6 ms·

Tokyo Just Works. It is inspiring to see a well-functioning civil society. Most emblematic of this is the trains that always arrive on time, are always clean, a

by ipnon 3y ago

Tokyo Just Works. It is inspiring to see a well-functioning civil society. Most emblematic of this is the trains that always arrive on time, are always clean, and rarely get delayed. There is still so much more potential to be had around the world.

93po 3y ago
my first train experience in japan was it being delayed 2 hours
Cloudef 3y ago
The trains sure work, a lot of other things are stuck into 90s, especially if you live here
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Like what? Genuinely interested
  - 93po 3y ago
    race relations
  - Cloudef 3y ago
    For example digital services for essential government services were brought only recently (mynumber). Its decent but ways behind anything in europe. Digital services in general suck in japan, especially banking where the forms and backends cant handle foreign names, so you often have to send snail mail in the end. Faxes are still common place. Lots of stuff is still handled in paper even if they are submitted digitally so many things are painfully slow, especially anything visa/immogration related. With digital cash there are annoying walled garden economies and i could go on. General stores, restaurant, and public transport work really well however. I will not touch on societal issues or politics, as everyone has their own view on these matters.
olalonde 3y ago
I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell. First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage) and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards. Second, when you purchase your ticket, your destination station may or may not be in the list of available destination stations, so you sometimes have to pick an intermediary station instead. Then when you leave, you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only). Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station, added to the confusion. I apologize for the venting.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  >I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell When I was a tourist here several years ago, I had no trouble at all. I just used Google Maps. It tells you exactly where to go, which platform to stand on, when the train will arrive, which car to sit in for most efficient transfer, etc. >First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage) No one uses cash, except some tourists. The chip shortage thing is a very, very recent problem. All the locals don't have this problem; they have IC cards they've had for years, or they use their phone. According to some other comments here, they do sell special IC cards for tourists at the airports now. >and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards. There's a good reason for this. 1) fees, and 2) credit cards are incredibly slow. Japan developed the Felica chips used in IC cards specifically because they needed to be extremely fast to handle the incredible foot traffic going through the fare gates. Using credit cards (even if the processors lifted all the fees) would slow everything down and cause a massive backup. >you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only) Well yeah, that's what you get for using old-fashioned paper tickets. >Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station, You think it's confusing to have "X Station", and "West X Station"? The US has the exact same thing: in the DC metro system, there's Falls Church East and Falls Church West stations, for instance, or Farragut West vs. Farragut North in downtown DC.
  - 3y ago
mortenjorck 3y ago
Visiting for the first time recently from North America felt kind of like the fabled Gorbachev-sees-an-American-supermarket moment for me. Not only do the trains go everywhere, frequently, and reliably, but the condition of everything was astounding. The cleanliness was a big part of it, but also just how non-abused everything was. I was there for a week and didn't once see a tag carved into the seats or walls of a train car or smell urine on a platform. I don't think I even saw a single piece of litter on a train. The respect with which people treat public property was genuinely eye-opening. I wish there were some kind of transferable lesson that we could apply here where dingy and defaced public infrastructure is just accepted as "the way things are in a big city," when it's demonstrably not inevitable.
- throwaway2037 3y ago
  I do think the cleanliness of Tokyo is (at least) two factor: People are more clean in public (less graffiti, less littering, less spitting, less gum, less urine) and the maintenance spend for public infrastructure (roads, trains, etc.) is higher. That combination is the magic. Restaurants feel similar as well. Many are freakishly clean by any US/CAN/EU/AUS/NZ standards. Again, I would say the key is a combination of neat(er) customers and fastidious cleaning by the restaurant staff. Of course, there are still dirty places, but they are rare. When you go hiking in the countryside, it is common to see people carrying a small plastic bag to pickup any garbage along the trails. Again, compared to other hiking destinations, the trails here are freakishly clean all the time.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    not a lot of public trashcans in these places. you carry a bag for your trash because that's the only way you're getting rid of it, and littering fines can be non-trivial.
- nayuki 3y ago
  There's a good 12-minute documentary on how Japanese trains are cleaned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU

