Category Archives: Train Stories

Train Stories #10: The Girl Who Looked Up

Posted on December 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

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The Girl Who Looked Up

With a challenging new job and new city in Japan to establish myself in, it’s been a tough few months. I like many things about Matsuyama City and Shikoku, but some days, I find myself thinking about Toyama and all that I left behind ( friends, people who I genuinely loved, a good job where I was respected). There are days when I think the people in Namerikawa, the seaside town I lived in for two years, were simply nicer (though I’ve met great people in both places). It seems Toyama residents smiled at me more, asked about my life and were sincerely concerned if I felt sick. They also talked to me on trains more.

Most days and nights in Matsuyama, I’m alone in my apartment after work with too much to think about, sometimes cursing myself for perhaps making a poor career decision and sometimes cursing a country that I love but also find so frustrating.

So when a young girl who was no older than eight looked at me on the train one Saturday evening after work, I was somewhat surprised. With innocent brown eyes and a pink book bag, the young girl smiled at me as everyone else stayed in their own world.  Suddenly, any contempt I felt for my new situation melted. Something in her eyes spoke to me, seemingly saying, “I will speak English well someday, so I can talk to people like you.” I thought of my young students, some of whom can be really challenging but others of whom I feel privileged to teach. They try so hard after a full day of school to speak a foreign language very different from their mother tongue. At their age, I couldn’t even tell you how to say hello in Japanese, or any other language besides French or Spanish perhaps.

I was a little worried for the girl because she was on the train without a parent or friends, but it’s surprisingly common for young children to take trains alone in Japan, probably due to the fact that crime rates are extraordinarily low here. Still, I felt a little sorry for her and smiled back at her. She looked down as if she was a little embarrassed, but I could see the faint trace of a smile beginning to form under her cheeks.

I walked back to my apartment alone, feeling lucky to have taken the risk of moving to Japan to teach for a few years. I don’t think I want to be an English teacher in Japan for much longer, but these little experiences always make it worthwhile.

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Train Stories # 9: The Man in Rainbow

Posted on June 29, 2012 | 1 Comment

Osaka, the third largest city in Japan with a population of more than 17 million in the greater metropolitan area, has the reputation of being one of the rougher cities in Japan.  Compared to Tokyo, where millions of businessmen and woman in ubiquitous black suits and shoes ride the trains like zombies in a trance, the people of Osaka can sometimes be a little more straightforward and colorful.  It’s often said that Osaka people just like to be different.

They stand on the right side of the escalator (instead of the uniform left in Tokyo), they bump into you with uttering as many sumimasen (excuse me) and they sometimes can be a little abrasive.  The first time I ever witnessed a Japanese person shouting at someone was in Osaka’s JR Fukushima Station, where a man in casual jeans and a sweatshirt screamed at the train attendants for a good 10 minutes (he was still shouting when I boarded the train).  The train attendants just stood there without so much blinking and let the man release his energy.

An awesome hippie in Osaka

But even with that said, Osaka is still in Japan, meaning although it has a grittier vibe compared to other Japanese cities, it’s still a city brimming with people who work to death and travel to and from business in uniform fashion.  It’s a way of life everywhere in Japan.  You follow the rules.  You are on time.  You straighten your black suit or skirt and do what you are told without complaining.  Their work ethic is both admirable and maddening at times, like an entire population of people is just waiting to break free from the chains of twelve-hour per day labor.

So when I spotted a Japanese man wearing a blue baja shirt, patterned bell-bottom jeans and red shoes on an Osaka JR Loop Line train, my eyes were drawn to his colorful wardrobe.  Amid the surrounding grey of the train and passengers wearing conservative weekend clothing, he stood out like a rainbow emerging from the clouds after a rainfall.  He was probably in his early 50s and had a full head of long, stringy grey hair.  His youth was far gone in his face, but his clothes spoke another language.  The vibrant colors of his clothes seemed to scream:

I am proud of who I am!

I can’t say for certain if he thought the same thing, but I was proud of him.

