A Slow Train to Nowhere
Outside the windows, the mountains seemed to rise out of nowhere. Heading out of each tunnel, the traveler is suddenly blinded by the bright colors on the slopes. With not a single piece of dirt, the golden yellow and the bight green leaves of well-preserved old growth is dotted by the occasional pink blossoms and uncharacteristically fiery red. The concentrated eyes of the traveler are forced to refocus to find these dissidents of nature amid the equally beautiful majority.
And as the traveler continues to glance through the rising landscape, the insignificantly little yet respectably resilient human habitation comes into his eyes. The old wooden houses with black tiles are seemingly decorated by the movements of the hardy (aging) farmers picking through the nearby fields. If it were not for the well-worn little trucks taking the produce to the faraway markets, no one would be able to tell that this is no longer feudal Japan…
Inside the warm and nearly empty trains, children spoke heartily about these aging frontiersmen. Some bantered about the delicious cooking of their grandmas, and some reminisced about childhood spent trekking through the mountainous woods. The pouring rains wetting the windows only made their conversations sound more homey and enviable. Anticipation and expectations grow in their voices as the noisy machine clunked into another little station surrounded by fields and nature.
The train continues to move forward at a comfortable speed, allowing the onlookers to soak in every detail, but also producing a movement not so different from a baby’s rocking bed. The middle-aged salary-man, stiff in expression and a conservative suit, put up his feet and slowly drifted off into the land of dreams. His lips flapped like a child’s, and the rhythmic noises of the train drowned out his deep-toned snoring.
With every announcement of the next stop, a little town suddenly popped out the mountain, bringing schools, shrines, and stores into views. Children and adults alike suddenly stopped their chatters and looked out the windows, eyes big as if glaring into a New World. Even the stiffest of the passengers dropped their “social manners” and gasped in joy as a river gorge cut through the mountains, adding sounds of the rushing river to an already-ample orchestra played out by Men and Nature.
Interestingly enough, the train is by no means one for tourists. A local train slowly covering the countryside west of the world’s most populated metropolis, it is perhaps only used by busy Tokyoites heading for an occasional visit to their ancestral hometowns. Destined for the castle town of Matsumoto at the foot of the Japanese Alps, the slow train takes three hours from Tokyo when an express can be done in one.
But I, without the slightest hesitation, chose the slow train. In a country where modernity has always been equated with speed with efficiency, there is just no other way to better observe the contrast between that modern urban state with her laid-back and largely untouched rural heartland. There is no doubt that physical modernity, with its cars and electronics, have reached these remote corners, but the spirit of tradition here does not seem to be washed away by the materialism.
Nowhere was this contrast more obvious than configuring a train full of urban passengers in this natural landscape. A youngster from the youth culture capital of Akihabara had never looked so comically unnatural when he got off the train at a tiny wooden station in god-know-where. Without a doubt, I, like all those ogling the views around me, would stick out like a sore thumb if left in the environment surrounding the trains.
But this little 6-car local train is in itself a window that is helping us to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings. As slowly the train itself moves, we the urbanites are also slowly moving ahead in our understandings of the country’s other side. For the traveler, each journey is a learning process, and for this particular traveler, a journey is not about the destination but the journey itself. To truly learn, then, how minimal is the cost of a little extra time on the road?
And as the traveler continues to glance through the rising landscape, the insignificantly little yet respectably resilient human habitation comes into his eyes. The old wooden houses with black tiles are seemingly decorated by the movements of the hardy (aging) farmers picking through the nearby fields. If it were not for the well-worn little trucks taking the produce to the faraway markets, no one would be able to tell that this is no longer feudal Japan…
Inside the warm and nearly empty trains, children spoke heartily about these aging frontiersmen. Some bantered about the delicious cooking of their grandmas, and some reminisced about childhood spent trekking through the mountainous woods. The pouring rains wetting the windows only made their conversations sound more homey and enviable. Anticipation and expectations grow in their voices as the noisy machine clunked into another little station surrounded by fields and nature.
The train continues to move forward at a comfortable speed, allowing the onlookers to soak in every detail, but also producing a movement not so different from a baby’s rocking bed. The middle-aged salary-man, stiff in expression and a conservative suit, put up his feet and slowly drifted off into the land of dreams. His lips flapped like a child’s, and the rhythmic noises of the train drowned out his deep-toned snoring.
With every announcement of the next stop, a little town suddenly popped out the mountain, bringing schools, shrines, and stores into views. Children and adults alike suddenly stopped their chatters and looked out the windows, eyes big as if glaring into a New World. Even the stiffest of the passengers dropped their “social manners” and gasped in joy as a river gorge cut through the mountains, adding sounds of the rushing river to an already-ample orchestra played out by Men and Nature.
Interestingly enough, the train is by no means one for tourists. A local train slowly covering the countryside west of the world’s most populated metropolis, it is perhaps only used by busy Tokyoites heading for an occasional visit to their ancestral hometowns. Destined for the castle town of Matsumoto at the foot of the Japanese Alps, the slow train takes three hours from Tokyo when an express can be done in one.
But I, without the slightest hesitation, chose the slow train. In a country where modernity has always been equated with speed with efficiency, there is just no other way to better observe the contrast between that modern urban state with her laid-back and largely untouched rural heartland. There is no doubt that physical modernity, with its cars and electronics, have reached these remote corners, but the spirit of tradition here does not seem to be washed away by the materialism.
Nowhere was this contrast more obvious than configuring a train full of urban passengers in this natural landscape. A youngster from the youth culture capital of Akihabara had never looked so comically unnatural when he got off the train at a tiny wooden station in god-know-where. Without a doubt, I, like all those ogling the views around me, would stick out like a sore thumb if left in the environment surrounding the trains.
But this little 6-car local train is in itself a window that is helping us to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings. As slowly the train itself moves, we the urbanites are also slowly moving ahead in our understandings of the country’s other side. For the traveler, each journey is a learning process, and for this particular traveler, a journey is not about the destination but the journey itself. To truly learn, then, how minimal is the cost of a little extra time on the road?
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