There’s the weekday Sobu that I ride to work everyday with “the strangers who faces I know”, but there are other Sobus as well. I’ll get to the weekend Sobu last (as that’s what I ultimately want to talk about), and start with the late night Sobu. It always seemed depressing to me that the Sobu train I usually ride from Iidabashi from around 6:30pm is a lot less busy than the one from around 9:30pm or 10. The days I ride it this late I think that I have done a lot of overtime, am mentally exhausted, and then join the majority of people who finish at this time daily. There is the chance that they start work later, but I kind of doubt it. My rare exhaustion is their daily occurrence.

Later than the late night Sobu is the last train Sobu. I rarely ride this on any day of the week besides Friday. On Friday, I want to assume that we are all drunk and going home to our holes for two days of rest, but I always assume everyone is drunk when I am drunk (and everyone is sober when I am sober). My quick glances at pretty ladies may be leers (hopefully not), I’m asleep more than I am awake, and I need to check my Twitter and text messaging app in the morning to ensure I didn’t say anything too stupid to anyone. If I did, I apologize, and the person wonders why on earth I am apologizing.

Then there is the weekend Sobu. During the weekdays at different times of the day the situation is different, but the characters stay the same for the most part. People are commuting to and from work, from Chiba to Tokyo, then Tokyo to Chiba. We have chosen to spend 3 hours a day of our lives for countless years sitting with each other thinking about whatever with think about, doing whatever we do. On the weekend, I am usually riding the Sobu for the specific reason of meeting friends, and that means I’m usually riding it into Tokyo in the late morning or early afternoon. Weekend mornings are for video games, jogs, lazy breakfasts and a cup of tea or two. My wife is recently obsessed with the gym, and doesn’t enjoy embracing the stillness as much as I do, so she eventually goes to the gym. On the rare days where I have a plan, and that plan is in Tokyo, I get to experience the weekend Sobu.

Perhaps it’s obvious (it all feels damn obvious), but there are more women on the Sobu on the weekends when I ride it. This is actually a skewing of facts, but I kind of want to go with it. (It’s a skewing of facts because there are more women on the Sobu during the day in the week as well, especially from around 9-11 I would say. However I don’t think anyone wants to get into comparing this to comparing the weekends in the morning. If we were to get into it (and I guess we are), then the early morning weekend Sobu is usually filled with junior high school and high school kids who didn’t get shitfaced the night before, and are excitedly meeting their friends somewhere (Harajuku for example) at 9am, and so they get on the Uchibo line at Anegasaki (where high school students live), ride the Uchibo for 20 minutes to get to Chiba, and then get on the Sobu. However, to get even deeper into it, it is very rare to have the long distance Sobu rider on the early morning of the weekend, as the rapid is faster, and chances are you are going to get a seat on the rapid too. This is why Harajuku is a good example (thank you) because one can ride from Chiba to Yoyogi on the one train and then you’re just a hop and a skip away from Harajuku. Anyways, I hope it is painfully clear why it is easier to skew facts. End bracket.)

More women are riding on the weekend. There are more young children on the weekend as well. There are fewer men in suits, but there are still men in suits. When I have to work on Saturday, I don’t feel embarrassed to break the theme of leisure, but pervertedly proud for being important enough. I understand that this is silly.

On my most recent weekend Sobu trip, I was going to Harajuku (hence my empathy or solidarity with the high school kids) with a friend. She had wanted to take the Tozai line, as riding on the metro earlier would make the entire journey cheaper, but we were running late, and the local Sobu was an easy and (relatively) fast way to get there. We had timed it so that we would get to Harajuku exactly when we would need to be there. It turned out that I would really need to pee when we changed trains at Yoyogi, but with bravery and determination, I went on to Harajuku, and this eventually led to a conversation with friends as to whether the Gap would have a bathroom or not. (We eventually decided that it would not.)

My friend and I went through the gates at Chiba Station, walked past the Newdays (a convenience store that seems to be the only convenience store allowed to be inside stations, I’m not sure if it is owned by Japan Rail or not), and walked up the stairs to the local Sobu platform. The train stopped was empty, so I chivalrously took the coveted end seat, and forced my friend to take the consolation seat beside me. She didn’t view things in such terms, so it worked out okay.

We were talking about our friends, our dreams, our weeks, and whatever else friends talk about, and after a while it became incredibly obvious that the old man beside my friend was listening to our conversation. I don’t mind it when people eavesdrop on other people’s conversations. We are in a public space, and we are not exactly talking about the revolution in hushed voices. However, his way of listening to us really bugged me. It had something to do with his smirk.