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Train Stories #8: The Boy in Blue

Posted on June 1, 2012 | 4 Comments

“I am a rock. I am an island.” -Simon & Garfunkel

Everything about him was blue – from the frame of his glasses to the sad, doe-eyed look in his eyes.

When riding a local train recently from Naoetsu to Namerikawa – about a two-hour journey – a boy dressed in nearly all blue sat in the seat diagonally from me.  I was riding the train with my sister, who was visiting me in Japan for the first time.  For the first part of our journey, we were the only two passengers in the car and after talking for a bit, my sister rested her eyes.  As she slept, I stared out the window, beginning to daydream about the future, until the boy in blue got on the train at Itoigawa, a town of about 48,000 people in southern Niigata prefecture.

I had never seen someone wearing so many shades of blue at once before.

He wore blue jeans, blue socks and a striped blue-white collared shirt.  He carried a blue North Face book bag and wore a purple watch.  Dangling from his book bag was a small teddy bear charm.  A few minutes after boarding the train, he stretched his legs up on the seat in front of him and took out some paper.  Squinting and rubbing his forehead, he stared at the graphs on the paper with a diligent intensity.

After a few minutes of studying, his eyes slowly shifted to the window.  It was dark outside, and we sometimes went through tunnels, which muffled the sound in the train and caused some of the doors to violently shake back and forth.  But after passing through a tunnel, we could occasionally see the faint city lights glowing from homes and shops outside.

He looked about 18-19 and was probably a first-year university student.  He reminded me of many high-school aged students I see in my Japanese town.  They are constantly studying on trains, even on the weekends.  They joke and laugh when with their friends, texting on their cell phones and teasing one another about sports and girls.  But when alone, their disposition changes to that of a lone wolf.  They zone off and listen to their mp3 player and read a textbook or worksheet in hand.

I wondered what the boy in blue was thinking.  Like so many other Japanese young men, his fortress of solitude seemed impenetrable.He left the train sometime before we got to Toyama.  He moved so quietly that I can’t even tell you what stop he got off at.

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Train Stories #7: The Woman in the Black Hat

Posted on May 12, 2012 | 1 Comment

Farmers in Namerikawa, Japan

It is a bit self-indulgent of me, but I’ve been worrying a lot recently about getting older and the ending of my youth. I turned 28 in March, and of course I have so much more to look forward to in life.  I feel too young to be worrying about mortgage payments, changing diapers and other heavy life decisions. I’m happy to be free at the moment, but I also feel too old to be floating through life, partying every night like it’s college and avoiding any sort of contemplation of what I want to accomplish in life and how to make that happen.

I’ve never been one for heavy drinking or much partying, but I enjoy the freedom of time and having my 20s to figure things out and explore. In two years, I won’t have my 20s to fall back on. I can’t say for certain, but I imagine I’ll likely feel the pressures of starting a family and settling down in a few years. I don’t know what exactly I’ll do in August after my time on the JET Programme ends, but I hope I continue to challenge myself and think positively about life.

I think I will always view everyday as a gift, but I have some anxiety about the future because life just seems so much more challenging and scary as you get older.  With each passing year, you have to make more difficult decisions and think carefully about your health and others around you.

So when I see elderly women in my Japanese town– and there are many– I always look at them in awe. They are survivors, struggling and ultimately overcoming the many trials of life, including health scares and the death of loved ones. They still stand tall, though often with hunched backs from years of labor on rice fields. If you look closely at their hands, you can see their swollen knuckles from years of work. They continue to bike around town and are active members in the community. They are proud of their accomplishments and their memories, and cling to them everyday.

Recently, when waiting for an early evening train to the nearby town Uozu, I stood on the platform looking at the mountains and thinking when spring would come. Out of nowhere, a woman who looked to be in her 80s approached me and pointed in the distance to my left. She wore a large black hat, green coat and carried a maroon tote bag. As she pointed in the distance, she said something in Japanese I couldn’t understand. I nodded and smiled because that’s all I could do. In Japanese, I asked her if she lives in Namerikawa.  “I’m 83 years old,” she responded in Japanese. Either my Japanese is more awful than I realized (very likely), or she didn’t hear me properly and/or wanted to tell me her age.

