in order to get to the right exit
after disembarking, I'll need more than three minutes for the entire length of track - at that point, the next train is
already pulling in. A 300-meter-long train every two, three minutes - and we passengers still stuff the trains far beyond
their capacity limits every morning: "120 percent - I can still open my newspaper halfway", "150 percent - I can no longer
park my briefcase on the floor", "180 percent - I don't have the elbow room needed to turn over the pages of my paperback
book." The degree of congestion is better illustrated by the railway company JR itself than by any foreigner's subjective,
quibbling report. Said ranking of the daily insanity level can be found in the form of large posters in the train
accompanied by vivid illustrations designed to convince at least some customers to only commute into the city at nine
o'clock instead of at seven or eight. But what employer would accept the desire for more leg room on the way to work as a
reason for being late?
During the morning peak hours at the larger train stations, there's an extra railway guard standing on the departure
platform for every single (!) railway car door. Thus, with three to five doors per railway car, there are forty guards
who are solely occupied with paying attention that no one squeezes in while the doors are closing, and, additionally, to
push the final passenger into the masses in case of an emergency. Sometimes you come into the railway car in the morning
and think, "Well, it actually seems to be okay today, for once", but in the second before the door closes, a human mass
floods the compartment, you're pressed against your neighbor and almost lifted off the ground. It's the same state of
affairs when disembarking: how do you get out if there are twenty people in front of you who are staying on? By the time
you've politely asked everyone to step aside in Japanese the train would already be three train stations further. Here,
only the merciless application of pressure to the throng in front of you in the direction of the open door helps. The first
ones are made to stumble out, the next ones follow of their own free will, everyone waits in front of the door, and you can
disembark. Then, of course, they have to get back inside.
In order to make more room available, many railway cars have folding seats that are only automatically lowered at 10
o'clock. Thus, in order for 200 to 300 passengers to fit into these railway cars, they're standing room only in the
morning. This creates space, certainly, but as an American friend of mine said, "If we always have to pay the same fare,
we should also have a place to sit down." These standing-room-only railway cars make me sometimes think of livestock
wagons. The increased irritability of having to stand huddled together with so many others is certainly the same. The
windows can't be opened, the doors also only open automatically, and you find yourself squashed between bodies and odors.
Once, on a hot summer morning, I was in one such livestock wagon when it stopped in the middle of an open stretch of track.
Initially, everyone remained calm. The conductor announced that the reason for stopping was unknown and that we still had
to wait. Hectic activity followed as a result: everyone took our their cell phones in order to communicate the fact that
they would be late. After that, silence once more. The air conditioning wasn't working properly. Nervous flipping through
the pages of already-read newspapers and books - as far as was possible. Then just silent waiting in an offensive position.
Everyone was standing there like nervous animals. Luckily, we continued on our way after 15 minutes, because I was under
the impression that five more minutes and we would've been at each others' throats or tried to smash in the windows. But
even my normal commuting time of twelve minutes with the Yamanote is enough to disembark totally exhausted and aggressive.
My useless and admittedly primitive outlet is to sometimes push hard on purpose while disembarking, to really knock my
frustration right into the person in front of me. In spite of this, no one complains.
The inside of the trains is ideal for stoking the fires of aggression even further. Advertisements have been pasted in
every conceivable location: all over the walls, as stickers on the windows and doors. In addition, every three meters and
along the entire width of the railway car, posters hang down from the ceiling into the middle of the compartment. And,
finally, all the handholds are enclosed within small, taunting, advertising boxes. It's during moments like these that I
wish I couldn't read Japanese and were able to simply ignore the colorful pictures. Because you simply can't escape the
advertisements. Maybe this is the reason why so many people in the train try and read newspapers or books: they simple
need some neutral eyecatchers. The livestock wagons with the folded-up seats even have little televisions, two next to
every door, like in the science fiction movie "Total Recall". There, naturally and above all else, advertising films are
run, interrupted by up-to-date news and the weather forecast.
As of late, there are "theme wagons". A single business leases the sum advertising space of an entire railway car. Some
advertisers like the Kirin brewery at least exhibit a different beer from their palette of products on each poster, but
some firms like the US clothing store "The Gap" hang up exactly two different posters - dozens of times in all shapes and
sizes, the same undeviating motif, which, additionally, can also be seen as a freeze frame on the television screen. No
matter where I look: "Gap Jeans", the same picture with the same smile of the same model...it drives you insane. This
really is psychological torture.
A female friend of mine who lives at the other end of the city hates the Yamanote line so much that she'd rather change
trains two additional times and use detours to get to my place than ride the Yamanote directly here. You start hating the
operating company JR, hating all the other passengers, all the Japanese get on your nerves, and, ultimately, you hate
yourself.
Some passengers suffer a mental short circuit - they throw themselves in front of the train. Surely, the reason isn't
their hatred of the Yamanote. But even I - had I decided to end my life - would've selected the tracks of the Yamanote.
Because if I must die, then not only should as many people as possible take notice of my death but also suffer accordingly
for it. And we passengers are suffering more and more often. Every three to four weeks, I hear an announcement about a
"person accident". For a few days, officials from the administration department of the Shinjuku train station allegedly
even had the chutzpah to place a sign next to the tracks - "Please don't jump during rush hour" - until this heartless way
of assigning suicide appointments by the authorities pushed even the passengers, who were used to regulations, to their
limits and the sign was removed. When someone at some train station hurls themselves in front of the train, all the trains
going in both directions are immediately blocked - they run in a circle in both directions on adjoining tracks, after all,
close to one another. If even one train drops out of this fragile equilibrium and a load of human cargo isn't transported
further, the departure platform will be as full as the trains themselves within minutes. If several trains aren't running,
people will accumulate in the stairways and concourse of the train station. During these suicide events, it becomes clear
to you what kind of human masses the Yamanote line incessantly shovels through the city - and how dependent we are on this
train. Thus, the suicide at least has satisfaction in death: tens of thousands of people are stuck in train stations for at
least an hour and angry. And hundreds of railway employees are torn from their daily routine and have to console irritated
people with useless phrases that are embarrassing to even them: "There was a person accident at Train Station XY. That's
why none of the trains are running. Unfortunately, we can't tell you the trains will be running again. Please excuse the
inconvenience."
