The light was absolutely lovely, but for this salaryman there was sadly no time to take a minute, or even take it in. It was simply another mad dash from the station to his destination.
A Tokyo salaryman’s daily dash?
Photographs from a small group of islands
Iwao Yamamoto says
I myself don’t like dashing outside. Some workers dash even in the office. I can’t understand their deed. How meaningless and dangerous it is to run in the crowd! Such Japanese salary men should have some leasure in their minds I think.
Lee says
I guess they don’t like doing it. Or at least I presume so. But it’s obviously what’s expected of them…
Hans ter Horst says
I find the whole concept of the Japanese salaryman very alien to me and most of the stereotypes are probably true. I’ve met them, sat to dinner with them and had nothing to talk about for hours as the conversation invariably led to talk about their office politics and they had no hobbies other than playing a bit of golf that they didn’t really like either. It seemed that they are terribly unhappy but have no way out and no time to even spent on the things they would like to do. I wouldn’t survive that 🙁
Lee says
Likewise. I simply couldn’t do it. The commitment to an all-encompassing job really can’t be much fun. And heaven knows how they must feel when it comes to retirement time, and they look back at all those years spent working for a company that simply marches happily on without them…
Squidpuppy says
Great shot.
For some perverse reason, I always liked these kind of underpass areas, and particularly, the tiny restaurants and curiosity shops under train tracks. Not the fancy shotengai below stations (which I love for their own reasons), but the fumy, funky, ratty, boro-boro nandemoya (what we kids used to call them – not sure it’s a real word) and tachigui dives. I expect there are fewer, and fewer of them, and I bet the best ones, in random pedestrian underpasses, are pretty much gone.
Lee says
Cheers!
Yeah, me too. Often dark, dingy places that invariably contain unexpected treasures. Wonderful spots.
I would imagine there are a lot less, but thankfully there are a good few still left. Hopefully it’ll stay that way as well.
Conan the Grammarian says
Not perverse at all. There’s something rather delightfully sleazy about passing from a sunlit street into that half-light beneath the tracks. Kind of like being out on the city streets at four o’clock in the morning…..
Lee says
That’s very true. Hadn’t thought of it in that way before.
Megan says
Great photo, says a lot about priorities in our contemporary society.
Lee says
Thank you.
Yes, it does. Something we are all guilty of to some degree…
Fabrice says
Lost the love of what surrounds them outside.