A note on empty-seating.

Today, I was blatantly empty-seated on the train on the way to work. Empty seating is well known to anyone who has been in Japan for over a week. It's when the seat next to you on a train remains mysteriously empty despite the carriage being full to the rafters. Let’s get some context here, a seat on a Japanese train is like gold dust, so even at quiet times empty seats are few and far between. I seem to remember a story from last year of a commuter who got on at an end station and thus had a guaranteed seat. He or she sold his / her seat to a passenger who got on further down the line. Not just once, but every morning.  I have seen grown Japanese men knock old ladies off their feet for the sake of the one available seat on the Yamanoto line and I saw an article today about kids calling their friends lame for giving up their seat to a pregnant woman.  Japanese culture is firmly bedded in the collective, the 'wa', harmony, but when it comes to sitting while travelling it is every man, woman and child, born or unborn for him, her or them selves. So, why when there is a foreigner on the train do the Japanese suddenly want to stand on their journey to work? 

The first time it happens you don't really notice it, you just embrace the space. The next time you might think you are manspreading and they don't think there is enough room next to you, so you curl up and make youself small, but still, no one sits down. Finally, you realise they are actively avoiding you, it's an odd sensation, a little bit of you dies when it happens.  This morning was the worst, it was peak empty-seating.  My train had two seats free when it got to my station, so I lowered myself into the gap left for me between two Japanese suits. At the next station, some people got off, this left a free seat next to the person on my left, he moved to fill it, empty-seating me in the process. I wanted to move along too, trapping him between the end of the row and my leg. But I didn't, I did give him a good stare and did a ostentatious sniff of the armpits, but he merely blinked and then looked down at his manga and ignored me. Of course, no one sat in the seat of shame at subsequent stations, I was left alone. 

Years ago, on a British comedy panel show a politician pulled out at a moment's notice. The production team replaced him with a tub of lard. I am thinking of carrying such a tub with me and placing it beside me the next time I get empty-seated. But I guess my joke will be lost on fellow commuters who’ve probably never heard of Have I Got News For You.

If you enjoy this, please buy my book. It's cheaper on Amazon but if you can buy it from the publisher direct it is better for them and might get me a second one published.