The Land of the Sleeping Dead
After surviving Japan’s twenty something typhoon, I thought it was high time that I sat down and wrote something other than my last will and testament. Something about the building shaking, lights blinking, garbage cars flying down the street, 50 mile per hour winds, bending trees, and loud crashes just inspires the imagination.
Pillows and
Blankets for sale! Why not be really comfortable on your morning and
evening commute.
I could make a killing. Move over Martha Stewart, I would be the richest sistah to ever hit the Tokyo Kansai region.
Japan is a country filled with the sleep deprived. Don’t like your bed? Never want to go home? Never want to sleep? This is the place for you to be. Even the kids don’t sleep over here. The train in the morning and in the evening is crammed with sleeping people. I don’t mean the little doze. The salary men who never see their wives and kids because then leave home at 5:30am and don’t get back until 11:30pm are hunched over with the mouths wide open flashing rows of silver caps.
I’ve come to think that the Japanese railways and subways are just moving bedrooms transporting business people and high school students. I’ve heard loud snores, seen slow moving droll, leaning middle aged Japanese men and make-up smeared Japanese women on the train. What really took the cake was the elementary school student whose mother couldn’t get him to wake up and get off.
I have to give some praise though because the people who ride the train everyday seem to have seem to have a sixth sense built in, and from the depths of a hunched over slumber they spring forth to the doors upon arrival of their station.
You know I had to go and research the matter. So I started asking questions. To my surprise I was corrected. A Japanese journalist sat me down and with a serious face said. "It’s not just the train. People fall asleep on park benches, behind the wheels of cars, on bicycles, on toilets, waiting in the line at the bank, and some poor man actually fell asleep on his fishing boat and woke up half-way to South Korea."
I would think that this is a big problem, but apparently the Japanese government is happy to have a nation of work crazed sleep deprived citizens. I know the Japanese beverage companies love the renewed surge of business. Vitamin and power drinks, coffee, tea, a stronger version of Vivarian sell like hotcakes over here. Need to stay away for 24 hours? No problem, pop the cap and you’ll work like superman. Feeling a little run down? Try our new high potent mega-speed vita drink. Guaranteed to have you going thru red lights and running down innocent foreigners on bicycles.
The craziest part of this mess is that this no-sleep thing starts young….and I fear I might be catching the disease. After waking up at 6:00am, getting to school by 7:40am and spending the day pantomiming various gestures to over two dozen Japanese junior high school girls, I was tired. I thought it was late, but as I walked across dirt covered concrete towards the exit of my school, I had to wave at the still practicing students.
“Ja matane!” a group of sixth grade girls yelled.
See you. A seventh grade student picked up a soft tennis ball and slammed it into the green net for what had to be the hundredth time.
Across the field twenty boys gathered ready to and fall in the mud while chasing the soccer ball. Mind you that these same boys had been on the field at 7:00 am that morning. I had waved my hand and then set off towards the train tracks and in the direction of the bus that would take me to the closest station.
It took less than
twenty-five minutes for the fatigue to take hold once I sat down on
the eerily silent train . Although the local train was packed tight with
students of all ages, you could have heard a pin drop. From the glow of a
teenager’s cell phone next to me I knew it was 6:00pm. With his blond
streaked hair, baggy black pants, gaudy gold chain, and oversize white
button down shirt, he looked like a normal wanna-be badass Japanese high
school student.
Being the curious person that I am I asked him if he was
going home. No, he wouldn’t get home until around 10:00pm or 11:00.
After being at school all day, then participating in after school
activities, the boy was going to cram school for Math, English and
Science. I gave him that universal look if pity and he shrugged. Before
I could blink he tipped his head back and fell asleep. Just as the shock
wore off, the train pulled into my station. I stood up, the teenager let
out a soft snore.
That night I went to bed at 8:00 pm.