He was a typical old man, and I mean that in a good way. He held an obvious pride in the way he dressed that many people under 60 just don’t have. There was a comb in his hair in the morning, and perhaps even some other stuff. The pants (trousers) he was wearing could be definitely called slacks (they may not have been light blue, but they may as well could have been), and his collared shirt was without wrinkles, and tucked into his slacks. I assume he had retired. I assume he was inquisitive about life (not like a child though). He was the age where the Japanese economic miracle would have been kind to him and the decades of stagnation would not have been so mean. Maybe he was transferred to Brazil as a young man? Maybe he was paid to study Portuguese before being sent there for two years? Maybe he was paid to do a Masters in Boston? The miracle had been good to him. He was now retired. He and his wife saw each other more than they ever did. He was bemused by this too, but his wife probably wasn’t, and his bemusement probably was slowly grating on her. In this way I considered him a typical old man.

He sat at the edge of his seat. I forgot if this was due to having a backpack on or not. He was looking at the train door, and therefore diagonally, so that he could see my friend and I speaking out of the corner of his eye. I couldn’t imagine where he was going. I bet it was somewhere respectful though, that I would hope I go to at his age, but most likely will not go to at his age. It wouldn’t have been a Go tournament. I don’t think it would have been some sort of museum. Perhaps it was to visit his grandkids? But then his wife would be with him too. Perhaps she went over on Friday, and he was coming later? Perhaps it was all a façade and he was just lonely putting up appearances riding the train? You never know.

While I usually try my hardest to never mix Japanese and English, I often do so with the friend I was with. It’s not adding a word or two of one language into the grammar of the other, but it’s switching between the two languages on the fly. Starting a thought in one, and then ending it in the other. I admit that I sometimes do say words in English when speaking Japanese and vice versa, but that’s only because I can’t think of a word in the other language that means what I want to say, and instead of staying true to my rules on how to live, I just say the word in the other language. An example is setsumei-kai, which would literally mean, “explanation meeting”, and I would usually call an “information session”. However, because it’s something I usually talk about in Japanese, I find it incredibly unnatural to say information session, and so I feel much more comfortable when speaking English to just call it a setsumei-kai. (I give setsumei-kais at work on occasion. It’s a living.)

So my friend and I were talking about whatever (as mentioned above), and mixing Japanese and English like we were madmen (this is the gender neutral madmen). This old man was staring at the train door, looking at us out of the corner of his eye and having a very bemused expression on his face while looking like an average old man. He was enjoying listening to our conversation. He found it quaint. It almost felt like he wanted to join in. In retirement he wasn’t having chances to get paid to learn in Boston. He had his wife who looked after their children and their big house, a 15 minute car ride from Honda Station on the Sotobo Line. He made me incredibly uncomfortable. My friend didn’t mind, or noticed and minded, but not enough to do anything. I am a man of action though.

Once we reached Makuharihongo, I suddenly, sounding spontaneous, but being oh so calculated said, “Oh look! We’re already here! Let’s get off the train!”

My friend, startled, said, “Oh! I didn’t realize! Already! Okay!”

She got up, took all the stuff she had with her (she had a lot of stuff with her) and we got off the train.

As we rushed down the platform, I then said, “I’m sorry, I really couldn’t stand that old man beside you! He seemed a little weird how he was listening to us. Let’s quickly get another seat in another carriage on the train!”

My friend was mainly shocked that we weren’t actually switching trains, also surprised that I would do this, but ultimately went along with it, and as we got on another carriage she said, “but what if he sees us?”

To this I replied, “Don’t look back! Let’s continue walking down the train in the opposite direction!”

I can assure you it was very dramatic and our hearts were beating quite fast. We couldn’t find a seat, and so we stood at the part of the train on some carriages where there is room reserved for a person in a wheelchair to sit (in their wheelchair). Feeling incredibly high from our escapades, we continued to talk about whatever.

After a few more stops, perhaps around Higashifunabashi, two seats opened up close to us on the next carriage. Seeing this, before people could get on the train in that carriage at the station, I hurried over to sit, and my friend followed suit.

This does not go against any train etiquette that I know, but regardless it’s a bit of a shock for the people who are getting on the train. As the train pulls up, they see two seats open, and perhaps a pair (as there was) thinks they’ll be able to sit down beside each other. They don’t say anything, but in their heart that expectation has been innocently and strongly formed. There are two open seats beside each other. I will sit down with my friend. It’s simple really. Then, when they get on the train, the split second when those seats are out of view there is some foreigner and his Japanese hussy (she’s not my hussy, or a hussy at all) come out of nowhere and are sitting down in the seats.

You may think that no one truly thinks like that, but the stare of death that we received for a few seconds in my mind confirms that this did in fact happen as I imagine it. I don’t blame this woman, but I didn’t break any of the train etiquette, so all I can call it is an unfortunate circumstance for her. I believe she was with her autistic son, but I could be making that up. She wore those big round sunglasses.

