My Far-Right Mindset : Subway Stations

 

Apologies right off the bat. I recently quit my job and am in the middle of a career change, so my writing is going to be sporadic and nonsensical for a little while.

I recently moved out to the suburbs of Tokyo about a year ago, and for the past year, I've been working the typical Monday-through-Friday 9-5 schedule. (Although, I was a teacher, so it was more like 7-5 and I live in Japan, so it's more like 7-7.) A combination of the schedule and the location of my house means that I was stuck in public transportation rush hour going to work and coming home.

You've seen this before, haven't you? The gifs on Reddit where people have to get squished into the subway cars by force. For a long time, I just assumed that this was a rare occurrence. There are times when inclement weather knocks out the subway system for a while and the number of awaiting passengers piles up. (Not to belabor the point about working conditions in Japan being awful, but the majority of times when the subway stops it is due to someone killing themselves by jumping in front of it.) Now that I have been living in a residential area and commuting to the city every day, I realize that no, this overcrowded subway is a daily thing.

It is exactly as awful as you think it is. Perhaps even worse when it you realize how many of these men going to work (and again, this is Japan, one of the worst countries in the world for gender equality. It is mostly men going to work) that don't brush their teeth in the morning.

And this is just the daily annoyance and soul-crushing reality for a man going to work in the morning. If there exists an adult woman living in this city who has never been molested on the train or in the station, I have not met her yet.

Before you start thinking that I'm losing my progressive street cred, let me just say that overall, the crowded subway is actually a good thing. I live in (or adjacent to, depending on your opinion) one of the largest metropolitan areas on the planet, yet I can afford a home here and can get downtown in less than 20 minutes for about two bucks. I look at the number of people on the subway and try to imagine a car-based infrastructure to accommodate all of them and it would be absolute hell. The subway and the surrounding infrastructure for it are a net good. (For me, at least. Nobody is grabbing my ass though.)

As bad as the subway itself is, I find the subway stations to be absolute nightmares. Allow me to rant for a moment.

To leave the subway itself, there is enough space for two people to exit the doors shoulder-to-shoulder. However, most of the time, there is an old person on the other side, trying to get in as quickly as possible, meaning that two people cannot go through at the same time. At the same time, the people behind you are pushing to get out, for some reason I couldn't possibly understand. And that is better-case scenario, where everyone is getting off at the same station. Usually you are trying to get off while the subway is still full and you have to contend with someone standing in front of the door watching Avengers or some shit on their phone with no awareness of their surroundings. 

Leaving the platform is a gigantic pain in the ass as well. There are a limited number of escalators and stairs, so people have to line up for these. However, certain people, some might say geniuses have figured out that if you push your way to the front of the line, you will be first, which makes you better.

And the cellphones. Good lord, the cellular phones. I get the inclination to distract yourself and relax during long stretches of commute that you do hundreds of times a year. However, there is about two minutes between leaving the subway and then leaving the actual subway station, and I cannot imagine that it is that boring that you need to play on your cellphone while doing so. Just put it down for two minutes while you walk outside; you don't need it during the staircase or ticket gate.

The ticket gate! Oh man, so not only do you have to deal with people pushing to the front again, and people on their cellphones again, but now you have the added frustration of people not realizing that you have to continue walking once you exit the ticket gate. I can't tell you the number of times where someone in front of me has walked through the ticket gate, just to stop to either play on their phone or look around for a sign. Exit the gate and then stand aside, against a wall or something.

This especially frustrates me, because it is so clear to me that if we all organized ourselves in the way that is most efficient, we would all be much better off. And, more importantly, why can't you just do what you're supposed to?

Ok, so, like many, I struggle to understand what those with differing political opinions think and why they think that way. To me, someone who is trans or whatever has no influence on my life. It doesn't affect me in any way, so at minimum I have no problem with it. Me personally, I believe that trans people should be protected, but maybe everyone can't get there, and fine, whatever. What I cannot wrap my head around however, is those that feel actively angry about trans people existing. What is it, what could it possibly be, that bothers a transphobe so much? I think my anger walking through subway stations is the closest I'll ever come to understanding the right-wing.

There really isn't a lot that personally affects me when I'm walking through a subway station, at least, not in any major way. Getting squished in a subway sucks, yeah, but I'll survive. And, having someone stop in front of me to look at their cell phone is certainly annoying, but it takes less than a second for me to walk around them. The line of people getting on an escalator will be slow and tedious and annoying, regardless as to whether or not someone in front of me cuts in line. These things don't really, really hurt me.

But the thing that gets stuck in my mind, the question that I ask myself whenever these things happen is: Don't you know what you're supposed to do?

I guess, maybe, this is what a right-wing person believes when they see someone behave (or simply exist) outside of what they believe "The Rules" to be. "Why are you putting on a dress and acting like a girl?" they may ask. "Don't you know what you're supposed to do?"

And the truth of the matter is that there is no "supposed to do". Sure, I can argue that waiting in line is probably more efficient than rushing to the front, but it's not really. Even if I were right, I wouldn't be very right. Moreover, these are not rules in any sense of the word. Nobody declared this, there are no signs posted, there are no laws about how to exit a subway car. It's all in my head. 

Regardless, it still makes me unreasonably angry when I see someone break these rules that I have invented and exist only in my heart. Walk! Walk down the goddamn stairs instead of watching a video on your phone! I admit to having fantasized about pushing people before.

This isn't to say that I understand the ring-wing, transphobic, homophobic mind. Far from it. Because while my irritation stems from people walking slowly, theirs stems from people existing and being happy. There is a bit of a difference between "this person is bothering me for five seconds" and "this person bothers me." Still, I think perhaps I understand a little bit more about hatred, and I now understand that I need to concentrate on being more accepting and patient with things that bother me. Maybe putting increased patience out there in the world is one small thing I can do to make it better. I hope others might do the same.