We both got on the same train car and she sat next to two young Japanese girls in high school.  Packed between high school students and other elderly Japanese, I decided to stand for the ride. The girls were giggling and pointing to purikura (funny photo booth photos). The woman said something that made them laugh even more and the girls showed her more pictures. Still in her hat and clutching her bag in her lap, she never stopped smiling for the entire train ride. I waved goodbye to her when I came to my stop.  She politely nodded back.

As I looked back at her one last time, I saw a vibrant and confident woman – a woman I hope to be like when I’m in my 80s.

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Train Stories # 6: The Fallen Glove

Posted on April 6, 2012 | 1 Comment

Japanese people are some of the most courteous people I have ever met. Customer service here is a way life and the standard compares to no other country I have visited. This ideal extends beyond stores, too. Rarely have I met a Japanese person who won’t go out of his or her way to help me. If I need help finding a bus, there are dozens of trustworthy people I know I can ask on the street.

With that said, however, being on trains and in crowded train stations isn’t where their courtesy shines. I went to Tokyo for a meeting recently and was reminded what it’s like to be packed in a train like a sardine. In train stations people brushed so quickly behind me that I felt dizzy. Everyone is in their own world, listening to music and clutching their newly-purchased designer items like a mother does her baby.  In Chiba, I witnessed a mad rush to the train where two young women slammed their bodies into the train like popsicle sticks. It’s likely that they had to make the train or would have been late for work.

Even in the countryside, where you’re much less likely to encounter packed train stations anything like those in Tokyo, people tend to walk without much regard to those around them. Every time I look around the train, Japanese people are on their cellphones, playing games or reading emails.

A Fallen Glove

So when I saw a woman lose her glove in Takaoka Station, the second largest city in Toyama, I didn’t want to stay shut inside a bubble. I noticed the woman lose her glove as I was sitting in the waiting area. I stared at the glove for a solid minute, thinking of what to tell the woman in Japanese.  She was now sitting a few seats from me and was looking at her phone. Everyone else around me was either napping or glued to their cellphones. Not wanting to ignore it, I gently picked the glove up and carried it over to her. She looked to be about 60. She was elegant in a brown suede coat and reminded me of my mother a bit. “Sumimasen,” (excuse me) I said. She looked up surprised and instantly uttered a stream of “arigatous” (thank you).

A few moments later, she got up to leave. Before she left the station, she looked back at me and bowed twice.

It was a simple gesture of gratitude, and it made my day.

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Train Stories #5: The Girls Who Screamed “Kawaii!”

Posted on January 19, 2012 | 1 Comment

Kawaii culture in Tokyo

Train Stories #5 - On most days,  with wild, unkept hair and pants that don’t always fit me properly, I generally think I look like a hot mess  – or a life-sized fuzzball walking down the street.  But because I am white, slender and have greenish eyes, a lot of teenage Japanese girls seem to think I look somewhat exotic.

I am always flattered when I walk past someone in Japan, and I hear them quietly whisper, “Oh, kawaii…”

Kawaii (かわいい) is the Japanese word for cute, and it is used almost as much as teenage girls in America say OMG!

See that Winnie the Pooh pouch? Kawaiiiiiiii!

See that three-foot cellphone charm? Double kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

On Saturday night, I took the train to Takaoka for a nabe (Japanese soup) party.  I was dressed pretty casually — in jeans, Converse shoes, a winter coat and red cap.

The journey to Takaoka takes about 45 minutes by train, so once I found a seat on the train, I put on some music and took out my book (Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running).

Midway through the train ride, at Toyama Station, a bunch of high school students suddenly stepped on the train.  What was once a peaceful journey turned into a mini-high school drama akin to a scene in Hana Yori Dango.

High school girls in short blue skirts, knee-high socks and matching jackets were giggling and looking at their ketai (cellphones).  The boys around them, in disheveled white dress shirts and slacks, tried to look cool and oblivious, so they played games on their cellphones or looked out at the windows.

