Herding the Japanese
Pocket thinks I’d be interested in this article entitled “The Amazing Psychology of Japanese Train Stations: The nation’s famed mastery of rail travel has been aided by some subtle behavioral tricks.”
And Pocket’s got my number, all right, because indeed I am interested.
When I was young, I remember seeing film of how the Japanese handled the crush of rush hour in its subways. It was somewhat terrifying—they had white-gloved attendants shoving people into already overstuffed trains, and even watching it could give a person both claustrophobia and enochlophobia.
Apparently they still do it:
But the article indicates there’s a lot, lot more:
In 2016, for instance, London Underground operator Transport for London partnered with the behavioral science department at the London School of Economics to develop ways of encouraging riders to queue on both sides of station escalators as a means of increasing their capacity in the capital’s Holborn Station. Among other measures, simple hand and footprints were also painted on each side of the “up” escalators. In Australia, researchers conducted an experiment with lighted directional arrows on signposts to improve flows of departing passengers. Using a camera system designed to recognize and distinguish brisk-walking businesspeople from dawdling tourists, for example—green arrows would flash to direct commuters in an efficient route towards the exit.
When it come to passenger manipulation, what sets the stations of Japan apart from their counterparts is both the ingenuity behind their nudges and the imperceptible manner in which they are implemented. Japan’s nudges reflect a higher order of thinking…
Standing at either end of a platform in Tokyo’s labyrinthine Shinjuku Station, one might detect a small square LED panel emitting a pleasant, deep-blue glow. Nestled among vending machines and safety posters, the panel might be dismissed as a bug zapper. But these simple blue panels are designed to save lives…
It is an approach that has proven to be surprisingly effective…
To address the Japanese fear of loitering and vandalism by young riders, some train stations deploy ultrasonic deterrents—small, unobtrusive devices that emit a high-frequency tone. The particular frequency used—17 kilohertz*—can generally only be heard by those under the age of 25. (Older people can’t detect such frequencies, thanks to the age-related hearing loss known as presbycusis.) These devices—the brainchild of a Welsh inventor and also used to fend off loitering teens in the U.S. and Europe—have been enthusiastically adopted in Japan.
Standing outside one of Tokyo Station’s numerous exits on a recent summer day, it was easy to see the effectiveness of this deterrent in action. Weary salarymen and aged obaachan passed under the sonic deterrent without changing pace. Among uniform-clad students, however, the reactions were evident—a suddenly quickened pace, a look of confusion or discomfort, and often a cry of urusai! (Loud!) None appeared to connect the noise to the deterrents placed almost flush in the ceiling panels above.
Much more at the link.
It reminds me a bit of Temple Grandin’s brilliant designs for cattle handling:
” Japanese fear of loitering and vandalism by young riders”. Really? Next thing we’ll hear about the plague of stoic Italiens.
I was a Mormon missionary in the Tokyo and Yokohama region for two years in the mid-90s. I remember these train stations so well — truly astounding bit of cultural cohesion. Never once did I witness anything dangerous or crazy as we were being pushed into the trains by the white-gloved attendants.
Really brings back a lot of memories. I would love to go back to Japan, too. It’s just so expensive.
Was riding the trolley in Boston for the first time in the ’90s. It was rush hour it was getting tight. The professionally dressed woman in front of me back and said “Please don’t push any more” and the woman behind me in working class attire said “If you didn’t want to be pushed you shouldn’t have gotten on.”
I recently learned that sick cows in a feed yard will dupe humans during feeding and act like they aren’t sick.
Living in Europe about 50 years ago in Germany I noticed that on ski lifts and getting into any kind of transportation Germans, where I lived, tended to elbow and push their way to the front. We were skiing in the Alps and one the wife of one of my friends was starting to cry because the locals were just pushing past her, I told her to tuck in behind my skis and pushed my poles out and blocked my way up to the lift. Once we were on the lift she told me she would be standing there until the snow melted saying, “after you”.
When we visited England it was obvious you took your place in line at the subway or on the busses. When I was in Paris one evening after a show at the Lido we were getting on a public transportation bus and my wife had to pull me back from elbowing my way in because they too were kind of forming a line to get on, I was still thinking I was in Germany.
My main fear when stuck in a crowd is someone stepping on the back of my shoe and knocking it off. I’m packed in too tightly to bend over and grab my shoe so I’m stuck having to walk amongst those stomping feet with nothing but a sock to protect my toes. Almost as bad is the back of the shoe bent under my foot so I have to walk with a sliding step to keep my shoe on. If I ever plan on going to Tokyo I’m going to wear those hiking boots that lace higher than the ankle bones.
Japan is almost as strange as me. I like it.
A young Air Force lieutenant in 1972, I took an R&R to Japan before returning home to the States. I recall arriving in Tokyo in my dress blues with my military duffel bag and having occasion to ride the city’s famous crowded subways, which employ white-gloved “pushers” to squeeze people in as the doors close. I found a spot at one end of the train car. No seats being available, I set my bag down upright and sat on it. Presently, the normal din turned to silence and despite the jam-packed situation some space began to quietly open around me. When I looked up, I saw the surrounding Japanese silently staring at me as if at an apparition. The faces were expressionless. I had no idea of what they were thinking. I was flummoxed but not dismayed. This was the first time in my life I felt what it was like to be a distinct minority.
