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April 10, 2004
Tokyo Metro
International City Tokyo (And a random sakura picture)
Anyway, in an attempt to become more foreigner friendly, the subways in Tokyo have been given a new numbering scheme. This is in addition to the new logo that they have applied. I still think London's -underground- logo is cooler though... The actual logo is the blue "M" for Metro on the image below.
There is also a new poster in the subways with the stations lined up with their prices alphabetically in English! This is actually a cool idea. It won't give you any idea about distance to your location, or where to change trains, but at least you can buy the right ticket! As for the new numbering scheme, it works like this. If you're talking about the stop on Ginza line, Toranomon, you can also refer to it is as "G11". Because "G" stands for Ginza and the first stop on Ginza line, Shibuya, is "G0". Toranomon is the 11th stop from that direction. Easy right? Likewise Marunouchi line is "M", and the other lines have semi-logical letters attached with them as well.
See? Now next time you are going somewhere, and you can't read the Kanji name, as long as you know that Shinjyuku-san-chou-me is on the Marunouchi Line and is stop 9, all you have to do is stop some random young Nihonjin and say, "Yo! I'm lookin' fo' M-09! Where's M-09 at? Is it far from here?" And they'll be like, 「え？エムゼロナイン？何？ごめんなさい、何言ってんのかはわりません！」 And you'll be on your way! It is a good try, but it's going to take a really long time before anyone starts remembering station names by their numeric code, rather than their names. I don't think that this new scheme will ever sink into the minds of the general public, but it might be useful for getting your extra-foreign-still pronounces-sake-as-'sah-key'-friends to places. For example you could just tell your friend, look, it's on the red line, just tell the station guy you want to go to "M-15". It would be a lot easier than trying to get your friend to pronounce the Japanese name to the station employee. Hrm... was that interesting? No? I should start trying to be some kinda reporter for this website... Make some more interesting entries. Since I can speak Japanese... and know a lot of regular Japanese folk, maybe I should do interviews of them and introduce their everyday life or something... that might be cool... What do you guys think?
Bye! Posted by Harvey at April 10, 2004 03:35 PMComments
So what, just because someone pronounces 酒 as さき means they're "extra-foreign?" Posted by: zmcnulty on April 11, 2004 04:48 AMRE: Stories of Japanese friends. If your Japanese friends have interesting lives it might be cool, but not a replacement I think. Like, you could have a bigass interview with someone and then break it down into 4 seperate stories, add some photos perhaps (go with them to their hangouts etc) and do a 4 week special on that person. However, I think you still need stories like the subway numbering thing. Posted by: vvx on April 11, 2004 11:25 AMGotta get a Job... April is the time of year in Japan when the number of young black haired men Ah, was just an added elitist remark for dramatic effect. No offense to any of my saki drinking friends! Seriously though, I would say that if someone doesn't know how to pronouce Sake correctly, they probably won't be able to pronounce many of the Tokyo station names in a way that a Station Employee cound understand them. Heck, I even still stumble over Tameike-Sanno! The only thing about this system though, is that I'm pretty sure that even if I went into a subway in Tokyo now and asked how to get to M09 that the station guy wouldn't initially know what I was talking about... Then again, you never know... Company training in Japan is pretty through... Maybe they're all ready for it or something. Posted by: Harvey on April 11, 2004 11:34 AMGood point on the stories interviews thing... Hrm. I think that Z knows that probably like the concentration for something so involved though... Hrm... I'll have to think about this. Maybe I can slowly collect stuff for one over time and put it all together sometime..... Next year. Posted by: Harvey on April 11, 2004 11:40 AMInterviews, essays, whatever -- it's all good. Just keep 'em coming. Posted by: mdchachi on April 13, 2004 05:54 AMIt's a way of playing with the air purifiers process of creation - if one lets dedicated servers it serve that purpose. Another send flowers example: a lot of modern composers caribbean cruise who use Finale or similar programs cigars to score their music, either dental plans on the fly or by means of the scrivner green card approach, employ the cut paste merchant account Posted by: link exchange on June 7, 2004 07:16 AMThe Tokyo metro area encompasses a huge amount of transit operations that cover a full spectrum of transit services. There are subways, commuter trains, Trams/Light Rail, monorails and automated trains. Tokyo is made up with a spaghetti of subway lines. It is often confusing even to the locals, but it does get you to where you want to go. Tokyo itself actually has two separate subway systems. The TOEI is run by the municipal government and has 4 lines. Posted by: alvin on November 24, 2004 01:24 PMComment?
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