Here is a deeper look into the Yamanote Halloween Train event tracing its murky origins and its even murkier organizing. I talk with participants past and present about the event's origins, how they heard about it, and what they think about it. You'll note that a number of those I speak with are Japanese. Also mentioned in this mini-documentary is the Wikipedia controversy where an article on the Halloween Train was deleted on the grounds that it didn't exist.
24 Comments
Tweet this!
Add this link to...
Alert...
24 Comments
Tweet this!
Add this link to...
Alert...
Ha ha - I just found this. Awesome. Selling snowmen to the Japanese. People buy...I'll try it if I can get my hands on it....Not quite as bad as Nakashima Mika's version (honestly what could be?), but...OH wait a minute...it is damn pricey for just a three pack....This might actually be good. I look forward to giving it a try....Congrats on getting photo of the week in the current...well done Danny!! I'm sold! (-:...Good point. Maybe he had a senior moment....I thought the pictures were great! Nice review. :-)...But if he's Catholic...where's that put HIS work ethic? Ha ha. What wins out?...
Comments
Or deleted on the grounds that it wasn't worth having an entry for? I'm pretty sure that was the reason why it was deleted. So having Japanese people there legitimizes the idea and divorces it from the fact that as one of the people in the "documentary" said the majority of the people on the train were foreigners? That not exactly sound logic.
Speaking of sound logic ... neither is your comment which I can't make heads or tales of.
Forgot a word. So sue me.
As for documentary - that's what this is. Whether you like it or not is immaterial. This event has being going on for over 20 years so I dug around a bit to learn more about it and shed more light on the subject. That's called journalism. As for your take on why they deleted it at Wikipedia, that's your own opinion formed out of the aether of your imagination and not based in any sort of reality.
It's a seven minute youtube vid from a year ago. Ha. Hardly a documentary. Lets not put lipstick on a pig.
As far as Wikipedia is concerned nothing is deleted without some sort of bickering back and forth about the topic. What academic sources are there on this subject that could be cited to make a decent article about it? I'd venture to guess none and that's why this "event" doesn't have a page there. It's not worth writing about.
The only people who would be interested in the event are sociologists anyways. Even that would be a waste. Who cares about the history of this? Talk about immaterial. Grown children making a mess of public transportation using their scholarship money. Clearly, this needs a 7 minute youtube "documentary." Solid journalism!
Here's a quote from Wikipedia. I assume this is why there's no article about the train:
"Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication.... If an article topic has no reliable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS
Bingo, Nick.
This sentence is confusing: "article on the Halloween Train was deleted on the grounds that it didn't exist." The Yamanote line didn't exist, the train event didn't exist or the article never existed?
What the problem here is that besides Jordan being a self-righteous stick-in-the-mud that it's case of who was there and who doesn't WTF they're talking about.
Having attended the Halloween Train event and been involved in the debate over the deletion of the article on Wikipedia, I can honestly I say you lot don't know WTF you're talking about but that doesn't stop folks like Jordan being an insulting twit.
BTW another successful Halloween Train event went off yesterday with any problems and we even brought one or two 2chan guys around surprisingly when they realized it wasn't the horror of horrors that overimagitive Puritanic gaijin suck-ups have made it out to be.
Hahaha. Clearly, few people share your opinion on the subject so you have to get all huffy and puffy while clutching at straws. From what I've heard the police and others have had enough of the bs and put the kibosh on things. Maybe you should, you know, grow up or something? What you need is a holiday in Cambodia.
But honestly, what makes you think it is your right to use the trains like this? You call me a purtain and a suck up and all that, but when people question yours and other peoples' behavior you come off as indignant. Seriously, do you feel it is within your rights as the holder of a work visa to use the trains like this? What gives with people like yourself?
Jordan, seriously, you need to back the F..K out of my face, boy. You're making this way too personal and I'm not in the mood having gotten little sleep last night to engage in witty banter with a nitwit. I don't appreciate some smarmy git insulting me and my work. I suggest you and I just leave each other be from now on. I won't comment on what passes for your work and you just leave mine alone because believe me at this point I don't give the proverbial rat's behind for your so called opinion. Basically, I just don't like you and furthermore I can't believe you actually wrote "HaHaHa." WTF? You're a couple of jokers shy of a deck, son.
To clarify for the slow of wit, I am not an organizer of this event. I just participate and document. I've barely had any time to get more than a few sips in because I'm always busy filming and interviewing. To me it's another festival/event like countless others that I have been to and documented. What I don't like though is when people who have never been try to make it out as something which it is not. If it were just obnoxious drunk foriegners harrassing japanese I would have damned it as such. I didn't even plan to be a defender of the event either until ignorant people began making up wild assumptions about something they never witnessed.
