A borderline beautiful woman hurries up a steep flight of stairs on her way from the subway to the overhead train at the interchange station. Long legs loping, coat flaring open, she moves with a fluid, foreign gait that sets her apart, even in a crowd. It’s Jianhong, changing trains after an hour of rush hour madness.
The preponderance of men in dark suits taking the train to work provide a stark background against which anything youngish and female was bound to stand out. Even though Jianhong carries her umbrella as sword and shield, alternately swinging clear a path and hiding her face from view, she attracts more than her share of curious looks.
Straining to keep up with the hurried tide without really being part of it, she does her best to keep pace. At times, her half-buttoned coat parts provocatively, exposing her bare, unshaven legs to the jaded delight of tired men who were accustomed to seeing their women shaved clean and wrapped in pantyhose.
She moves fast where she can, darting along uncluttered stretches of the stairwell, slowing to a prudent crawl when she has to. The station is packed and the going is slow. She trudges up the steep stone steps slowly, flanked by men on either side.
Then, out of nowhere, an unseen hand rubs her on the ass. She freezes for a microsecond, and then continues on her way, dismissing the apparent violation of bodily dignity as the errant swing of a careless hand.
A quick glance backwards reveals nothing but the disinterested faces of clean-cut, freshly shaved commuters. Probably an accident. She continues to trudge up slowly, one plodding footstep after the other, wondering what to think. Had someone touched her on purpose or was it just one of those things?
She’s near the top of the staircase when it happens again. Another accidental thrust? Another random brush? A second hapless hand? She’s not so sure. She snaps to a halt and abruptly turns around, eyes ready to accuse. But none of the glazed-over gazes meet her angry eyes, nor does anyone pay her much heed.
Time is short; the commute must go on. Clutching umbrellas in one hand, attaché cases in the other, most of the weary men need no alibi. Her eyes interrogate all those around her, but she can’t identify the perp, though she’s sure there’s a pervert at work somewhere in there.
The daily crush not only failed to make up for the lack of a man in her life, it made her want to lack men all the more. To block the flow of footsteps was to invite more trouble, so she scowls instead, risibly upset.
She resumes the drumbeat of the commute, following the wall-to-wall flow of men as if in a trance. By the time she reaches the main platform, she is overcome with paranoia, seeing in every man a possible suspect.
Jianhong’s nose crinkles involuntarily in response to a pungent waft of air. There’s a busy public facility nestled in a corner of the platform and the ammonia stench is not entirely unwelcome. Seeking relief, she follows the olfactory trail to a pair of doors, each marked by a colored triangle, one pointing up, the other pointing down. Red for the ladies, blue for the men. She enters on the left and hurries into a urine-stenched stall, slamming the door shut on the world.
The ladies. A lady’s last refuge. Bladder bursting, she unceremoniously squats down in the drafty, unheated cubicle and relieves herself with unerring accuracy and speed. She washes her hands, shakes them dry and washes them once more, then glances at the mirror, emerging just in time to see she has missed the express train. She scans the electronic timetable; it’s a good 17 minutes till the next fast train.
Her hunger for a modicum of physical isolation is enough to impel her back through the thick of the drift, working her way against an adverse tide to the extremity of the platform where the crowd began to thin out. Gently slipping past man after man, generally avoiding eye contact, though nodding now and again in strained solidarity with the odd woman, she glides through the mass of commuters.
Along the way, her bright red coat raises furtive glances from mild-mannered salarimen reading, or pretending to read, paperback books and strategically folded newspapers. When she finally gets to the end of the platform, she’s close to being alone; it’s enough to sigh a sad sigh of relief.
The air is marginally better, and the unbroken view of the tracks stretching off into the urban clutter offers a vista of semi-open space and sufficient depth of field to be almost inviting, but when the train pulls into the station, it will be a mad rush to the last door of the last car all the same.
“The Local Express will be arriving on track two, the Express Express will be arriving on track one. Please mind your step. Your safety is our concern.”
Transit police issue comical commands with outstretched hands, trying to conduct the commuters like bit players in a grand symphony. Being involuntarily thrust into intimate proximity with strangers of the opposite sex on the way to and from work took its toll, and the authorities were working on that, but in the meantime, she had to bear the unbearable.
Conformity is Harmony!
An unseen voice issues cold commands while attentive white-gloved station attendants gently whip the herd into line, even as the human stream swells well beyond the capacity of the next two trains running. Plastic batons flail rhythmically just above the bobbing heads of the masses, coaxing forward a relatively smooth, unruffled flow.
Conformity is Harmony!
A phalanx of uniformed guards survey the human movement with jaundiced eyes. They are there just in case, though just in case of what was hard to say. Their off-putting presence alone probably helped enforce conformity of movement, if not harmony of mind, even though the rote warnings were usually sufficient in themselves.
Conformity is Harmony!
Jianhong shudders, but it’s not just the cold air. Something about being female in Tokyo--and being a foreign one to boot—has the effect of wrong footing her, even in the best of situations. It was not like her to be girly-girl passive, but she doesn’t want to come off as butchy bitch either.
