Train drivers in Japan have an almost innate sense of timing - like a well-prepared actor, they know their lines perfectly. After nearly three years in the country and thousands of train journeys under my belt, not once have I experienced a late one.
I had heard of them, knew it must have happened, but never believed it would happen to me. It was something that happened to other people, like the man who knows a woman whose neighbour's first cousin had her bag snatched.
As a rule, in this regulated but democratic society, the trains do not just run on time - they set the time. But when it comes to political attitudes, politicians offer opinions and trains of thought more suited to 1920 than the present day.
Take, for instance, the case of Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara's asinine remarks on women.
He said in a magazine interview last year that 'it's meaningless for women to live after they lose the ability to reproduce'. He continued in this misogynist vein by claiming that the worst thing civilisation had brought with it was the proliferation of 'old hags'. While there was not an uproar, 119 women aged 20 to 70 recently filed a lawsuit on the basis that the remarks would 'fan discrimination against elderly women'.
In any other democracy, the comments would have condemned their speaker to political oblivion. But Mr Ishihara is still arguably the most popular politician in the country, and the night before the lawsuit was filed, he held a political fundraiser under a huge sign, 'For the sake of tomorrow's Japan and tomorrow's Tokyo'. As the banner suggests, he has set his sights on the prime minister's post.
But the lawsuit represents a changing society in a very real sense. While Mr Ishihara has made some outlandish claims (notably targeting China as well as foreigners in Japan), he is not so accustomed to being legally challenged.