Haluk Skywalker wrote:

> Another incident for the record: An American friend of mine had to ride
> subway from Shinsaibashi to Namba with her forearm sticking out of door
> because the door closed on her arm and nobody helped her. The train was full
> too. She was still terrified when she told this to us about two days later
>
> People who would intervene on a slight pause of a foreigner before a ticket
> machine or an ATM

Japanese will walk lost local caucasian foreigners to their destination,
befriending them in the process, or hand my ethnic Japanese mother who does not
speak Japanese, items of monetary or sentimental value walking down the street.

> do not stop and help a dying person or help a lady in
> danger. I wonder why. I really wonder why.

I believe they don't want to take responsibility for what could happen. I have
tried to explain the "Good Samaritan" law to some people,

http://www.premack.com/columns/1996/960725.htm for example

and they don't get it. I don't even remember whether or not they claimed there
was one in Japan. All they bloody need to do in many cases is make a phone
call. But people will tell me they "don't know what to do."

I see a new police campaign asks residents to email digital camera phone
pictures of fugitives.

I doubt catching criminals with camera phones will be much more successful than
it already is. People know how to use and misuse phones already, and all people
need is some Red Army member catching them with their phone arms raised, a few
steps away.

> What do you think? Are they simply assholes

"We Japanese are very shy."

> or is there a cultural explanation to this that I'm missing.

Also as a government, too chicken to do more than give money when there is a
possibility of their own citizens being injured or attacked. If the JSDF ever
make it to Iraq, I hear they will be allowed to give commands or fire warning
shots if threatened with weapons, for the first time ever. Ooooh.

I'd like Japan to keep postponing or reverse their decision to send personnel
to Iraq, just to prove how lame their government is, while they continue to
whine about not being made a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council
despite spending so much money at the UN, or claiming international leadership
roles.

--
"I want to meet my father and say, your sperm became me."

http://tinyurl.com/wc8y