When the Trains Stop

    Living in Japan, you get used to having fast, convenient public transportation in the form of an excellent train system, and it runs like clockwork...until it doesn't.

Did you ever wonder what the messages on train lines say after someone jumps in front of a train? They say this.

    What I knew at 9:27AM when I had arrived only barely in time for my 9:30 train and found this instead was only that I wasn't going to make it to my class in Sendai. If I had been there ten minutes earlier, if my daughter's bus had been running earlier instead of later than usual, I would have had time to take a taxi to the other side of town and take the Tohoku line train to Sendai from Shiogama Station and arrived just in time for my lesson.

    Instead I was forced to message an apology and cancellation to my student and head home, getting to my apartment just in time to see a train leave the station headed away from Sendai. All of the trains were heavily delayed and putting myself on the one that had been waiting there for hours wouldn't have guaranteed that I would actually have arrived in Sendai before the busy student I was set to teach was forced to return to work.  

    It isn't clear from the Japanese if it was a jump, push or fall but the official story as carried later by some online news source indicated an accident rather than an act of intended self-harm. The high school girl in question broke her arm and appears to be ill, so it isn't entirely clear to me if she was an overworked, exhausted kid who fainted/fell or an over-pressured, exhausted kid who leaped, and in the end it isn't that important. Kids here need more time and space to be themselves and this society needs more of a focus on mental health in addition to the physical. Both social issues are important and lead to hurt kids, regardless of which one led to this one.

    This morning, I was angry about the delay, and then disappointed in myself for seeing what could be notice of a suicide with anger about my personal inconvenience over concern for the person and their family. I didn't know this girl, but she could have been one of my students or one of the students of one of my friends. The best lessons I can take from today's events are 1) always be safe on the train platform, 2) watch out for those you care about, physically and emotionally, and 3) make what you can of the time you have, because no one has forever.

Trains to Sendai were still sluggish after 2PM. The sign claims the next train departs at 2:23PM while the clock reads nearly 2:40PM.