Social Hierarchy, “the Air,” and Following the Law
The rain gets stronger, the wooded mountains more isolating, and the journey on the slow local train continues into the rural areas as night falls on the flatlands of central Japan. Every time the train stops and temporarily shuts down her engine, the only noise that can be heard is the sound of the rain showering the ground. There are no longer any malls, or even any stores and houses, outside the passing landscape, and seeing pedestrians of any sort is quickly becoming more and more of a rarity.
Yet, even in such environments, the traveler is surprised to find stations for the train to make brief stops…well, if they can be called stations at all. These train stops are now just combinations of a short platform, a marker displaying the name of the place, and a set of stairs leading the alighting passengers from the platform to what seems the middle of nowhere. There is no ticket office, or even any railroad personnel, in sight.
At the same time (who knows when), the train acquired a special new member, and its collection of sounds became more diverse. Female railway personnel, walking around the shortened (now only with 3 carriages instead of 6) train, started peddling, eh, tickets for the very train that we are riding. Obviously, with more and more people boarding at tiny stops without ticketing functions, such a person becomes a necessity.
The law-abiding nature of the Japanese people surprised me again as the female personnel made her round on the carriages. Young high school students and old ladies alike searched for and stopped the personnel immediately after seeing her go about, asking to purchase tickets. Most of these people did so immediately after boarding the train, without any prompting or coercion from other passengers or the ticket-selling woman.
This traveler, so accustomed to committing petty crimes across the world, cannot understand the logic of these eager passengers. Nobody knows where they got on the train, and there is no penalty for not purchasing their tickets right after getting on the train. In other words, they can get off the train at their destinations and purchase a cheaper ticket there by pretending to get on the train much later (thus traveling shorter distance) than they actually have.
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the underlying social forces behind a hierarchy responsible for Japan’s uncomfortably strict and patronizing relationship between people of different social statuses are also responsible for such a phenomenon. The passengers in question would no doubt fill highly embarrassed and worthy of social isolation if they were somehow noticed by others to be cheating on tickets.
In a country where crime is so rare, even those with the pettiest criminal mind is worthy of quiet public opposition. And that opposition is much more serious and hurtful than any financial penalty levied. In Japan, “going quiet” on another person is much more likely to be a sign of “quiet disapproval” than a “quiet approval,” a trend true in both every day, as on this train, and in the workplace.
And as I realized the existence of such a social pressure did I start to notice that “air” (空気) even on this train running in a remote unpopulated part of the country. In what the Chinese would call being 自覚 (roughly “self-conscious”), the passengers would just not be able to bear that “heavy air” (i.e. KY, “not being able to read the air”) on them if they refuse to buy the ticket with the correct cost. Of course, in mainstream Japanese society, there should be absolutely nothing worse than being KY…
Yet, even in such environments, the traveler is surprised to find stations for the train to make brief stops…well, if they can be called stations at all. These train stops are now just combinations of a short platform, a marker displaying the name of the place, and a set of stairs leading the alighting passengers from the platform to what seems the middle of nowhere. There is no ticket office, or even any railroad personnel, in sight.
At the same time (who knows when), the train acquired a special new member, and its collection of sounds became more diverse. Female railway personnel, walking around the shortened (now only with 3 carriages instead of 6) train, started peddling, eh, tickets for the very train that we are riding. Obviously, with more and more people boarding at tiny stops without ticketing functions, such a person becomes a necessity.
The law-abiding nature of the Japanese people surprised me again as the female personnel made her round on the carriages. Young high school students and old ladies alike searched for and stopped the personnel immediately after seeing her go about, asking to purchase tickets. Most of these people did so immediately after boarding the train, without any prompting or coercion from other passengers or the ticket-selling woman.
This traveler, so accustomed to committing petty crimes across the world, cannot understand the logic of these eager passengers. Nobody knows where they got on the train, and there is no penalty for not purchasing their tickets right after getting on the train. In other words, they can get off the train at their destinations and purchase a cheaper ticket there by pretending to get on the train much later (thus traveling shorter distance) than they actually have.
As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the underlying social forces behind a hierarchy responsible for Japan’s uncomfortably strict and patronizing relationship between people of different social statuses are also responsible for such a phenomenon. The passengers in question would no doubt fill highly embarrassed and worthy of social isolation if they were somehow noticed by others to be cheating on tickets.
In a country where crime is so rare, even those with the pettiest criminal mind is worthy of quiet public opposition. And that opposition is much more serious and hurtful than any financial penalty levied. In Japan, “going quiet” on another person is much more likely to be a sign of “quiet disapproval” than a “quiet approval,” a trend true in both every day, as on this train, and in the workplace.
And as I realized the existence of such a social pressure did I start to notice that “air” (空気) even on this train running in a remote unpopulated part of the country. In what the Chinese would call being 自覚 (roughly “self-conscious”), the passengers would just not be able to bear that “heavy air” (i.e. KY, “not being able to read the air”) on them if they refuse to buy the ticket with the correct cost. Of course, in mainstream Japanese society, there should be absolutely nothing worse than being KY…
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