Random Memory Triggers

So supposedly in Tokyo, on the Yamanote line of the subway, each stop has its own background music to listen to while you wait on the platform. Logically, some Japanese company came up with this little piggy bank that plays those subway tunes when you put money in it.



This reminded me of Beijing, where every 7-11 has the exact same 20 second tune that plays over and over again, all day long. In every store. It was a tune that I'd get stuck in my head and not even know where it came from. I once was hanging around with a good friend and he randomly started humming the tune, then I started humming the tune and we both were like "what's that from!?" It was so embedded in our minds from too many trips to the 7-11 (it's different in China...) that we didn't even consciously know where it came from.

But back to the Tokyo train - and there is a tenuous connection in my head between the two - I just love living in cities full of seemingly afterthought details. While I'm sure there was a group of people that made the decision to have different little jingles at each stop for this line of the subway, it's not an active advertising campaign as much as just a friendly mental reminder that "you're here!" The next stop will be a different friendly reminder that "hey, you're somewhere else now" (and of course, great for blind people!). How cool is that!? Such a tiny detail but when you live in a place where subways are so common that you spend hours, even days, of your life on them, it can be such a mental trigger. I'm sure that if I took the Yamanote train everyday, those little songs would become inextricable parts of my memory of them. And sure, if I had to work at a 7-11 in Beijing, that little 20 second jingle would probably drive me insane and haunt me in my sleep. But as a place I went to get Chinese hot dogs, bean paste buns, $.50 packs of cigs, and bottles of cheap Great Wall red wine, it was a delightful and tiny little jingle of familiarity. Often it's the little things that really make a place special for you as a resident of that place, not just as a tourist. Beijing has so many little things about it that I loved, and this video just triggered one miniscule random little piece of it.

(hat tip to TokyoMango)