Even on Saturday evenings, most Japanese high school students wear their uniforms for club activities or tests, so I wasn’t surprised to see so many students still in uniform. Just as the train started to move again, two high schools girls sat across me.  I looked up briefly and suddenly heard one of the girls say, “kawaii.”

I smiled at them and went back to reading my book, but before I could finish the next word, her friend, who seemed shocked by my smile, instantly repeated “Oh, kawaii.”

This made me laugh and take off my earphones.

“Oh, kawaii….” they said once again, this time looking straight at me and giving me the Manhattan Once Over.

“Are you high school students?,” I asked.

“Eh?”

“High school?,” I said again.

“Yes.”

“Cool!”

Both girls looked at each other.

“Kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!,” they said again.

Since kawaii seemed to be the only word they liked saying in front of me, I smiled one last time and went back to reading my book.

The girls went back to talking to each other and texting on their phones.

As soon as we arrived at Takaoka Station, I said bye.

Their last words to me?

“Bye bye. Kawaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.”

Later the next week, I took the same train to Takaoka for a birthday party.  This time, I dressed-up more in a purple dress, black boots and make-up.

I left my red cap, however, in my bag.

I sat next to a young woman who looked about the same age. She never made eye contact with me and clutched her leopard-print bag the entire way.

As the train stopped at Toyama Station, once again a large group of high school students got on the train. This time, however, everyone ignored me.

It must be the red cap that is extra kawaii.

(^_^)

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Train Stories #4: The Woman with the Flowing Skirt

Posted on January 8, 2012 | 2 Comments

The Woman with the Flowing Skirt in Nakanamerikawa Station, Japan

Japanese train stations are some of the most modern and efficient places I have ever seen, but here in the countryside, life moves at a slower pace.  Our trains are still generally on time and used by the masses for work and leisure, but many inaka train stations here are rustic and barren, minus the waiting seats and vending machines.

But at these desolate places, I see stories.

Inside Nakanamerikawa station (中滑川駅), part of Toyama’s Dentetsu line, there is a wall mural that always catches my eye when I walk past it.  In the mural, a young couple embrace.   They look more Western to me than Japanese, but they could easily pass for two characters in a manga.  The slender woman is clasping onto the man’s broad chest like her life depends on it.  Her blue skirt is flowing so that it looks like an ocean wave.  The man, wearing a tailored brown coat and slacks, looks ahead as if he is about to leave her to serve in a war.  Duty beckons, he thinks, and he must protect his woman and his country.

I don’t know the facts or history behind this mural, but I am drawn to it nonetheless.

A few feet away from the mural, there is an elderly woman who works at a sweets shop frequented by students.  She sells fresh crepes and ice cream in a rundown train station.  She is the only worker I have seen at the shop.  Except for the junior high school and high school students who buy sweets and giggle on the nearby bench, her only company is spiders and Winnie the Pooh dolls.  She is no more than 4 feet 11 inches tall and looks about 85~87 years old.  She stands with a slight hunch, always wearing a checkered apron and bowing or smiling when I walk past her.

To me, she is the woman in the mural.

She is smiling, and waiting.  Waiting for her husband to return, and waiting for the days when she does not feel so alone.

Sidenote: This is my 100th post!  Thank you to anyone who has ever read any of my entries, commented or simply inspired me to write.

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Train Stories #3: The Man Who Cried Out

Posted on September 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

The signs of Kobe at night.

Fully recovered from a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that destroyed the city and killed thousands in 1995, Kobe is a trendy Japanese port city in the Kansai region of the country.  With a population of about 1.5 million and close to Kyoto and Osaka, it is also one of the larger metropolises in Japan.

I recently spent a weekend there this summer with an American friend, admiring the local sites and enjoying the simple pleasures of people-watching. Life in bustling Kobe seemed very different from my slow-moving country life in Namerikawa: Elegant women in high-fashion walked with confidence around town in high heels; streets were lined with boutiques and coffee shops; and Kobe’s main train station (Sannoimya Station) was bustling at all hours of the day with people traveling to nearby Osaka and shoppers buying delicious Kobe waffles or other goods.

