Subway manners meet covid—with a side of prejudice—in these new posters

Subway manners posters have admonished commuters not to whack fellow commuters onto the tracks with their rockabilly hair, avoid grabbing the station employees by their neckties, and stop dying from overwork, but this is the first time they’ve taken on rudeness in time of pandemic.

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Dashing onto a car just as the doors close and phone zombies causing head-on collisions have always been frowned upon, but others have joined them in this “nuisance ranking” with new (and slightly unfair) twists.

[image error] The “don’t take up more than one seat” scolding has been expanded to include new beefs about people being obliviously rude when it comes to how other parts of their bodies annoy others



[image error] The “don’t talk loudly or even play loud music with headphones” tsk-tsking has been expanded to denounce the dangers of pulling down your mask to speak, and talking to someone who’s not sitting right next to you. (Most commuters would prefer you not to talk AT ALL, but this elevates it into a legit sin against public health)



[image error] And finally, frowning on “letting your stuff annoy others” has escalated from a schoolboy bonking grandma with his hella huge backpack, to a poor benighted soul who lugs a ridiculous amount of oversized shopping onto the train with her

But did you notice something else about these new “nuisances”? They’re all drawn in comic book style to make it seem like no particular group is being singled out for bad behavior, but all the subway scofflaws except the guy sneezing all over his fellow commuters have red or yellow hair, while most of the victims have dark hair, Japanese clothing, and Japanese body language.

And while most of the egregiously manspreading commuters I’ve seen are middle-aged Japanese men, only foreigners sit with their legs crossed or elbow resting on the empty seat nest to them, and only foreigners who haven’t had shoe etiquette drummed into them from an early age let the soles of their shoes touch anything but the ground.

Drawing attention to the fact that the way you’re used to doing things is less than polite in the country you’re visiting is a pretty legit heads-up, but the one with the woman toting grocery bags filled with bread, butter and wine is pretty obviously aimed at foreign residents.

And unfairly so. It’s true that I’ve never seen a Japanese person burdened with household goods on the subway. You know why? All Japanese know that for a few hundred yen (even for huge rugs and such) the store will messenger your purchases to your apartment so you don’t have to carry it home by train or taxi. Even groceries were routinely delivered before there was a pandemic, because lugging multiple bags up and down the subway steps and onto the train is not for the weak. But most foreigners don’t know about this until long after they arrive, so they end up like the woman in the picture while buying the stuff they need to set up their apartments. And even when they do discover the joys of takyubin, it takes pretty advanced Japanese read-and-write chops to fill out the detailed messenger form in triplicate at the store.

This subtle blaming of foreigners for “nuisance” behavior isn’t completely undeserved, but I’ve seldom seen it called out so blatantly before.

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And if you’re up for a deeper dive into the ups and downs of being a stranger in a strange land, I’d like to introduce you to Robin Swann in The Last Tea Bowl Thief…

“Without question, the best book I have read all year.” —Susan Spann, author of the Hiro Hattori mysteries and CLIMB

[image error] Two women from opposite sides of the globe are both chasing the same missing artifact, but what happens when they discover that neither can get their hands on it without the other?… read more

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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly newsletter Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had