Monday 19 January 2009

A Not-Naked Emperor

The latest installment of the Tokyo Metro's manners isn't much more inspiring than the past few months.


As Green-Eyed Geisha remarks, it isn't terribly realistic in Tokyo. You don't normally see people stretched out on the floors of Tokyo subways. Not because the floors aren't clean enough to sit on - because they are amazingly clean - but because it just isn't done. You do occasionally see school sports teams - groups of kids in high school uniforms lugging big bags full of equipment for baseball, kendo, or (once, on my way to a hockey game) ice hockey. The kids will normally pile their bags and make some attempt at keeping things out of the way, but if they can't all find seats they will likely eventually sit on their bags and stretch out, taking up most of the car and annoying the elderly passengers.

If people in Tokyo don't sit on train floors, they definitely don't tend to get naked in public (well, except for the old guys who urinate on walls in alleys near the station...). Which is why it amused me when I figured out the fairy tale behind the Tobu train line's latest manners poster - The Emperor's New Clothes!



The emperor is not naked, which is why it took me a bit to figure out which story they were using. The poster's caption reads "The emperor isn't aware of his shameful appearance." In the fairy tale it is a little boy who points out that the emperor is naked. Here a little boy and his mother look on in disgust as the emperor and his men make a drunken nuisance of themselves.

This one makes me smile everytime I see it.

1 comment:

  1. I love the series of manner posters in Japan. You have many more in Tokyo than we do in our parts though.

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