The currency of train seats

Catching trains in Japan is a refined world unto itself, complete with rules and tricks. It's not enough to simply turn up to the station five minutes before your train leaves. No, you need to work out which carriage is best so that when you get there, you burst out of your (carefully selected) train door and beat the stairway crush to your connecting train. People line up behind coloured signs on the station floor, and then split into two lines when the train arrives, allowing people to flow smoothly down the gap and out - that's fine, if you know enough kanji to understand which colour means an express train door and which means a local. You have to plan out your entire train trip in advance. Since I didn't know any of this, I've been trying to tweak my daily routine. So. This is the best I can do so far: Hirakatashi, 7.15am - orange sign for express, not green. Second carriage, third door. Yodoyobashi, 7.55am - connect to Midosuji subway, take second carriage, second door. Umeda, 8.12, Hankyu Railway - third or fourth carriage (seats available) but not sure yet as to which is the best. Nishinomiya-Kitaguchi, 8.32 - burst forth from the door and join the rush to make the 8.33 connecting train. Any carriage, any door.

So after all that planning and positioning, it's a wondrous thing to have a seat in rush hour. The actual physical relief of sitting down is augmented one thousand-fold as you watch strangers become unwillingly intimate a metre away. For me, the currency of train seats fluctuates daily, according to mood. Sometimes I like the pulse of muffled tolerance, saturated by briefcases and suits. If you have a seat, you give it up reluctantly, and only to those who really, really deserve it. I've done it perhaps twice, for a woman who looked rather ill, and an old woman. But salarymen? Please. I know they resent me. I know they resent the first-in-best-dressed system that doesn't respect authority and age and salary increments. But buddy, I got this seat and I am going to enjoy it. Just watch me.

When the doors open, people flood in, frantically seeking places for bottoms. It's polite Darwinism - the losers sit quietly, biding their time, moving closer and closer to seated people who show imminent signs of departure.

I'm not exaggerating. There is a new book (in Japanese) which is called something like "How to get a seat on the Tokyo subway: tips and tricks". I can't find a link, but it's real, I promise.