by ipnon 3y ago

93po 3y ago

my first train experience in japan was it being delayed 2 hours

Cloudef 3y ago

The trains sure work, a lot of other things are stuck into 90s, especially if you live here

wkat4242 3y ago
Like what? Genuinely interested
- 93po 3y ago
  race relations
- Cloudef 3y ago
  For example digital services for essential government services were brought only recently (mynumber). Its decent but ways behind anything in europe. Digital services in general suck in japan, especially banking where the forms and backends cant handle foreign names, so you often have to send snail mail in the end. Faxes are still common place. Lots of stuff is still handled in paper even if they are submitted digitally so many things are painfully slow, especially anything visa/immogration related. With digital cash there are annoying walled garden economies and i could go on. General stores, restaurant, and public transport work really well however. I will not touch on societal issues or politics, as everyone has their own view on these matters.

olalonde 3y ago

I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell. First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage) and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards. Second, when you purchase your ticket, your destination station may or may not be in the list of available destination stations, so you sometimes have to pick an intermediary station instead. Then when you leave, you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only). Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station, added to the confusion. I apologize for the venting.

shiroiuma 3y ago
>I guess it does for locals but talking as a tourist who has been there for 3 days, using the train is confusing as hell When I was a tourist here several years ago, I had no trouble at all. I just used Google Maps. It tells you exactly where to go, which platform to stand on, when the train will arrive, which car to sit in for most efficient transfer, etc. >First, you have to pay your tickets in cash every time (the "IC cards" are not sold anywhere due to a chip shortage) No one uses cash, except some tourists. The chip shortage thing is a very, very recent problem. All the locals don't have this problem; they have IC cards they've had for years, or they use their phone. According to some other comments here, they do sell special IC cards for tourists at the airports now. >and the machines do not accept foreign credit cards. There's a good reason for this. 1) fees, and 2) credit cards are incredibly slow. Japan developed the Felica chips used in IC cards specifically because they needed to be extremely fast to handle the incredible foot traffic going through the fare gates. Using credit cards (even if the processors lifted all the fees) would slow everything down and cause a massive backup. >you have to go to a ticket counter and pay whatever you owe (again, in cash only) Well yeah, that's what you get for using old-fashioned paper tickets. >Lastly, the similarity in station names, such as Nippori Station and Nishi-Nippori Station, You think it's confusing to have "X Station", and "West X Station"? The US has the exact same thing: in the DC metro system, there's Falls Church East and Falls Church West stations, for instance, or Farragut West vs. Farragut North in downtown DC.
- 3y ago

mortenjorck 3y ago

Visiting for the first time recently from North America felt kind of like the fabled Gorbachev-sees-an-American-supermarket moment for me. Not only do the trains go everywhere, frequently, and reliably, but the condition of everything was astounding. The cleanliness was a big part of it, but also just how non-abused everything was. I was there for a week and didn't once see a tag carved into the seats or walls of a train car or smell urine on a platform. I don't think I even saw a single piece of litter on a train. The respect with which people treat public property was genuinely eye-opening. I wish there were some kind of transferable lesson that we could apply here where dingy and defaced public infrastructure is just accepted as "the way things are in a big city," when it's demonstrably not inevitable.

throwaway2037 3y ago
I do think the cleanliness of Tokyo is (at least) two factor: People are more clean in public (less graffiti, less littering, less spitting, less gum, less urine) and the maintenance spend for public infrastructure (roads, trains, etc.) is higher. That combination is the magic. Restaurants feel similar as well. Many are freakishly clean by any US/CAN/EU/AUS/NZ standards. Again, I would say the key is a combination of neat(er) customers and fastidious cleaning by the restaurant staff. Of course, there are still dirty places, but they are rare. When you go hiking in the countryside, it is common to see people carrying a small plastic bag to pickup any garbage along the trails. Again, compared to other hiking destinations, the trails here are freakishly clean all the time.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  not a lot of public trashcans in these places. you carry a bag for your trash because that's the only way you're getting rid of it, and littering fines can be non-trivial.
nayuki 3y ago
There's a good 12-minute documentary on how Japanese trains are cleaned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90CpRdjMJU