Conformity is Harmony!
Orderly and unassailable queues of passengers line up along white lines painted precisely where the train doors will pop open. She tries to emulate the patience of people who stand stoically on line to board standing-room-only trains, who wait not for the next train, but two or three trains from now.
Conformity is Harmony!
She’s tempted to cut in line, but this was Japan, where it didn’t do to do such things. Chances are no one would say a word, some might even pretend not to notice, but the punishing glances would be too soul crushing to bear. Suppression of the self was the key to getting along, never mind the never-ending rush, never mind the never-ending crush.
Conformity is Harmony!
There were days when she deliberately let the most over-packed trains go by, and when she finally deigned to board, did her best to be the last one inside the closing doors, but there was even more of a race to be the last one on a train than the first. Fast or slow, early or late, it was hard to escape the polite melee of impatient bodies.
Stuck in the forlorn corner of a chilly platform with time to kill, she finds her mind drifting to her renegade officemate Collin. He never came in until after rush hour and it was easy to see why; how he got away with it was the real question. Was it because he was white? Male? Or was it just his come-what-will willingness to court dismissal that gave him the extra leeway?
She wondered what would it be like riding the train with him. Would his big, bulky, slightly menacing and fully alien presence keep away the predators? And if her modesty should be violated, would he come to her defense, perhaps even collar the culprit?
He was no one’s idea of a gentleman, but he definitely had a chivalrous side, though he did a good job of keeping it hidden during his more manic moments. But she had seen him in and out of action and knew there was a depth there. He had come to her defense before, and it would be nice to have him around to do so again
On the other hand, he had also, in a startling moment of unsolicited intimacy, made the ridiculous and outright sexist claim that riding the trains during rush hour was one of those joys that made the Tokyo life worth living.
“What’s not to like about it?” he beamed. “So many good lookers, the best fashion in the world. You know what wakes me up better than coffee? Trains packed to the rim with trim.”
Crazy him! How could anyone enjoy the daily trauma of being squished together in rude physical proximity with unknown others of the opposite sex? Were the breasts and buttocks of strangers really so alluring? How is it that the thing she most hated about Tokyo was the very thing that he liked best?
She was a lady who worked in an office but she refused to be an office lady. She followed the dictates of fashion but refused to be eye candy to men. She was a swashbucklerette, a woman warrior, ever on guard, ever vigilant. Along with millions of others, she endured the bump and grind of the rush hour commute, but she got to work on time. The office was the kind of place where everybody minded your business but nobody cared. It was hectic but hemmed in, like the trains, where you were free to do what you liked as long as you kept up with unwritten rules and rigid appearances.
When she finally gets to the station closest to VTR, she’s back out in the weather again. The on-again, off-again rain has resumed its misty sprinkle, so she pops opens her big yellow umbrella and tilts it forward, utilizing it more as a plow than awning. The pointy-ended ribs help her to create a safe radius on either side while the tip helps her avoid collisions as she eases her way through throngs of mute men heading to the big intersection.
The thickly peopled flow of foot traffic piles up at the curb waiting for the light to change. The seagulls squawking overhead look down upon a stampede of colorful crabs, as a seething mass of umbrella-shielded bodies trembles impatiently in place and then suddenly disperses. Forward progress resumes in fits and starts until the undulating swell comes to a crest and then breaks.
Despite her accelerated pace and impatient lane changing on foot, the crowd moves stubbornly in tandem with itself and Jianhong never really gets far ahead. Impeded by people every step of the way, she weaves her way through the thicket of narrow alleys lined with bicycles, noodle shops, fast food joints, brand-name boutiques and trendy bookstores.
By the time she reaches Fuji Park, the commuter flow has thinned out to the point that it is almost exclusively composed of journalists, cameramen, television suits and producers. As the massive edifice of VTR Central looms into view high above the trees, she pauses to catch her breath, slowing her step to be more in harmony with the mass of television workers who walk in silence ahead, astride, beside and behind her.
At the guarded and gated employee entrance she breathlessly flashes her VTR card. Upon passing inspection, she envelops her umbrella with a plastic bag provided for the purpose of keeping the lobby floor free of dripping water. Without missing a beat she boards the express elevator that carries her and a carload of fellow workers straight up to the international news floor.
After depositing her bagged umbrella in a rack she punches in.
Whew! She’s only a few minutes early, which was tantamount to being late, at least according to the competitive norms of company spirit, but she’s okay by the clock.
She glides over to her desk, greeting co-workers with forced cheer in between shallow breaths, trying to disguise the fact that she was as off-balance and as out of control as a whirling dervish.
She tidies things up and assists the caddies in serving coffee and tea to the men of her section with a rigid semi-smile. She is briefly chided for missing a pre-work meeting with the other office ladies, but was otherwise off the hook.
Morning ritual thus begun, she slips off to the lady’s room for a moment by herself. Facing the mirror she checks her moist eyes and then her cheeks, just to make sure the tears she has tried so hard to hold back don’t show.