Chanpon

Sometimes our wishes are fulfilled -

When I lived in Japan, I spent so much time riding the trains. Nearly every day started and ended with a train ride, with train rides in between.

And Tokyo is a fabulous place to ride the train - the city is practically choked with rails. And amidst that total transportation environment, each of the stops has their unique characteristic - chiefly sonic. A brief melody - a station theme. And always the voices - number two line, door closing, please be careful. Because of the danger, please stand behind the yellow line. Doors are closing, please stand back. Layers of recorded and live voices.

NPR did a piece on the train tones; that was nice to hear. BoingBoing had a link to some MIDI versions of the train themes; computer-rendered tones. I wrote about those on Chanpon: Train Tone Super-懐かしい.

A comment posted to that entry by Rash lead me to the motherload. A beautiful thorough web site with MP3s of lovingly-crafted fan archive of Japan's train tones. Oh bliss, oh rapture - the overlapping announcers, the screeching wheels, the tinkling tones. The human contours of boarding and waiting for trains audible above the polished tinkle of the chimes.

I can't believe it - but I started crying! Listening to these songs from the trains of Tokyo tonight, I began to cry. Tears leaking from my eyes, breath bouncing from my chest. I think I must miss that city - or the part of my life then, transient, bouncing back and forth between the correspondent's club and various hotels and meeting spots. A language, a series of instructions and prompts I was learning. Sounds that surrounded and prompted me each day, for eighteen months. Ambient, impersonal - sentimental and precious. Somehow so emotional!

If you have any curiosity, Shibuya1, Gotanda1, or Harajuku1 will give you a good sense of my enthralling rememberance of train tones past. A victory for manufactured media memory! Crafted audio attachment.