I happened across a fascinating documentary last night in BBC4. It was the harrowing tale of Japan's worst-ever train crash, in 2005. The material details of the crash were laid out, as one might expect, and there were interviews with several survivors and the families of those who died.
It was all elegantly and dispassionately presented, as good documentary always is. Any pathos that emerges is wrought from the stories that are told; it doesn't need to be cynically prompted by music, insensitive prying journalism and/or mawkish cinematography.
One of the most intriguing things about the programme was its lifting the lid on Japanese inscrutability. It's felt that a major cause of the crash was the intolerable pressure that train drivers are put under in Japan. Timetables are cut several times a year, and extra stations commissioned to accommodate the insatiable demand. But no quarter is given to the drivers, who are expected to magically summon extra speed without compromising passenger safety.
Former drivers spoke bitterly of the quasi-military disciplinary culture of the railways. Drivers contrive to make their station stops by driving dangerously fast and braking dangerously late. The results was this catastrophic crash.
What's interesting about this that it foregrounded for the first time for me that the Japanese are just like the rest of us. That sounds a strange utterance, but I think it's a common assumption among westerners that the Japanese are like polite automatons, or cartoon characters. They don't really have the same preoccupations, emotions and petty fears as the rest of us. I never supposed for a moment that they were possessed of cynicism or bitterness.
They've always inhabited this human hinterland for me, the Japs. I thought for years that, like dogs, they couldn't metabolise chocolate for example. Turns out they love a Curly Wurly as much as the rest of us. Fancy!
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