From Higashifunabashi all the way to Yoyogi my friend and I were in these seats. We chatted, and it was fun. These were the bench seats at the end of a carriage, so there are only three seats on each side. I sat in the middle, my friend on the side away from the door, and some stranger beside the door. This stranger is not important.

Across from us there were three people sitting down. A mother and whom I assume are her two daughters. All three of them were wearing very nice dresses. The older daughter I would have guessed was around 7, second grade, and the younger daughter I would have guessed was in her second year at kindergarten (assuming she did the optional first year at age 3). I assume she had already turned 5 though, perhaps her birthday was around May. I assumed she was in the second year of kindergarten because she had a confidence that I don’t think most kids in their first year have. The 7 year old was also quite inquisitive, but she was 7 and therefore already knew a little bit how to be adult like, and had greater concentration for doing so (albeit not by much).

When talking to my friend, I was staring straight ahead, in the direction of the mother and her two daughters when her mother suddenly scowled and slapped the oldest daughter. This wasn’t a slap that you would call violence or abuse or anything like that (or at least not in Japan), but it was a “stop that” smack. The 7-year-old girl was not sitting like a lady should sit wearing a dress and the mother was not impressed. I assume immediately they were going to a piano recital, because that is the only thing I can imagine little girls would be forced to wear fancy dresses for.

The smack had shocked me, or waked me out of a trance looking straight ahead. The mother was scowling still, and looked very stressed. I wondered if she looked stressed due to her little monsters not behaving like ladies, or if there were other stress in her life. With the dresses, I would have had to guess that they were well off, but I couldn’t tell if it was due to her professional success, a rich husband, or a rich family. I didn’t think it was her own professional success, but that is me being stupid, because I subconsciously think professional women wouldn’t force their daughters to wear fancy dresses on a Saturday, and I have no basis for that.

The younger daughter got very excited (the train can still be magical for little kids) and sat on the seat with her shoes on looking out the window behind her seat giggling. Her older sister joined her, and her mom scowled, pulling the younger daughter down. The mom didn’t look happy and I wondered how this would affect her daughters. Would they be sad, scared of her, or forever emotionally damaged? It didn’t seem like it because the younger daughter sat down with a smile on her face looking out the window behind me, and after 5 seconds forgot about her mother getting angry at her for standing on the seat, and stands up again looking out the window behind her.

In these 5 seconds, her mother had time to ensure that her dress was not having any creases, and that the 5-year-old child was sitting lady like.

I was talking to my friend about dreams of living in the country, and right in front of my eyes was the socialization of two children into middle class women by their agitated mother.

I didn’t know what to think of it, but I felt that it was surreal to watch it unfold in front of me. These two children were being children, and their mother constantly correcting their behavior. If the 7 year old had as much trouble as the 5 year old being proper, does that mean that all these corrections would ultimately have little effect on the 5 year old for at least the next two years?

Is it really for the mother? She wants to make sure that those around her know that she is against her daughters’ poor behavior, and therefore she is correcting their behavior and getting angry not for her daughters and their socialization, but to save her own face, and to shout, “I am a good mother! I am trying to make my daughters normal! I agree that they are freaks!”

I wonder if she was angry or genuinely scared and afraid. I mean, I don’t think she was, but when I think about my own behavior in public, I know that sometimes I stupidly act for the masses to not get the wrong impression of me, and I didn’t really see this mother being above that sort of behavior. Especially if the 7 year old was only a little bit more aware compared to the 5 year old, it must be something she only cares about in public?

Could it really be a piano recital? Was it both of the daughters playing? Do 5 year olds play the piano? Wouldn’t that be torture for a 5 year old, or is that only for 5-year-old proles? Maybe they play “Hot Cross Buns”? I bet I could have played that at 5.

Eventually the train got more and more crowded. Even on a weekend in the early afternoon, by the time we got to Hirai and Kameido, it was impossible to see the mother and her two daughters. By the time the train started to empty out around Ochanomizu, they were all gone. They had probably had to change trains at Akihabara to get to the piano recital. Piano recitals would be around Ueno perhaps. That seemed like a fancy area where the mother would feel at home, and where she could properly socialize her daughters to act the proper way, showing the world that she was doing a good job.

Maybe it wasn’t a piano recital, but maybe they were meeting the mother’s mother. They were meeting grandma, who lives in a fancy house somewhere in Tokyo and forever scorned her daughter for marrying some hick from Sodegaura, and is always relentlessly attacking her daughter for how she raises her kids. Maybe grandma was going to come to the piano recital in Ueno? I don’t think grandma was a sweet lady.

My friend and I rode the train until Yoyogi. I wanted to go pee, but didn’t. We transferred to the Yamanote Line, got to Harajuku, met our friends, went to a burrito restaurant and I went pee.

It was a fun day. I watched a movie with a colleague at night.

The typical old man went where he went. The woman and her two daughters in fancy dresses went where they went.