You haven't traveled by subway until you've miscalculated your route and traveled around the Tokyo subway at seven in the morning on your fifth day in the country.
Granted, in three weeks' time, I now know how to get from Point A to Point B without much hesitation; but my first impressions of the Tokyo Metro were enough to make me mentally calculate if it would be affordable to take a taxi everywhere. I was petrified, but it was by far the cheapest and most convenient mode of transportation.
In retrospect, I think it's silly that I was so terrified of the bustling stations, the 40 or so different lines, and the rapid Japanese arrival and departure announcements that I don't understand - because upon closer inspection, it's all such a smooth, organized, and usually calming experience.
The terror of the language barrier quickly subsided as I began to notice English translations in smaller print everywhere, and some lines have bilingual announcements upon arrivals. As much as I like to be immersed with the Japanese language as much as possible, with no idea where I was headed and when my stop was coming up, you can bet I was anxious to hear or see some English pretty darn soon.
Yet, there is something strangely surreal about riding on the subway lines here. It's absolutely unlike anything else. Aside from the to-the-minute punctuality and the overwhelming amount of subway stations (it's rare that you will be more than a 10-minute walk from a station anywhere in Tokyo and its suburbs), there is an almost uncomfortable degree of cleanliness that exists.
Having spent a respectable chunk of my lifetime riding New York's MTA, Boston's T, and Washington, DC's Metro, in my mind, "subways" are automatically synonymous with "soil." The fact that I should never touch the railings nor be surprised by trails of trash and waste in American subway stations is a given.
In Japan, you could eat off the platform floor if you had to, and don't expect to see an empty coffee cup or pages of newspaper come rolling down the train aisles. These train cars are as sanitary as hospital waiting rooms, and it hardly seems to take much effort on Tokyo's behalf.
I was recently amused by one of my train's conductor's obligatory nighttime trek down the length of the train to pick up any trash. He had a small plastic bag shoved in his pants pocket and wore a pair of sanitary gloves. I watched him walk down empty-handed and walk back the exact same way. I laughed internally and shook my head in disbelief. How is it that a public subway system remains spanking clean all the time?
I soon learned just how much the Japanese value the cleanliness of their subway after a friend and I accidentally dropped a few papers onto the floor of the subway car without noticing. The man next to my friend and the woman sitting next to me both gave us a bit of a nod toward the floor and an expectant look.
Nobody eats on the subways out of respect for making a mess in such small quarters. Rarely will I even see someone drinking on the subways.
Everyone uses the subway, and I mean everyone. This is perhaps the first subway line I have been on where doctors, university professors, and corporate head honchos use it on a regular basis. There is absolutely no shame in riding the Tokyo Metro. Simply put, the Japanese are proud of their mass transit.
Yet, there is an aspect of the subways here that falls on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and into a category entirely unto itself: the issue of men ogling pornographic magazines and comic books. At six in the morning, at eleven at night, it happens regardless.
There are also advertisements for pornographic movies or sex slave services hanging from the train cars, and it's not uncommon to see a group of men silently staring at these posters for the duration of their train ride, either.
At the same time, I found this disturbing and interesting. I was especially intrigued as to how Japanese women aren't noticeably bothered by the way their fellow females are made into sex objects on the way to work every morning.
A gender-themed sociology class I'm taking got into the topic of this, and we asked our professor how such behavior toward women is tolerated. She explained that, unlike in the States, there are no real negative connotations about sex and sexuality.
There are not many Christians in Japan, so such religious beliefs about sex are almost nonexistent. Sex is just something that is surprisingly out in the open in Japan. It's absolutely everywhere you turn, whether you're in a seedy part of town or in the ritziest districts.
As I quickly discovered, these pornographic magazines and comic books are sold alongside Japanese Vogue, The Economist, and The Japan Times at news kiosks and convenience stores on every corner.
Some Japanese girls at my university shared a similar, fairly apathetic attitude toward it all. "I do not really like it, but I am so used to it that I do not notice it," said my friend Miyoko. Her friends agreed, saying that this was something that they've been dealing with since they were children and that some of their fathers, brothers, and uncles are guilty of indulging in such scandalous subway reading.
It's hard to say if I will reach a point after my four months here where I will be unfazed by the porn on subways or the way in which the passengers take such immaculate care of the trains, but that is simply due to the way my upbringing and experiences have molded me.
How the Japanese choose to draw the line as to what's respectful and what's not is something a foreigner like myself needs time to digest and understand in due time. Luckily for me, I have hundreds and hundreds of hours left to spend on the subways to draw closer to some sort of conclusion.
But at least I'll have a clean seat.
