Before the invention of cell phones and pagers, it was common to come across public chalkboards in Japanese train stations. They were used as a means of communication to write a message if one person couldn’t stick around any longer and had to leave before the other arrives.
However, once mobile phones and text messaging became ubiquitous, the once loved public chalkboards quickly started to phase out of existence. Train stations found it easier to simply remove the boards all together instead of constantly having to maintain them.
Now it seems as though the once highly used chalkboards are making their return, as the Higashi Kanagawa Station recently installed not one, but four brand-new chalkboards. What makes this news especially interesting is the fact that Higashi Kanagawa Station is located in Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan, just 30 minutes away from tourist hotspot Downtown Tokyo.
The reason as to why exactly the chalkboards were reinstalled was written above the boards by station staff and reads as follows- “Everyone, thank you for doing what you can to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. These days, we’re all having to put off doing a lot of things we want to do. There are places we want to go, and people we want to see. So why not put those feelings into words?”
Images posted to social media show that there’s a tray of chalk, with each stick to be used only once by a single person, and a bottle of hand sanitizer next to the blackboards.
今日の東神奈川駅。厳しい社会情勢の中、利用者が想いを書き込める伝言板が設置されてます。 pic.twitter.com/ZGR0DCS6ES
— Maihama Line (@MaihamaLine) April 30, 2020
東神奈川駅に伝言板が設置されてた
ケータイ世代にはいまいちピンときてないけど…誰かが冴羽獠に依頼したってことだけはわかった pic.twitter.com/vPIDx9nGos
— 草 (@meganehitori) May 2, 2020
The days messages are removed every evening at 6pm to make room for the next day’s batch of messages.
Image: Twitter/GEORGE1118