In 2005 I had no idea what the Halloween Train would be like but I thought it would be interesting to attend and report about it. It turned out to be a lot of fun with foriegners and japanese just drinking, chatting, and occassionaly chanting station names. To tell you the truth, the vast majority weren't even drunk nor became so because everyone was so busy taking pictures plus it was only 9, a bit early to be wasted. The thing only lasted an hour and most people went off to other Halloween parties.
Same thing with 2006 and 2007. With the 2006 one I dug up info from old expats on the event while on the train I interviewed foriegners and japanese alike about their knowledge and experience of the event. The Wikipedia bit was not over Wikipedia's standards but just over two users' and their opinions. The comments were directed to them, not Wikipedia itself.
With 2007, Japanprobe opened up a huge can of worms with the 2chan people. Again I smelled a story there so off I went and got the story of the Halloween Train that got away - ie escaped the attention of 2chan and the police.
The thing that a dunderhead like Jordan can't understand about news and why ultimately news left up to popular vote is a bad idea, is that people's opinions and biases get in the way of a story. A story has validity whether you like it or not. The Halloween Train is an event whether you like or not and as such deserves recognition just for the mere fact of its existence.
My stories and videos on the Halloween Train aren't saying join the Halloween Train. They are just saying - "this is what happened in 2005, 2006, and 2007." If anyone had actually bothered to notice, they would have notice that I was careful to avoid saying what time and what station the Halloween Train took place with the exception of 2007 when the locations were key parts to understanding the background of that story.
Overall I put quite a bit of time and effort into these stories and videos and to have it blasted out of hand by some nitwit who leaves "HaHaHa!" comments is rather annoying.
I'm not making it personal at all. You are the one calling me silly names and so on. I'm just pointing out that this event isn't something worth fighting for and that your assertions of covering it for the sake of "news" are absurd.
What do I know? After all, I'm a dunderhead and you are the guy/reporter who calls himself Samurai Dave. XD OMG, LOLZ. HAHAHA.
What is a dunderhead?
I don't get the controversy over this post or subject. It seems to exist, as there is video of it, so why would Wikipedia delete the entry for it?
And though the SamuraiDave persona may be a little corny (no offense Dave), no doubt he put a lot of effort into that video (as a person who makes small videos himself, I know the effort for just very basic vacation videos even).
And so many of the posts to JapanSoc are just links to like a single blurry digital photo of something and like one or two lines of text, I appreciate someone making the effort to actually attempt something resembling journalism.
So I'm not commenting on the subject matter or the quality of the video, just that an effort was made far beyond what most bloggers make when blogging about Japan.
And Jordan is one of a few people I'd vouch for on this site, so I'm surprised to see him get so angry over this subject matter.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I just don't see why anyone would feel so strongly about Halloween parties on a train.
If I am lucky maybe I will run across this train.
Well ... you can always dress up and wait at one of the Yamanote stations for the train with lots of people dressed up in weird costumes and making lots of noise. Or, failing that, you could just go to Akihabara
Well done Dave, you've got my vote if that makes you feel better. Enjoyed the video, thanks for taking the time to go out there and making a decent documentary about something very unique to Tokyo. Respect.
No idea what you're so angry about Jordan, seems like you started the tirade of insults first. Why jump down Dave's throat like that? Have a bad day?
I'm not sure why people think I'm angry. Ha. I'm not.
Oh and just for the record, I said my peace with the usual gusto, but I didn't start the insults first: "written by samuraidave 30 days ago
yeah, you're a killjoy and it ain't just gaijin. Almost half of the participants these days are Japanese. It's just a once a year event on one train and usually not even a full train at that so get off your moral high horse, pilgrim."
http://www.japansoc.com/Strange/the-tokyo-yamanote-halloween-train/
By "you" in the second paragraph I did not mean Samurai Dave.
Concurrred >>just don't see why anyone would feel so strongly about Halloween parties on a train.
As far as I know, participants in the annual event include Japanese and non-Japanese. Given all the nutty things that Japanese people do and the acceptance of it, a group of people in costume for a well-known event, riding the train for an hour - big deal.
Thanks for the comments, guys! I had little to no sleep and had to work all day yesterday. I had gone on the (or a?) Halloween Train saturday night then went to all night halloween party in Shinjuku afterwards. Had a great night and got to lock lips with a sexy professional japanese s&m dominatrix.
I apologize for letting Jordan get under my skin like that - no apologies to him though, he can take a long walk off a short pier. The smarmy lipstick on a pig and solid journalism cracks set off my sleep-deprived ire not too mention the bizarre HaHaHa's which I just find annoying on any given occasion so I acted out accordingly.
Oh geesh. Come on now. Lets kiss and make up.
Hopefully till this thing will go under the radar again so I can go next year. Too much hype now.