More Manner Posters

Last November, I wrote a post about Japan Tobacco, Tokyo Metro, and Toei Subway‘s マナー・ポスター (manner posters). (Click here to see that post).

Well, yesterday I rode the 西武新宿線 (Seibu Shinjuku train line) and noticed their マナー・ポスター (manner posters).

I think I like these best. They’re pretty clever. Each one shows a different animal and says some good manner…using a play-on-words with the animal’s name.

They’re impossible to translate and get the same humorous play-on-words.

For example, one says 「乗車は順にならブーさん。」 (Line up when entering the train.)…and shows pigs lining up (pigs say 「ブー」). (See, it gets lost in translation.)

Or how about 「ボリュームちいサイさん。」 (Keep the (headphones) volume down.)…with a rhino listening to music quietly (“Rhino” = 「サイ」).

Or 「次の電車を待ちまヒョウさん。」 (Let’s wait for the next train (rather than run to board one))…with a leopard waiting nicely (“Leopard” = 「ヒョウ」). Actually, correct Japanese would be 「次の電車を待ちましょう。」 but it’s OK for the joke.

Another one says 「車内のゴミは持ちサルさん。」 (Carry your garbage off of the train.) and 「ホームではゴミ箱へ捨てるでごザルさん。」 (Throw your garbage in the garbage can on the platform.)…with one monkey carrying his garbage off the train and another throwing his in the bin. (“Monkey” =　「サル」).

And 「駅構内で煙草スワンさん。」 (Don’t smoke on train station premises.)…with a swan holding a “No Smoking” sign. (“Swan” = 「スワン」).

And at the bottom of all of them it says グッドマナーを、ありがとう。 (“Thank you for your good manners.“).

I think that these manner posters are clever. What do you think?
Click here if you want to see all of the 西武新宿線のマナー・ポスター (Seibu Shinjuku train line’s manner posters).

マナー

Japanese are famous for their マナー (manners).
Even big cities in Japan like Tokyo and Osaka have less crime and more general politeness than other large metropolises in the world.

There is crime and there rude people in Japan…but considerably less than in cities overseas.

The high level of politeness in Japan means that the bad manners that most commonly encounter here are things like smoking or eating while walking, putting make-up on while riding the train, music turned up too loud on a Walkman®, not giving up a seat on a train or bus to the elderly, and using cell-phones near the silver seats on the train (where they’re supposed to be turned off).

So, fairly recently, both the Tokyo Metro Subway company and Japan Tobacco (JT) each started a series of good manners posters. (Japan Tobacco‘s posters were originally only aimed at smokers to reiterate good smoking manners…but have grown to include general good manners).

Both the subway and JT‘s posters are written in 日本語 (Japanese) and English. So I like to read them, not so much for their intentionally humorous writing style…but to study the 日本語 (Japanese).

Here are a few of JT‘s posters:

The Tokyo Metro‘s posters have a 「〇〇でやろう。」 (“Please do it at…”) theme, with a clearer explanation at the bottom. For example, one shows a man diving through the subway car’s closing doors and it says 「海でやろう。」 (“Please do it at the beach.”).

There are older manner posters, too. That don’t have any English written on them.

The ones above are the newer ones…but you can still see the original manner posters in Tokyo sometimes.

Here are a couple of the older subway manner posters.

They both basically ask commuters not to bother other commuters with loud music from headphones, sitting improperly (taking up too much space), applying make-up or eating and drinking, or putting their belongings on the seat next to them: