Women Only

How I boarded the train and wound up in the women’s-only car, the Lord only knows. It had been a long day in Japan, I had gone into Umeda to see the Umeda Sky Building, a ten minute train ride from home, and come back before going back to Namba to visit the Nipponbashi shopping district, for which the area is famous. I stayed perhaps two hours in the neighborhood in a fruitless search for a particular store but, giving up at about 6:30, I located Namba Station to make the trip home.

I boarded as usual and was soon absorbed in a good manga that I had picked up (one is hard-pressed to NOT find a manga-ya in Nipponbashi) and traveled to Shin-Osaka, perhaps seven stops from Namba. The manga finished, I put it away and looked about me at the singularly feminine car wherein I stood. My brow wrinkled only a little as something poked the back of my brain and I glanced up at the pink handle in my fist. Indeed, the entire car’s trim, handles, and seats had a pink aspect and further inspection yielded sufficient evidence – a sign – to convince me that I had traveled nearly all the distance home in the Woman’s Only, the bane of any self-respecting western – and Japanese – male. Strangely, I was not embarrassed (I mean, it was an accident, right?) and upon coming to a stop at Shin-Osaka I stepped calmly from the car, “adieu, ladies” and collapsed, knees weak, against a low wall. I had just lived through my worst commuting nightmare and not only survived it but did not even notice until the trip was nearly over. Well, at least my experience was not as bad as that of the gentleman my sister witnessed.

My sister lived in Osaka for a number a year before my trip and often traveled the very Midosuji rout that I took on a daily basis. She rode on many occasions in the Women’s Only, as it was infinitely more roomy thanks to the male half of the commuting population being stuffed into every other car. Well, she was one day traveling somewhere and into the Women’s Only steps a gentleman. She said this was actually not unusual, for on some occasions, little boys and teens with their girlfriends would make use of the exclusive car. Except, this was a stout, briefcase-toting businessman. In he came, huffing and so on from an apparent run he had recently finished, and plopped down between two schoolgirls. He leaned back and closed his eyes through a sigh of relief, glad that he was safely on the train. But only for a moment did he remain thus, because my sister said that he, obviously more observant than this author, slowly opened his eyes to study his surroundings. In a second he was up and in the next car, leaving three very amused schoolgirls behind. Being Japanese, he probably went home and committed hara kiri.