The lonely few that remain
My daily commute alone reminds me that a lot has happened in terms of the technology of daily life since I was last here a decade ago.
My friends and I, for example, used to marvel at the guys who punched your ticket as you entered the subway line. You bought your paper ticket and passed through the turnstile area, where grave men in uniforms and white gloves magically connected at just the right moment with your oustretched ticket. Their hole-punchers kept up a sort of chatty clickety-clack, never resting for a moment whether someone was passing through or not.
They are gone.
Now I just wave a debit card over the turnstile, walk through, and update myself on the other end as to how much is left on my card. Not as much fun.
Gone too are the ranks of men reading manga (comics) as they wait for their stop. I see them occasionally, but they used to be a staple. People say Japanese are reading less. And that manga are losing a bit of their audience. Maybe it’s just that it doesn’t look cool. Or that you can get most of what you want online. Maybe it’s just that everyone prefers to text message.
And then there are the phones. Or, there aren’t. A bank of yellow, green, and red phones, color-coded as to their function, used to stand cheerful sentry at train stations. Everyone used them – bowing their heads into the earpiece as they said goodbye and headed off, updated as to what to pick up or where to meet a friend.
Gone. Except for a few here and there.
The mobile phone and the digital chip rule. And Tokyo’s streets and trains have lost a shade of their charm.
