The Big Squeeze

So the other night, Bob and I went out with my dear friends Taeko-san and Emi-san to everyone's favorite expat pub - Dubliners - downtown in Shinjuku.



It was the typical night of drinking and chatting with random strangers, but that night Bob got quite a few stares from the people around us, because he had a bag of tobacco and was rolling handmade cigarettes. You never see that in Japan, so people are quite curious about what it is. I bet some of them even thought he was rolling a joint!

We left Dubliners to go catch the last train home, and found a state of pandemonium in the station. Apparently there was a big accident on my train line (the busiest one in all of Tokyo) that shut down all the trains for a good 20 minutes. Now, you must understand the Tokyo transit system is extremely punctual, so a 20 minute backup on the train system in the busiest station in the world can cause some serious bacchanal.

Bob, myself and Taeko held on to each other for dear life as thousands and thousands of intoxicated Tokyo-ites, unaware of the train delay, pushed and shoved to try to get up to the platform. The crowd was pushing against us, a mass of bodies all swaying with the force, people crying out in shock at the sudden surge. To be quite honest it was a little scary to be trapped in the melee because crowds can quickly turn into mobs, and mobs can quickly cause some serious damage.

The train finally arrived, and the next challenge was for the people ON the train to get OFF the train and through the mob of people waiting to get on. More pushing and shoving and falling and tripping. This was the first time I've seen the train conductors pushing people into the door to get the doors to move.

Finally, the three of us got to the front of the crowd, and were next in line to get into the next train. I stood there, my arm linked with Taeko's elbow, and suddenly realized... we're next in line, but we're also now standing at the edge of the train tracks, with thousands of confused commuters pushing and shoving all over the platform. I though to myself, what if someone falls, and pushes someone, and they then push some else, who causes more pushing, until finally the crowd accidentally pushes us onto the damn train tracks?

Miraculously, we didn't get pushed onto the tracks, we made it onto the train, and made it home. But it definitely showed me that it only takes one glitch in a well-oiled machine to screw up everything! That, and the fact that Tokyo is just too damn overpopulated.