By all accounts, I had a great weekend: I ate at a lovely Mexican restaurant (foreign food is a rare find in Toyama); I saw an impressive dolphin show at the famed Kobe City Suma Marine Aquarium; and I enjoyed a lovely view of fireworks on top of Mt. Rokko.

But during my last hours in Kobe, I was reminded of how fortunate I am to be able to travel and see new things.

About two hours before my train back to Namerikawa was scheduled to depart, my friend and I wandered around Sannomiya Station to find our  way to the correct platform. I was also struggling to find last-minute omiyage for some of my co-workers (it is a nice custom in Japan to bring back small candies/treats from a city you visit). As both of us looked around the station to find our bearings, an elderly man in his 60s or 70s limped toward us. I can’t remember his exact words, but he spoke in broken English.

“Please help,” he said. “I have no money.”

He lifted one of his pants up. His leg was almost all bone and covered in sores. He was skinny, a little unshaven and had a slight hunch. A little uncertain about what to do, I looked to my friend.

In America, I have been approached by several homeless people asking for money. On the streets of Chicago, it is common for panhandlers to beg for money in train stations or outside stores. While I have seen homeless men in Tokyo and Toyama, I had never been approached by a Japanese person asking for money.   And although I am quite familiar with talking with and helping homeless people (I volunteered at my local PADs as a teenager and also wrote about homelessness for several Chicago publications), I normally like to support homeless individuals who are connected to an organization, whether it be PADs or StreetWise.

In Japan, the equivalent to StreetWise is The Big Issue, which I have seen Japanese men sell on the streets of Tokyo and Kanazawa. The Japanese man in Kobe, however, had no The Big Issue to sell, was alone and looked desperate.

“Okay,” my friend said. “Let’s buy you a lunch. How about some onigiri (rice balls)?”

The man nodded and said OK.

“Is there a konbini (コンビニ/convenient store) nearby?” my friend asked.

“This way,” the man said. He pointed straight.

Normally, I wouldn’t have followed a strange man, but I was with my friend, also a man, and it was daylight. We started to walk together.

“Where abouts are you from?” my friend asked. The Japanese man didn’t seem to understand and pointed to the street he wanted to walk down. Both of us looked at our watches, uncertain about the time and if we could walk there and make our trains.

“I’m sorry, but we have to go. Train,” my friend said pointing to his watch. “How about we give you some money to buy the onigiri?”

He nodded. “Thank you, thank you.” He seemed humbled and surprised.

My friend and I gave him a little money and wished him luck. I went back to the train station, said goodbye to my friend and finally found some omiyage.

I bought Kobe cookies and passed them out to co-workers the next day. I was happy, but I also thought of the old Japanese man.  I hope he found a good lunch.

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Train Stories #2: The Man Without a Violin

Posted on July 17, 2011 | 4 Comments

                                                                  (Namerikawa train station)

My initial train story was about a Japanese man from Chiba visiting Toyama just after the earthquake and tsunami in March.

On Monday, I had another interesting train encounter, though this time with an American man in Toyama for the summer.

It is not often you see a foreigner in Toyama who is not an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) or Coordinator for International Relations (CIR) with the JET Programme.  There are a few other English teachers who work for various companies, and other exchange students studying at Toyama University, but foreigners are still few and far between.

So when I saw a tall white American man in sleek biking clothes standing at the platform in Namerikawa, I was quite surprised.

I spotted him first on the Namerikawa train platform while waiting for a train to go to Uozu, a city about eight minutes away by train.  He was carrying a disassembled bicycle, had short brown hair and looked to be in his early 30s.  I was prepping for my Japanese class, so I did not have time to chat and we entered different cars of the train when it came.  I went to my Japanese lesson and forgot about my spotting.

I took the train back to Namerikawa and listened to my iPod.  Just as I stepped off the platform, however, I noticed him getting off the train from a different car.

“That is a little odd,” I thought.  “We were on the same train coming back, too.”

I hoped he wasn’t a creepy stalker.  Nonetheless, he looked friendly enough, so I took off my headphones and decided to say hello.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

He smiled.  “Of course. Where are you from?”

