Vol. 1 People Passing Through Tokyo Station

“The next stop is Tokyo, Tokyo.”

When the conductor announced the name of our upcoming station, I felt as though I had just left my hometown and arrived in Tokyo. I have been living in Tokyo for nearly ten years now, using Tokyo Station several times a year and passing through it countless times. So, it’s not that I’m unfamiliar with hearing its name. But today, perhaps because I’m arriving with the specific purpose of observing Tokyo Station, my senses feel heightened, and the name “Tokyo” carries a sweet, resonant charm that tickles my ear.

In this series, we will explore and observe the city and its people in the Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi areas. To explore the theme of the first issue, “People Passing Through Tokyo Station,” I exited the Yaesu ticket gate at 9:30 in the morning on a day in early November.

As I descended the stairs in the bustling station filled with men and women of all ages carrying large luggage for the holiday, I noticed that many stores in Tokyo Station Ichibangai had not yet opened. A group of five middle or high school students, all in school uniforms and carrying large backpacks, gathered in front of a shuttered Jump Shop (which mainly sells official merchandise from the Jump comic magazine). One of the students wearing blue Mickey Mouse-shaped sunglasses was squatting on the floor. From my observation of this group of young men, it is clear they are not delinquents. They are probably students on a school trip, simply having fun and playfully imitating rebellious behavior.

As I passed by them, I made my way to Aroma Coffee Yaesu, the oldest coffee shop in the Yaesu underground shopping mall, which has been in operation since 1970. The place was already crowded in the morning, and I waited about five minutes before being shown to my table. Although the store is directly connected to the station, it is quite a long walk from the ticket gates. This may explain why I see few people with large luggage. Most of the customers in the store appear to be local residents or commuters heading to nearby offices.

The store staff greeted the elderly couple at the table next to mine, who seemed to be regulars, by saying “Good morning” instead of “Welcome.” The couple smiled and greeted the staff before ordering two cups of coffee along with two morning sets. They then began reading books, each with a cover from the Maruzen bookstore, quietly and individually. Did they buy the books from the Maruzen Nihonbashi store just around the corner? If so, that sounds like an ideal date!　I was secretly excited.

My idea of an ideal date is to each pick a book we are interested in at a bookstore and then read them together at a coffee shop.

When the thick toast from the morning set was served, the couple spread jam on the slices and began to chat quietly. Having an occasional conversation like this would also be quite ideal. I spread jam on my toast, took a bite, sipped my hot café au lait, and began writing this manuscript.

At the table across from me sat a Gucci bag belonging to a woman who appeared to be a researcher.

“When you build your career and travel abroad frequently, you start to move away from the image of the typical Japanese woman, don’t you? That’s why I lose confidence in romantic relationships. I hear that a lot.”

“Is that still true even with a PhD?”

“Well, even when my career is going well, what can I say …”

“Do you still want to be chosen by someone?”

“Exactly!”

Oh well, I suppose that having a PhD and a Gucci bag would not give you confidence in relationships. In fact, they might even undermine your confidence.

As customers continued to come in and out of the shop, a group of three foreign tourists with carry-on bags made their way down the stairs. The group consisted of a woman wearing a Nintendo T-shirt and carrying a Pokémon tote bag, along with two men. A woman raises her tattooed arm to order three blends.

Now that I think about it, I’ve noticed quite a few foreign tourist groups made up of one woman and two men. However, I don’t recall ever seeing a Japanese group in that combination—or I personally can’t picture a Japanese group traveling together in that way. As I was writing this, I recalled a story about some upperclassmen from my college who went on a trip as a group of one woman and two men. They got into a fight during the trip, and one of the men ended up going home early.

Around noon, I headed to the bus terminal near the Yaesu Central Exit. This bus terminal is where express buses depart for and arrive from various locations in the Kanto region, as well as rural cities in the Tohoku, Kansai, and Chugoku regions.

A woman was smiling and waving her arms widely at a bus that had just departed for Narita. At the bus stop next to her, a foreigner is standing and eating a chirashizushi bento. Behind the bus stop, three women were taking selfies. A volunteer guide in a checkered jacket walked between them. A middle school brass band of about 20 students lined up in a row, rolling their carry-on bags as they crossed the street. A woman speaking Chinese on the phone paced back and forth. I heard a cat meowing nearby. When I looked closer, I saw a white kitten, no more than a year old, meowing intently and shaking its entire body as it peered out of a pet carrier bag that the woman was carrying with a tag still attached. It appears that people are not the only ones confused when they arrive at Tokyo Station.

Back inside the station, the last stop of the day was Starbucks, located in the waiting area inside the Tokaido and Sanyo Shinkansen ticket gates.

As I sat at the counter, the smell of perfume wafted through the air. When I looked to the side, I saw a foreign woman wearing a Jujutsu Kaisen T-shirt, crying intensely for some reason, while the woman accompanying her hugged and comforted her. After a while, the woman who had been crying left, followed about a minute later by the woman who had been comforting her. When I glanced at the spot they had occupied, I noticed a smartphone with a video still playing and a paper napkin from Starbucks. I wondered if they would come back soon, but no—despite how safe Japan is, there was no way they would keep the table like this unguarded. That being said, would they really leave a smartphone behind like this?

Should I take the phone and chase after them? But I have no idea where they went. Should I take the phone to the station staff? But what if the women come back while I’m gone? In the meantime, They could miss my bullet train. If I leave this phone here, someone might take it. I pictured myself grabbing the arm of someone trying to take the phone and asking, “What on earth are you going to do with that?”

Then the crying woman ran back into the store, saying, “Oh!” as she retrieved her phone. It seems that people sometimes forget items in surprising ways. I said to the woman’s back in my mind, “Don’t worry, no one touched your phone because I was guarding it.”

This waiting area was raised a few steps with a passageway directly in front of the counter where people could see passengers coming and going. A station attendant pushed a wheelchair down a ramp, passing a group of three businessmen going home from a business trip, carrying paper bags of Tokyo Banana under their arms.

There are people arriving in Tokyo, people going home from Tokyo, people returning to Tokyo, and people leaving Tokyo.

As I walked past the Shinkansen terminal at Tokyo Station, I suddenly found myself wondering what kind of person I was.

There, I felt like an oddball for going through the trouble of buying an admission ticket and being at the Shinkansen terminal—not to see anyone off. When I took the Shinkansen to leave my hometown and arrived in Tokyo, getting off at Tokyo Station, I was definitely just another visitor to the city. Since I moved when I was 10 years old, the ratio of the time I have lived in different areas throughout my life is roughly 1:1:1 for hometown #1, hometown #2, and Tokyo.

Since I am not sure which region I consider my hometown, does that mean I am someone returning home from Tokyo when I go back home?　Or, am I a person who leaves Tokyo?　When I come back to Tokyo from my home, am I a person who is returning to Tokyo?　Or, am I a person who is visiting Tokyo?

I clearly know the region where I was born. The place where someone grew up generally refers to the land where they spent their childhood. However, I feel that I experienced more mental growth between the ages of 18 and 28 than I did between 10 and 18. So, where did I grow up? Where is the place I am going back to?

A wide variety of people pass through Tokyo Station. Tokyo has various districts, each associated with a specific image of the people who gather there. However, it is difficult to identify a typical type of person found at Tokyo Station. In other words, few places bring together people from all walks of life as much as Tokyo Station does.

I am sure that many people at Tokyo Station, just like me, are passing by one another without knowing where they grew up or where they are going home to. Come to think of this, Tokyo Station felt like a bit friendlier place than it had in the past.

Photo by Shuhei Hatano