Yesterday, I was leaving a Wendy’s in my small truck, looking to make a left turn across a 4 lane highway, patiently waiting for a break in traffic.
The light to my left went red and traffic started backing up, foiling my plans.
A truck and a car in the far lanes, to my right. stopped simultaneously(!) allowing me to cross both far lanes and tuck in ahead of them preparatory to making a right at that light.
Miraculous.
But then again, I do that for others.
I like grandin
i hacked the genome (something grandin said to do) in terms of figuring out how evolution does its trick of sorting good from bad… beneficence sorting… among a bunch of other things just staring people in the face… no one is interested.. same with high speed search chip which was designed for much faster hand held sequencers in the future…
wasted
In my youth I was a courier for a medical lab, a job which took me to many hospitals and office buildings with elevators. I have always been both very tall and very wide, and I used to amuse myself by moving up to the front of the elevator just before the doors opened. If somebody rushed inside without looking, they would quickly come to a stop. As I was standing still, they could hardly blame me. 🙂
I was in Japan in the summer of ’75, 3 weeks on land (climbed Mt. Fuji!) and 3 weeks training on aircraft carrier. I’d like to go back.
Yen was 324 to the dollar, since about 90 it’s been more like 100 to the dollar, huge increased valuation in those 15 go-go years of Japanese bank expansion. I didn’t see too much herding but wasn’t on trains during rush hours; mostly remember very polite folk.
The Tech Giants are learning how to herd humans, and if Trump loses in 2020, it will likely be because the social media plus the Dem MSM are successful in herding the voters away from Trump, as well as non-quite-illegal vote harvesting along with a good amount of voter fraud.
The AIs being used to personalize ads will also be used to herd, er personalize, what many folk see in the media in order to form “the right opinions”, meaning hating Reps.
I’m actually surprised so many Dems are calling for a breakup — Reps certainly should be in favor of some higher regulation of Facebook and breaking it up (from Instagram, etc), as well as breaking up Google. Increasing taxes on digital ads would be an alternative that might be more politically easy.
I can explain some 1970s jap culture reactions. To them, us military was higher than samurai class at the time, due to macarthurs ghq and war reconstruction. They also knew samurai would cut down peasants to test swords or otherwise abuse their power. They have no expression because this is the jap ver of a polite smile. Jap culture considers open expressions of emotion to be rude. That has lessened in 21st century.
They may also know foreigners want their personal space. They also learned to fear the jap military junta, so uniforms often reminded the post war gen of the famine and problems with imperialism. There are no benevolent imperialists to japan. Even now that is true.
The japs also dont push others. This is beond rude to be some kind of transgression. This is so shocking they have a car only for women and children in rush hour, because some hentai will cop feels on the girls. Societal oppression reinforces not making a scene.
So they need to hire people to push the japs together in strange company. This is stressful on the pusher and pushee. Asians tolerate physical density more than americans, but americans have the aristocratic self confidence to get much closer to strangers. The japs only like being close with family and lovers. Or yu jin.
Art would benefit from kryon s channel. There are many people in his situation although they are not chained down by social cultures.
https://youtu.be/HupKM1qQ1YA
How do the people in the middle of the train car maneuver to the door as they approach their destination?!?
I know nothing direct about Japan; but I have had some casual and longstanding business associations with a few Japanese who’ve opened up a little. And apparently after having lived in the U.S. for some decades they get “spoiled”, in the sense of being more or less unfitted for life in Japan as it is possible or expected of them there.
I’ll mention this story a second time here. “Tad”, I’ll call him, was an office manager for a branch of a fairly significant Japanese corporation. Not of the Sony, or Matsushita fame, nor one of the big Hitachi type industrial conglomerates, but an important company all the same.
He was known by the Americans there as an office snitch, and informer to Japanese management. But then … what did these Americans expect? Most of them were not pick of the litter and men we would want to stand for the rest of us.
However after a couple decades here, Tad came to the conclusion that he could not return to Japan, and that he preferred the U.S. He was going back to pick up a wife, and return to the U.S. for good.
In response to my remark that I was surprised as the Japanese people were noted to be close to and supportive of each other, he said that that was not true, that it was more of an appearance or a formal thing than outsiders realized. He stated that the young no longer respected the elderly, and that there was very little daily human sympathy to be seen there in his view.
He almost marveled as he told me of the story of having had road trouble in the U.S. when a guy in a beat up pick-up stopped to help him, a Japanese, and complete stranger to the guy. And the helpful guy didn’t even have a good vehicle himself! He was astonished.
This impressed him with such force, that I could see it as he retold it to me a couple years afterward.
He did not want to go back to Japan.
And he liked golf too … so there was that. LOL
Temple Grandin is a remarkable person. She is on the autism spectrum but has had a successful life as an author and as an academic.
I first learned about Temple Grandin when I read The Horse Boy: A Memoir of Healing. The author consulted Temple Grandin about his autistic son.
Worth the read. Or, as I said in my fifth grade oral book reports, “If you want to find out what happened, read the book.”
Great video of Temple Grandin. There is a very good semi-documentary movie about her life, and her story is fascinating.
Our oldest grandson is an autist, but functions academically on grade level (9th) — just gets kind of “stuck” on his most recent obsession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Grandin_(film)