Subway Manners

There have been numerous campaigns in Tokyo concerning subway manners and most of them were boring, but the series that is currently running has this great animal theme under the motto: "Seen this person" and I cannot but put my two favorite on the blog.

The "don't do your makeup on the subway" one, and my number 1 choice: "don't sleep on your neighbor's shoulder".

These two pictures say it all: Pretentious girls who are not shy to bring their entire vanity case onto the train. Once I saw a girl even doing her hair with a battery-powered curling iron. It's just obnoxious to have all this eyeball exposure on the train, and the temptation to bump into a girl just perfecting her eyelashes with an eyelash curler is sometimes quite overwhelming. The ad's text says: "Lost in your makeup. Instead of looking into the mirror, how about looking around you."

The other picture: we've had that all, we Japan train riders – someone leaning and leaning and leaning ever heavier onto you until you have his/her head almost in your laps.

It's a compliment for Japan that it's so safe you can do almost anything on its trains, including sleeping without being robbed, doing your makeup without being stalked, but nevertheless, it's like the slogan on the sleeping bird's poster: "Hanging in deep sleep. The sleeper's neighbor's expression ain't brimming with enthusiasm."

Hats off to the smart advertising company, who came up with that lovely animal poster campaign.