“The last thing I feel like dealing with today is a Jedi.”

Image source: Kirai

Check out Publicly Sleeping Salarymen for more Japanese sleeping in public.

Salarymen are the Japanese corporate livestock. They are the thousands of faceless, suited, white collar office-workers. Dutiful conformists whose lives revolve entirely around work. They work long hours and when their day is over, they are often found spending their evenings in a local izakaya or karaoke bar plying themselves full of sake or beer or shōchū until the last train.

The following collection features 10 of the best publicly sleeping salarymen photos. Those who made the last train, and those who didn’t.

1. The Suicide Pact

The man in the foreground lies on the yellow navigation stripe used by blind people probably not realising it is for the vision impaired, not the blind drunk. Taken by jhtham in Shibuya at 5.00am on a Saturday morning.

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This is my first submission to the Japan Blog Matsuri! The theme this month is ‘what do you find most unusual, crazy or strange about Japan?’.

Now, there are so many unusual, crazy and strange things about Japan however, for this post, I want to move away from the obvious and extreme ‘crazy Japan’ and bring to your attention some mainstream wackiness.

Inspired from GetMeABucket, I nominate the ‘oga kuzu-bako’ (or ‘sawdust bin’) as an unusual, crazy or strange thing about Japan.

Oga Kuzu-Bako at Omotesando Station

A more appropriate interpretation for the ‘sawdust bin’ is ‘vomit station’. It is a dedicated metal bin, located on the platforms of train stations in Japan, that contain readily available sawdust that aids as an absorbant for commuter hurl.

To me, this is strange and begs the question. Obviously, the barf bins were installed on train platforms due to high instances of passenger puke. Is the message that commuters on trains in Japan are alcohol intolerant or just hard drinking salarymen?

A special thanks to Gakuranman for hosting this month’s matsuri.

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