Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!newsfeed.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.fjserv.net!newsfeed.freenet.de!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!i61-195-247-171.us.catvmics.ne.JP!not-for-mail From: Declan Murphy Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: I've finally figured this puppy out Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 13:37:07 +0900 Lines: 32 Message-ID: <3FC6D0F3.3090100@hotmail.com> References: <3FC625A5.7040707@yahoo.komm> Reply-To: declan_murphy@hotmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: i61-195-247-171.us.catvmics.ne.jp (61.195.247.171) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.uni-berlin.de 1069994060 66752579 61.195.247.171 ([139419]) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.0rc2) Gecko/20020510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:8531 Raj Feridun wrote: > I've started conducting an experiment here. Thanks to all this talk of > unkindness every single time I confront anyone Japanese anymore I'm > always thinking about whether they're kind or not. So now I look > people square in the eyes that I pass and although it's still very > early in the trials something VERY strange is occurring. I take my 13 > month old daughter for a nice 30 minute stroll in her baby carriage > every day and so far in the past 2 days I've passed 7 people of > varying ages, all adults. Every single person that I made eye contact > with so far has smiled and issued a greeting. > > I realize its WAY too early to draw any conclusions here and also > there's that X factor that I'm a gaigin PLUS the cute little moptop > baby girl in the carriage I'm pushing. Still, it's encouraging. I will > report in with further results as the trials continue. But that isn't a trial of kindness, its a trial of how people respond to what is to all intents and purposes a harmless freak show. In most parts of this fair land the chances of a Japanese denizen encountering a *male* gaigin pushing a cute baby girl along in a pram is only slightly higher than encountering a *male* bug eyed green martian pushing a cute baby bug eyed green martian along in a pram. Lose the prop and the response will probably change, outside Matsuyama's backblocks at least. -- "All sepponians are loud, round overweight folk who think their opinions are facts" (except the Raj, who is emphatically not a fat bastard). All good Germans like beer. The Koreans are the French of Asia. Pommies are good at rugby"