Escalators. Walk on the left or right?

Anyone who's taken a trip from Ōsaka to Tōkyō or vica verca will probably notice that the people walk or stand on different sides of the esculator. In Ōsaka they stand on the right and walk on the left and in Tōkyō they stand on the left and walk on the right. It pays to be attentive to this detail or you may be pushed out of the way by an angry commuter for holding up the foot traffic. It's a strange phenomenom but there is a legitimate reason.

For this we have to go back to the Edo period (1603 - 1868). Of course there were no escalators at this time but because of the hill infested terrain there was a decent amount of stairs within villages and towns. Back in this time Tōkyō was called Edo and was home of the Tokugawa Shōgunate. The Shōgun was the military ruler of Japan. Being the military ruler there was a high demand for soldiers more commonly known as Samurai. However the Kansai area, mainly in Ōsaka, held a large population that predominantly belonged to the merchant class.

Most people in Japan are right handed. Their language system is meant to be written with the right hand, also the Katana (Samurai Sword) was to be used with the dominant right hand at the top part of the grip as the more skilled hand serves better to balance the sword. The sword was drawn from a sheath bound to their left hip towards the right. If the Samurai tried to draw their sword with a wall on the right, there was a high possibility that the butt end of the sword would hit the wall restricting the sword and possibly stopping it from being drawn at all. This meant that it was much safer for Samurai to walk with a wall on their left. That is why in old Tōkyō, people walked up the stairs on the left hand side.

In Ōsaka being largely populated by merchants, many people carried lots of gold. The safest place to keep your gold was on your right hip, near your stronger hand. So, if you walked up the left side of the stairs, you were asking for your gold to be stolen. Thefore in Ōsaka, people got used to walking up the stairs on the right hand side.

When escalators came to Japan, (around 1950) they were only wide enough to fit one person. These still exist today. In Tōkyō they were installed left side going up, right side going down. Keeping the merchants tradition in Ōsaka, they were installed right side up, left side down.

When 'two' person escalators hit the scene, it was only natural that the privileged commuters could now stand on their appropriate side without blocking the traffic. Tōkyō stands on the left, Ōsaka to the right.

Most people in Japan, including visitors, know about this mickey mouse business with people standing on different sides of the escalator but almost no one knows why. The most common belief is that Ōsaka is just trying to be 'different'.

So there you have it, "Samurai's" to the left, "Merchants" on the right.