Baby badges for Japan commuters

[2pints-mate 0]

Rail companies in Tokyo are handing out badges to pregnant women in the hope they prompt commuters to give up their seats on the capital's crowded trains.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5255672.stm

 

Go one me jane?

[tsondaboy 0]

The problem of people not giving away their seat is general here in Japan. They have all these strange mana posters CMs don’t eat in the train, seat close to others etc, and nothing about giving away your seat to elderly people, handicapped or pregnant women.

Sometimes in the train when I give my seat to someone that obviously need it people around make me feel like I did something bad.

[Fattwins 0]

my wife had that and it didnt work that well.

[Davo 1]

These days I'm ruthless due to the grind of the commute. No oldie is going to get my seat if it means me standing for 30mins! Pregnant women I would stand for, but anyone one infirmed by age who is stupid enough to travel during worker ant time must pay the price for clogging things up even more. They have the option of choosing their travel time due to retirement right?

[cal 6]

People don't LOOK at other people on the train so I bet most people wouldn't see something like that.

[damian 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Davo:
These days I'm ruthless due to the grind of the commute. No oldie is going to get my seat if it means me standing for 30mins! Pregnant women I would stand for, but anyone one infirmed by age who is stupid enough to travel during worker ant time must pay the price for clogging things up even more. They have the option of choosing their travel time due to retirement right?

I thought you rode your bike to work? Last time we spoke about trains you said something totally true "commuting turns you into a munter". Back to the grind, eh. Poor bastard. I don't miss that at all, it wasn't a happy experience.

My train in Tokyo (Odakyu and Chiyoda) had a big sticker above the seat near the door. It showed a series of graphics depicting to whom you should give the seat to if the moment came. I interpreted it as:
Fat people (pregers)
People with a koala attached to their chest (mums with babies)
People in love (oldies with pace makers)
People with giant boots (broken leg in plaster)
People dressed as Little Bo Peep (oldies with a walking cane).

If you apply my interpretation to the icons then there are not many instances in Japan when you have to give up your seat. Check out the sign on your train, you might see the same symbols.

[Goemon 0]

[me jane 0]

I saw that on BBC last night. Sounds like a useless idea to me anyway. Silver seats,too, are about as well thought out as women only carriages - just another way of out of dealing with the real cause of the problem. If I saw someone who needed the seat more than me I would give it up regardless of what colour it was. The same rules should apply to all seats - not just the silver ones.

Admittedly it's pretty hard in the early stages of pregnancy to tell whether someone is pregnant or not but generally it's the people in the later stages of pregnancy (with a messed up sense of balance) who need the seats anyway & by that time it's pretty obvious.

I don't have a badge but I do try to read graphic books about giving birth when I'm on the train. No-one gets the hint though.

[indosnm 0]

 Quote:

Originally posted by Goemon:

I interpret that as
1. One with a raging boner
2. A slalary man and a midget high shool girl who can't wait to get to the love hotel
3. Someone's who's been to Yakiniku tabehoudai
4. Someone's who's shitting themselves/ or with a baby half hanging out of them.


Davo, you sound like a hard asss!
My solution.. I don't catch the damn things, I hate public transport.

[snowbender 3]

Class photo

[damian 0]

That picture is out of friggin control! Classic. It cant be serious. If it is real, then it is the last piece of evidence I need to conclude that the Japanese are quite simply unique on this Earth. It cant be for real, it just isn't possible. I'm getting a mate that catches the Ginza line to check for me.

[soubriquet 0]

And what's a priority sheet (that's what it says)?

[Davo 1]

Indo, I'm just ranting. Commuting has eroded my manners and decency. No-one else stands for the poor old things on the rush hour trains either. Actually, I usually catch the train about 6:50AM...Grumpy time. It's a war to get the last seats so I usually queue up 5 mins earlier.

 

Spud, I would love to ride my bike to work but commuting is a premium I'm willing to pay for moving the family out here to the suburbs. I grumble a lot less in the weekends when I'm out here near the mountains and breathing clean air.

[tsondaboy 0]

For me it doesn’t mater how crowded the train is. If I see an elderly person with a cane straggling to stand in a crowded train I stand up and give away my seat. This is the way I was brought up by my parents and this is the way I wanna bring up my children too.

 

Still I had a really embarrassing moment the other day, when I gave away my seat to a lady that I thought she was pregnant and turned up to be just fat…

I think she mast be on a diet by now.

[lin 0]

 Quote:

For me it doesn’t mater how crowded the train is. If I see an elderly person with a cane straggling to stand in a crowded train I stand up and give away my seat. This is the way I was brought up by my parents and this is the way I wanna bring up my children too.

I feel exactly the same

[Davo 1]

I don't want to give the impression of being poorly brought up. On the contrary, I'm simply just poorly behaved.

[igloo 3]

 Quote:

http://static.flickr.com/60/211307743_09be00f856_o.jpg

Come on who made this?

[Rag-Doll 0]

The salaryman snooze is a great cop out as well. Sitting in a seat reserved for others? Just close your eyes and pretend to be asleep and the whole problem vanishes! - a very Japanese solution to the problem.

 

I was on a crowded train once with my pregnant wife and we found ourselves standing next to a very frail looking old woman and all three of us were standing over a 20 something woman who looked like a freeta or uni student who was sitting in a preggas/elderly/disabled seat but pretending not to notice what a selfish bitch she was being. So I tapped her on the shoulder and asked her in my best Japanese to stand up for the old lady. First she pretended to be asleep and then pretended that she couldn't understand what I was saying. Finally I simply pointed to the sign and the 120yr old woman standing beside me and made it clear she had about 3 seconds to get off her arse. Once the seat had become vacant the old lady refused to sit down and wanted my wife to take it. In the end the old lady sat down and gave me a grateful smile. The young woman stood for the rest of the journey and gave me the filthiest look until my wife and I got off – it barely scratched the surface of the genki I got from doing my good deed.

 

If people had some manners there wouldn't need special seats or stickers. In 50 years I'm going to carry a walking stick, whether I need one or not, and use it to poke scruffy young whippersnappers who display such poor manners.

[Goemon 0]

[Curt 1]

Do you make these yourself Goemon? You always seem to have a lot of fun relevant images on hand!