Talking in train rude?

I know you are not expected to talk on your phone in trains in Japan but what about general chatting with your fellow passenger?

Sat on a limited express train for 3 hours listening to two middle aged ladies talking non stop, not very loud but enough to be audible. Wish I had my earphones that time as I would have rather not listen to their talk.

Since I understand a bit Japanese it's hard to cut it off like if they were speaking say... Cantonese.

General chatting is okay but it depends on the volume of your voice. No one will complain if you have a conversation at a moderate volume. What is considered rude is the loudness like in a very casual buffet party, or at the level of chattering in a nightclub.

In the pandemic, you were to refrain from talking in enclosed places such as trains, but I'm afraid that talking in an ordinary tone inside long-distance trains such as a limited express is considered totally acceptable in normal circumstances like today.

If you find it annoying for some reason and can't speak up, an idea is to visit the conductor and either have your seat replaced to a different section or have the conductor talk to the people chatting so that they could tone down. In the same way, you can ask a waiter if you were in a restaurant.

Or if you want to speak directly to them, an idea is to use your sense of humor. For example, you can say something like "o-nigiyaka desune (My, you ladies are having such fun!)" with a cynical smile.

Instead, I've seen people spit out a big sigh or talk badly with his/her fellow passenger, but I think it's unnecessarily impolite. There are much better ways to shut people up.

On a related note, I've noticed that foreign travelers coming from places where commuter trains aren't common tend to talk in a voice louder than what is expected. They also chat across isles, which you don't really do in Japanese cities. Some even chat across a stranger (ie. if person A, B and C are sitting next to each other, A talks to C when B is a total stranger to them), and this is annoying too. If I end up being in the middle of these situations, I usually exchange seats with one of them so that they could talk together while sitting next to each other.

I hope that tomorrow is a better day for you.

General chatting is fine. Too load may be considered rude.

In your situation, I would've just moved to a free seat between stations to get away for a while.

This actually happened last summer. I was on my way back to my hotel after one of the summer festivals in Tohoku. The train car was relatively empty - just me, one old Japanese man, and a group of 8 people from 3 different southeast Asian countries. Those 8 all spoke Mandarin Chinese with accents, and they were strangers until they boarded the train. I know, because I can speak Chinese.

Those 8 people were so excited, about the festival they just attended and the whole trip to Japan. They introduced each other and started talking, talking, talking. Things go very loud quickly. It was like being in a dim sum restaurant - people shout otherwise they cannot hear each other. I thought about politely telling them, in Chinese, to lower their volumes. But, since the ride was short I decided to keep quiet and listen to their stories.

Well, the old Japanese man could not take it anymore. He came over and told them to be more quiet, in Japanese. One of the 8 understood a little Japanese, so she translated it and told the others that they should lower the volume. Things did get a little quiet, for about 30 seconds, and the volume started picking up again, as if that old Japanese man did not exist.

I suppose I would have been equally offended, like the lone Japanese man, if I didn't understand what the foreigners were shouting about.

Perhaps it would've been slightly a different story if the loud people were foreigners or even people talking in dialects from a far away region. I would've given them advice just so that they'd know the local manners. I've traveled to big cities such as New York and London where I saw locals giving such advice, and I try to learn from them. When you're the local resident, you often feel the duty to speak up so that visitors can learn and avoid any bigger conflict.

Generally speaking, if you're speaking lightly with a passenger on the train, it happens all the time. It's really only rude when people are either talking VERY loudly or shouting. I don't see that happening too often, but I do find it ironic that they always have messages on the train telling people to be quiet because of elderly people on the trains, but then some of the elderly people are the loudest ones talking, lol.

Japan has some of the best train etiquette I've seen and it's honestly rare that you'd encounter people being so absurdly loud that it's very distracting. If worst comes to worst, just move your spot and go to another car. There was only 1 time while I was living in Japan that I saw a guy who was so drunk who was screaming and running around the train and jumping on the seats that the train staff had to pull the guy off the train.

TLDR; You can speak at a soft volume and it's no problem at all.

they always have messages on the train telling people to be quiet because of elderly people on the trains

I've never seen/heard that in my whole life, anywhere in the world including Japan where I've been riding trains.

@uco

When I was on the trains, they constantly had announcements to silence cell phones and not to speak loudly due to other people on the trains and they even mention elderly people. That's what I'm referring to. Just because you've never seen or heard about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I know for a fact it does.

Here you go. https://www.jrailpass.com/blog/japan-train-etiquette#:~:text=Silence%2....

That's not what that message says. Only says ro turn of mobiles need elderly. Nothing to do with noise.

Just because you've never seen or heard about it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I know for a fact it does.

I agree. I'm terribly sorry if the fact that I've never heard of it in the 58 years of my life in Japan including a few years of doing railway-travel-related work sounded like I'm saying it exists.

And thank you for the link which is not run by JR. I see that the blogger incorrectly writes "turn your phone off if sitting near the priority seating area. This is done to reduce the device’s potential interference with pacemakers used by the elderly," which is about phones interfering pacemakers, and not about being loud or being an elderly.

But still, I've never heard a railway announcement saying something about voices interfering elderlies. Most elderlies do not use pacemakers anyway. And those who do use pacemakers include many young people such as children. But it's been a while since doctors commonly started using pacemakers that would not be interfered by phones used by people sitting right next to you.

I'm not sure where you've lived in Japan, though I've 100% heard announcements in both English and Japanese on the JR line saying to silence phones and keep conversations quiet as not to disturb people around you. That includes elderly, so I"m not sure why you're trying to say that I'm not correct about being quiet. I just found it ironic that a lot of elderly people are the ones who are the loudest on the trains compared to others, despite Japanese society always trying to show respect towards elderly people.

Tom, you and I are not communicating well at all, but that's alright as long as the OP understands what I'm saying.

「they always have messages on the train telling people to be quiet because of elderly people on the trains」

I think it's the "because" part of that which has some of us scratching our heads, because...
1. Rail operators in Japan regularly post messages/make announcements asking passengers to refrain from being excessively noisy.
2. They also regularly have messages about offering/leaving open priority seats for elderly passengers.
3. And they regularly have messages about turning off your phone near priority seats so as not to interfere with pacemakers.

Only one of those categories mentions elderly people, and it's not the one about being quiet, though you could say that the pacemaker one is a de facto request because of elderly rider riders, as they're statistically the ones most likely to have pacemakers. The "please be quiet" messages aren't ever presented as a request made for the sake of the elderly. You mentioned " I've 100% heard announcements in both English and Japanese on the JR line saying to silence phones and keep conversations quiet as not to disturb people around you. That includes elderly," which is true, but it also includes middle-aged adults, teens, children, and babies, none of whom necessarily want other people to be noisy around them.

Since the "please be quiet" request isn't being made by or on behalf of the elderly more than any other group, it doesn't feel any more "ironic" if elderly passengers are being loud than any other demographic. And while you may indeed have regularly been on trains where the seniors were the loudest, I doubt most people would agree that's a universal truth of train travel in Japan.