And yet, they could take precautions in light of the regularity of such occurences. Two lines with their own tracks, the
Seikyo and the Keihin lines, run at least partly parallel to the Yamanote. "My" last suicide was on a Saturday evening
around midnight. The Yamanote was still running, all other lines had already stopped their runs. Instead of apologizing
thousands of times, they could've simply let additional trains run on the parallel lines. But that would've been
flexibility. I asked an official if they'd be putting additional trains into service on the other lines. He gave me a
flabbergasted look, as if I'd asked him for the telephone number of the nearest whorehouse.
Suicide isn't the only way leading to traffic chaos. During the last few years, some foreigners and cosmopolitan Japanese
in Tokyo have found a subversive and much happier way of taking their hatred out on the Yamanote, namely by holding a
Halloween party in the train at the beginning of November. In mid-October, you received the date and exact departure time
of a Yamanote train in Shinjuku via e-mail from several obscure senders. You were supposed to come with as many friends as
possible and preferably in costume. Thus, on a warm autumn evening, up to a thousand happy people flocked to the departure
platform in one fell swoop: half of them foreigners, half of them Japanese, representatives of every age group, most of
them in disguise, many already tipsy, stocked up with drinks for the ride, at any rate. When the train pulled in, chaos
broke out. Everyone poured into the train and seized it. Within seconds, the first individuals had already unscrewed the
glaring neon lighting tubes and turned on their large, portable CD players in order to create a dimly-lit party atmosphere.
The train departed on schedule. Some people lay down in the overhead luggage nets, everyone was toasting everyone else,
there was an international jumble of languages, everyone was psyched and in a good mood. But only for one station. Because
part of the jamboree lay in a large part of the partygoers running out of the train at every single station and trying to
run back into another railway car before the train continued on its way. Naturally, starting from the second train station
after Shinjuku at the very latest, every normal passenger had left the train of their own free will and no one got in
anymore. The train was thus firmly in the hands of the party. Some industrious individuals even brought cooler bags with
them and were selling beer at the usual astronomical prices. Interest groups formed. In one railway car, German emigrants
bawled out "Iced Bommerlunder" [1]. In other party guests, the alcohol triggered feelings of aggression towards the railway
company, towards the Japanese, towards all the indignities of the last few months. They began tearing down advertising
posters and defacing walls. I'll admit that seeing these acts of aggression alone, as primitive as they may have seemed,
also gave me a sense of satisfaction.
In spite of everything, the party was able to travel in a circle three times in 1996, the fun therefore lasting for three
hours. In 1997, the police were already standing by before the end of the first revolution - but in exactly the right
place, at the train station of the entertainment district Shibuya. People were escorted outside, but no personal data was
recorded or even arrests made - it was just the end of the party, plain and simple. But it wasn't as bad as it sounded
because industrious bars in Shibuya had already previously distributed flyers in the train with coupons for drinks - and
perhaps even gotten the police to go there. In 1998, the police went along for the ride from the beginning. At each of the
two departure platforms (as a precaution for both possible directions) a group of approximately 100 were standing by, so
there was barely fewer security personal than there were partygoers. Nevertheless, we weren't prevented from partying. But
no one dared unscrew the neon lighting tubes or try to lie in the overhead luggage nets anymore this year. Actually, our
behavior was more civilized than that of some groups of businessmen, who, after their compulsory binges with their
colleagues, bawl and throw up everywhere on trains and departure platforms late at night. We praised the policemen for
their realistic costumes and had more fun than usual with the let's-switch-railway-cars game. This time, we waited until
the moment the doors closed to quickly run outside and into the second-to-next railway car. Initially, the policemen were
dumbfounded, then waited for the instructions of the train's unit commander, which, of course, came far too late for them
to still disembark. Then, following departure, they toiled to make their way from the inside of one railway car to the
other in order to catch up with us shortly before the next station, and the game started all over again.
Why did we dare be so cheeky? Because, by way of exception, we took advantage of the jester's license that comes with
being a foreigner. The policemen would only have intervened in the case of a blatant violation of the law but not because
our behavior didn't suit them. That is to say that the Japanese find irrational behavior deeply unsettling. But instead of
keeping the fools on short leashes, they try and understand them. In the same way, hunting season on businessmen or
students returning home from their drinking binges is closed as long as they're intoxicated. How ashamed we should feel of
ourselves for taking advantage of the friendliness of our host country in this manner. No, no. In Germany, they would've
given it short shrift and not even let everyone on the train in the first place, but the Berliners would've probably
gotten an official Commuter Train Day. And in the Rhineland, public transportation during carnival season is only a mobile
version of a drinking hole, anyway. Small-minded poilicemen would've been booed for being spoilsports there. In contrast,
the police in Tokyo issued a warning against participating in this event in large daily newspapers before Halloween in 1999,
which they claimed was dangerous to public safety. Thusly cowed, no one dared set foot on the departure platform, of course
- and a great monotony had once again wrung the neck of a little originality in Japan.
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