I came across this idea when i heard that one of the reasons why Manga and books sell much better in japan , is that they have time to read them on the train to work/school , while in the states and elsewhere, you would be busy driving . I thought : A train is a good place to have a small scale public forum, people could discuss the news and how it affects their lives, and we can see how world events affect the little man more visably. You would have a proper cross section of society too , from the poor to the rich, as the train doesn't descriminate .
Has anyone else done this before? any tips?
Posted by oliverhouse (Member # 3432) on :
I commute by train into Manhattan, 40 minutes each way. It's my down time. I read, listen to music, think, gear up for important meetings, decompress from long days. My wife is jealous because I get a commute.
Conversations among clusters of friends is fine and happens all the time, as long as they're not too loud.
A "small public forum" is likely to get someone killed.
That may just be because it's NY, but having ridden commuter trains in DC, Toronto, and so on, I don't think it's much different there.
Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 1655) on :
I don't like people, why would I want to talk to them on a train? Plus Oliver is probably right about people dying.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
You don't strike up conversations with random people on the trains in Asia either. That's why they're all reading manga, neh? As for manga and books, literature generally has a much different place in Asian culture than in Western culture, mainly because of the influence of the Chinese writing system. In Western countries, almost everyone who can read can write without looking obviously illiterate. But writing systems that incorporate Chinese characters are different, a frequent sub-plot element in some manga, but also a real influence on how literacy is percieved in Asian culture.
In short, it isn't considered strange or shameful for educated, successful adults to read manga. It's also not considered strange to buy books that you will simply throw away after reading. Quite the reverse, it's considered a little strange or childish to not throw away a book you've already read. For us, burning a book (and they do burn their trash over there) is an expression of utter contempt for the contents. This is just not the case in Asia.
It has a lot to do with differences in the evolution of technology. A book has a special meaning to Westerners, different from something ostensibly quite similar like a magazine, say...TV Guide. There are historical issues as well, in Asia, if you really wanted to suppress an idea, you killed the author, destroying all the literature was secondary. In Europe, it wasn't uncommon to allow an author to live despite his having written something you really wanted burned.
But the conversations on the train thing is the same. If it weren't, then you wouldn't have a "proper cross section of society" (even assuming that you have one as it is, which I doubt). If it were usual for anybody to approach anyone with whom they happened to share a rail car, very soon you'd see lots of people avoiding the trains at considerable expense and the remainder taking steps to segragate "their" cars.
Posted by discipuli (Member # 3395) on :
I know people don't usually talk on a train unless they are friends or something else moves them. The idea is that something will change the pattern of their lives and bring them closer together.
Events like 9/11 , your country winning the world cup , stuff like that , everyone in the bar hugs and sings or cries , same on the train if a radio or television is around.
Posted by Leigh (Member # 2901) on :
I have to catch the train to work for more than an hour. (That's when I get work. ) All I can say is that when people are with friends, usually more than 3 people are involved, then the noise level is indeed great.
As for the discrimination part you said discipuli, I've seen it, I've been involved involuntarily, I've helped end it. Yes, I don't live in stereotypically bad places like New York, but we in Melbourne, Australia have quite a few races, religions and persona's on the trains that can be quite explosive if people don't mind their matters.
As for the time spent travelling, I've used it to formulate plots, just day dream about being in my world and other unexciting places that "normal" folk don't consider good for your health.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
I do all my commuting by car. That lets out reading during the to-and-fro entirely. (There's Books-on-Tape, or Books-on-CD, but it's hardly the same thing.)
And it's a solitary experience, too. I see enough people at work to have communal experience...that seems more than sufficient.
Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :
How about train-trains? I rode the train from Poughkeepsie NY to Austn, Tx back in April. I conversed with my seat mate for several hours (he was a sports writer from London, England) and I read two books (the trip took almost three days).
The very length of the travel time forced me to "do" something.
Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :
Robert, I started doing the book-on-CD thing, and it's fantastic. It's not quite the thing for fiction, but for pure education it's great. In the last six months, I've done 5 books on the American Revolution, a biography of Teddy Roosevelt, and a history survey of the Middle East that I never would have had time for otherwise.
Posted by oliverhouse (Member # 3432) on :
I take Amtrak to DC every now and then. It's about a 3-hour trip. Maybe I'm a jerk, but I don't have a lot of interest in chatting with people on those trains, either. I don't hate it, but I've usually got my head stuck in a laptop or a book.
Well, but maybe not. I fly a lot, too (Platinum OnePass on Continental), and I'd say I'm much more likely to have a conversation on a plane than on a train. Maybe it's at least partly the environment, and not just me.
I used to commute by car. The books on tape thing is good, but it gets old. Talk radio gets old, too. I like music a lot, and stuck to that for the most part. I occasionally get tired of my current cattle car commute, but when I do I remember what it was like to drive all the time.
Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :
I notice that humans desire the reassurance of human contact under conditions that they percieve to be moderately stressful. Being high in the air with very little control over their environment creates such a situation. And the fact that everyone on the plane has been vetted induces an assumption of commonality.
I've always found the security arrangments annoying, particularly as I've gotten older and my desire to exterminate all humans has become stronger and harder to mask for any significant length of time. The way things are now, I wouldn't even bother. Still, I did notice that people would initiate conversations with me or other strangers on a plane. I presume that it is now even more true, since the two major factors which cause this are now more pronounced.
When I drive a car, I prefer listening to the car and the road, though occasionally I like to sing to myself. When I'm riding in a car I don't mind one way or the other.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Since I haven't ever had to be somewhere far away in a great hurry, I've never been on a passenger plane. (My air travel experience consists of a single helicopter jaunt over Niagara Falls---not for the height-squeamish, but I managed.) Even before recent events and security upgrades, I was somewhat put off by what one had to go through to get on a plane. So my avoidance is likely to continue in the immediate future.
I don't know that Books-on-Tape would work. I've tried a couple of things---I have a small collection of assorted old radio shows---and find I can't concentrate on them, in the way I want to and like to, while also driving the car. Besides, it's the primary place I listen to music, and I don't know if I want to displace that, even though the local radio music programming is uniformly uninteresting. (I've taken to burning some CDs with my computer to get good stuff in my car, and when I get bored with one, I can just burn another.)
As for human contact, the main thought of this set...well, I still get enough of it at work, rather than to-and-fro.
(I'm from Poughkeepsie, originally...and had no idea you could make train connections to Austin, Texas. That might make an interesing vacation trip---what I'd do on a vacation would be different than what I'd do at home...)
) All I can say is that when people are with friends, usually more than 3 people are involved, then the noise level is indeed great.