Tokyo Stories
why trivial things are the way they are

Another interesting poster from Tokyo metro. The text says not to make calls inside the train, but the image goes further by saying why you shouldn’t. It describes that in a confined space, people are forced to hear other people’s conversation and can be irritating.

Some people say it is annoying because you only hear one side of the conversation. But I doubt if that is the case? I lived in Finland for five years and during the time, I traveled back to Japan once or twice a year. Every time I took trains in Japan, I was overwhelmed by the amount of information I was forced to digest. High school girls talked about boy bands; boys talked about characters that appeared in computer games. So perhaps it is a matter of whether you share a same amount of knowledge, which is naturally a reflection of your interest, to the topic of discussion?

The most recent conversation I could not stand inside the train was by three young businessmen.

A: “I didn’t know what is Lotus 1-2-3, what kind of name is that? Is that a joke?”
B & C: (laugh)
A: “I didn’t know Excel either, I thought it’s a name of a country.”

Call me short-tempered. I don’t know if you will be annoyed with this conversation, at least I was. Firstly, because I felt so old for knowing Lotus software, and second, because I am a Excel geek. But the final blow was his ignorance about the geography. I do hope he was simply joking in front of his close colleagues. From where I stood, I didn’t hear the second laugh coming.