When I get on a train, there are people I feel strange.

Those who I feel strange is the ones who keep standing right in front of vacant seats without sitting it.

It seems like seat space for one person has been vacant since a person who took that seat got off at a station and nobody has taken that seat since then and one person has kept standing right in front of the seat space to prevent anyone from sitting there.

I know how the standing person must feel if it is too squashed to move around on the train. However, it was not crowded, rather, there’s hardly anyone on the train and he could keep his sufficient personal space there. But, he kept standing as if he had blocked the seat not to let anyone sit.
It was really wired.

The blocked seat space was wastefully vacant. The seat space for one person was under blockage.

If the standing person had sit on the seat space, where the standing person had been standing, would have been vacant. If so, even if another additional passenger had got on, “one person space” where the standing person had been standing would have been effectively allocated to a new passenger.

Nevertheless, thanks to the standing person blocking the seat, the situation was in the same boat that all seat space is fully occupied.

  • ” I am going to get off very soon so I will keep standing.”
  • ” Actually, the station I get off is still far from here. But I don’t want to sit because I kept sitting in my office and my backbone is really stiff now.”
  • He is just absorbed into something and doesn’t realize that a person sitting in front of him got off
  • Thinking nothing
  • ” The seat space is too narrow to sit. I don’t want to sit in the squashed seat”
  • ” I don’t like the person sitting right next to vacant seat space”
  • ” I don’t actually want to sit but someone sitting in front just irritates me somehow”
  • ” If I sit the seat space, a person sitting next to me, he/she may show a feeling of dislike”
  • “There may be old people around me, who I need to offer the seat. If I sit there once, I think I am reluctant to stand even because of an ethic reason”

Of course, the reason to block the seat really depends on the person’s circumstance. However, a person who has no intention to sit should get out of the place. For example, the case, No.1, No.2, No. 5, No. 9, that will come to the end if I the standing person moves out of the place. If you are in the situation, 9, you just call an old person by you to offer the seat space by saying “here is your seat.”

In the case of No.3 and No.4, I think someone should notify that “you block the seat space. Nobody can sit that seating space. You have to move a little bit away from here.” However, if the standing person realizes there is vacant seat space in front of him/her, he/she may resist or ignore the request and finally sit on that seating space but some people may be willing to offer the seat space.

In the case of No.6 and No.9, if a person sitting next to the vacant space changes the seat with another person, the standing person may sit that vacant seat space. In that case, the standing person probably waits for a person sitting next to a vacant seat space to move out of there.

No.7 is almost harassment. The person doing No.7 already understands what he/she is doing him/herself. No matter how softly you call him/her to move out of the place, it turns into an argument between you and the standing person.

I have a problem to focus only on people who are doing such behavior but I feel that a lot of Japanese people are inconsiderate to other people around them and really bad at observing what happens around them.

I am really surprised that it is quite easy for the standing person to read the situation that he/she blocks the seating space and prevent those who want to sit from sitting that seating space. But stubbornly stand there like a welded statue and concentrate what he/she is doing.

Japanese people’s mentality is said to be quite shy to other unknown people so they can’t smoothly take action to support someone who is really in trouble but this case is far from that fact that Japanese people can’t do inconsiderate behavior because they are shy.

As time goes by, Japanese people’s sense of value has changed and sometimes, I feel doubt if there are Japanese people with even fragmentary of conscience to help anyone else around when I see such people on a train.

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