“America, the Chicago area.  I teach English here.  What brings you to Namerikawa?”

“My wife is from Takaoka [a city about 40 minutes by train from Namerikawa].  We live in America but come back to Japan for about a month every summer.”

He told me he has family in the Chicago area and that he likes to check out certain bookstores in this area of Japan.  He just came back from visiting Kurobe, a city about 13 minutes by train from Namerikawa.

“My wife and I are both violinists.  We live in Dallas now,” he explained.

He was about to see his wife perform at a local concert in Namerikawa.  “I have kind of given up on performing, but my wife plays professionally with orchestras.”

By this time, we had walked to the parking lot for bikes.

I said goodbye and took out my key to unlock my bike.

He smiled and walked toward the concert hall.  “Maybe see you around.”

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Train Stories #1: The Man from Chiba

Posted on March 31, 2011 | 4 Comments

Platform 3 at Namerikawa train station

I have met dozens of interesting people on train rides around the world.  On a train ride to Howth, a seaside town northeast of Dublin, an American couple told me I was crazy for moving to the Emerald Isle alone.  I laughed and clutched my copy of Nuala O’Faolain’s My Dream of You and told them about a few pubs they should visit.

On an overnight train ride from Sarajevo to Budapest, I was accompanied in my cart by a young man from Boston.  We talked a bit about travels and plans for the future.  He worked in a Boston bar but hoped to travel a good deal more.  As it got late into the night, he moved to a sleeping area nearby.  “Just scream if you need help,” he said before he left.

“Hah, thanks,” I said nervously, hoping noone would bother me and I wouldn’t have to scream.  I made it back to Dublin just fine.

In Japan last year, on Christmas Eve, I met a woman in her 60s from Osaka who was traveling to Toyama for a funeral.  She asked that I read her English essay on the tea ceremony and told me to call her when I visit Osaka.

I will most likely never see these people again, but they still made an impression on me, so I would like to keep track of these stories starting now.  An encounter  on Monday reminded me that there’s a story in every train conversation.

Every Monday, I travel to Uozu for my Japanese lesson, normally talking to very few people on my way to and from the Uozu City Hall.  After my lesson this week, I walked to the platform, put in my iPod earplugs and waited for the train.  It was a fairly nice evening, and I was feeling a little better than I had these past few weeks, so I wanted to listen to music with a different beat.  I put on Lupe Fiasco’s “Hop Hop Saved My Life.” I am probably the whitest of white girls when it comes to my music taste, and I don’t listen to a lot of rap, but I like Fiasco.  In between the refrain “Stack that cheese!” a Japanese man probably in his early 30s came up to me.  He seemed stunned to see a foreigner in Toyama (there are some of us, but not many).

“Is this your first time here?”

He wore thick glasses, had a slight overbite and a friendly smile.

“I live in Japan,” I replied.  “I came here in July.  I live in Namerikawa.  Where are you from?”

“I am from Chiba,” he said.  “But I am back in Toyama to visit my family.  I was in Tohoku for the earthquake.”

My eyes widened.

“But I was in the prefecture that was least affected, Yamagata-ken.  The earthquake was maybe a 6 or 7 there.  But we were without power for several days and there are still blackouts.”

Yamagata-ken, in the western Tohoku region, was one of my random placement choices on my JET application and I count myself very lucky that I was not placed there.

He continued, “I want to go back there and help, but I think they need specialists now.”

I nodded just as the train came.  We walked to a seat together.

“So what do you do?” I asked.

“I am a math teacher in Chiba, but I used to work in IT.”

We talked a bit more about life in Toyama and the fresh seafood.  He told me that he loves Toyama, but he thinks more needs to be done with the industry here.

I was unsure of what he meant.  “What do you mean?”

“For example, the students are smart here, maybe smarter than other prefectures, but there’s not a lot of opportunity for them here.”

I nodded and said I understood.  The train came to Namerikawa, so I stood up to get off the train.  I told him it was nice chatting with him.

“Goodbye,” he said.  “I hope to see you again sometime.”

He waved from the window as I walked to the platform stairs.

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