.038 - the often interrupted train

Tonight, I experienced something that I've experienced quite a few times both in Kyoto and here in Tokyo. The train that I was on stopped abruptly in the middle of the line. Except now I know why most of those stops actually happen.

Sometime last week one of my co-workers told me that at least once a week a person commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. So everytime your train stops you kinda know someone else jumped the line.

Tonight it happened to me again. I'm not sure if it was my actual train or one in front of it, but the "super-express" train that I was abroad hit the brakes as it passed through a station. After we stopped, everybody aboard waited very impatiently for about 5 minutes. Soon afterwards, everyone received an announcement saying, "someone is on the track so please wait as we take care of the situation".

It was pretty disturbing to me, but apparently not to anyone else in my car. People just continued texting on their cell phones, making conversation, and reading their newspapers. I thought to myself, "how could people be so emotionless". Maybe it is something you just get used to. Kinda like the murders on American news, you have put distance between yourself and the situation in order to cope. When a living person hits the train you are on, no one wants to actually bear the trauma associated with such an event. I guess if I lived here for a while I'd like to continue to be naive every time and think that someone just tripped onto an empty track.