Japanese culture × ALT life vol.3

The third topic is “train”.

It is now widespread, and everyone is aware that the Japanese train is always on time, and many wonder how they do that! I agree. When I was living abroad, I always used an app that gave me how many minutes I had to wait to get a bus or a streetcar. There is a fixed schedule, but it never came on time, and the app was not even reliable. Many times, in 15 minutes suddenly gets updated to 5 minutes or less, and I was sick of that!

Today, punctuality is not the point I want to focus on. In Japan, I see many people sleeping on the train. On the other hand, I saw almost no one sleeping when I was on the train overseas. I only saw a few, but they were either Japanese or badly drunk people. Many were just there doing nothing, listening to music, or playing games on their phones.

I wondered what caused this. I can guess that public safety is not inadequate in Japan. It is not rare that you find your lost wallet or bag. Another thing is commuting time. Commonly, people spend an hour or two commuting to Tokyo from outside the prefecture. This gives them less time to sleep, and they work until late and are too tired to be awake on the train!

As an adult and professional ALT, you should always be on time, mainly because you are in Japan, where people are very punctual. Even though the train is always on time, you should leave home 15 minutes earlier to ensure that you have enough time. It would help if you watched the weather forecast to check the weather condition the next day to plan. For example, it is easy to imagine it might be crowded or train delayed if it says it is raining or snowing. If you know, there is an earthquake or the train delay on the day of, you should do your best leaving home earlier to make it to your schools. You never want to lose your trust in teachers and students at your schools.