The Yamanote Line is a commuter train service that travels in a loop, stopping at 30 Tokyo neighbourhoods. It's history dates back to 1885. This is a bit of a time capsule from a century after that, ie. the years I lived there. The photo below is from Hiroyuki Ito. Check out more of his impressive work, here. On the Trains in Tokyo, 1985 Over the loudspeaker at Takadanobaba, the polite, droning voice I hear . . . asking, telling, letting me see: queued commuters studying watches, the station clock, the space (as yet empty) where the automatic doors will soon open; people bashed, squeezed, pinned, risking the loss of a bag, a shoe, even a sock; blue-suited Salarymen, knees squeezed, speed-reading inches-thick comic books, passport-thin, rice-paper novels; wool-suited housewives, squeezed between feet shopping bags from Mitsubishi and Marui department stores; benches of light grey labelled Silver Seats, a courtesy to the old, who are known for the colour of their hair; placards hawking drink elixirs, English Conversation, wedding / honeymoon packages, four-day European vacations; no one over twenty speaking to or looking at anyone else over twenty; no one at all even nibbling a snack or sipping on a soda; two schoolgirls in blue sailor suits, hands over mouths, giggling in whispers about the (butter?) smell of a nearby foreigner, evidently myself; two schoolboys in black military collars, speaking openly about the stupendous height of a nearby foreigner, evidently myself; a teetering, nodding middle-aged Salaryman . . . he sways in slow rotations into sleep held upright by indifferent bodies, people who are there and not there; a young Office Lady wearing a grey corporate uniform . . . her eyes say entrapment as she bends against, into, the bodies, the men in blue suits; a woman, as ancient in her weathered skin as in her brittle bones, bent severely to the floor . . . she's draped in kimono, gray stripes on blue a cloth-wrapped bundle as large as herself balanced upon her osteo-humped back; a boy, no more than six, wearing short gray flannels, a blue blazer, glasses . . . on his back a black leather rucksack that contains imagine the serious business of his life; a gliding, jittering rocker, burlesque rebel fresh from Yoyogi Park, zippered black leather, stovepipe, roll-cuff jeans his voluminous, greased, duck-tailed pompadour jutting forward like the bow of a tall ship; traces of black dye among the quivering beads of perspiration that grace the brow of an aging Salaryman; a lone strand of black and silver hair, fluttering upon the frayed sleeve of my white shirt the shirt I wear as I sweat to and from my jobs teaching English Conversation to the Salarymen and the Office Ladies . . . Takadanobaba again, the polite, droning voice I hear . . . asking us to wait for the doors to open, to watch our step, to watch and to not forget, telling us to not forget, not letting us forget anything.
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This is just stunning. So glad to have found your work Alan. The choice of images also. Just to say thank you.
It’s a journey you’ve taken us on. I can smell what the characters smell and feel the bustle of the train you’re on crammed with all these people as if I’m on that train.