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!np0.iij.ad.jp!news.iij.ad.jp!sophia.ac.jp!not-for-mail From: "John R. Yamamoto- Wilson" Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: Japan makes it big in world news Date: Mon, 7 Jul 2003 08:42:53 +0900 Organization: Computer Center, Sophia University Lines: 73 Message-ID: References: <73fde4f0.0307040506.76ea8fcf@posting.google.com> <3F079EC2.A49301A3@yahoo.co.jp> <3F081BD9.F2958247@yahoo.co.jp> <3F083765.1A8D4251@yahoo.co.jp> <3F0859B6.64667798@yahoo.co.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: 133.12.17.31 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-2022-jp" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: kanna.cc.sophia.ac.jp 1057534699 79961 133.12.17.31 (6 Jul 2003 23:38:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Jul 2003 23:38:19 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.life.in-japan:2045 I wrote: > > I've seen more pickpockets Eric Takabayashi asked: > What did you do? There's not usually very much one *can* do. The first time I saw it in Japan, for instance, all I saw was one man *giving* another man a wallet. If I wasn't (don't sneer!) "street wise" I wouldn't have known what that was about. I didn't at the time speak enough Japanese to be able to express myself very clearly, and said something a bit garbled, like "Dorobou to omouimasu!" but no one paid any attention for about ten minutes. Then someone started going through his pockets and grumbling, but the perps had got out long before. The second time, I saw a woman relieved of her purse. I told her what I'd seen and who did it, but also warned her that he'd have passed it along to his friend by now, which was true enough; he emptied out his pockets with an air of aggrieved innocence to show he was clean. > I've never witnessed pickpockets or chikan. Thank you, Eric. Precisely my point. I doubt whether Ernest Schaal has either. So it's not just in my blinkered view of Japan that "the norm" for people in trains is to be snoozing, reading newspapers, listening to Walkmans, etc., and it is *not* the norm for them to be either the perpetrators or victims of sexual groping? QED. And before you fall back on your statistics, forget it. They just don't cut it. Most people in the UK have had something stolen at least once in their lives, but that doesn't make theft "the norm". To say that chikan is the norm for Japanese men is distorted and prejudiced. I really cannot imagine any of my male colleagues, my male students or my male neighbours engaging in such behaviour. OK, I can't vouch for what someone might do if very drunk on the last train home, but to suggest that such perversion is mainstream is, frankly, pernicious. I'm not trying to say that sexual harassment isn't a problem here in Japan, and I am not condoning it in any way. On the contrary, I'd give very short shrift to any offender that ever crossed my path. But that's a long way from saying that it is "the norm" for Japanese men to behave like that. > if your eyes and ears were open like you said, you might notice that > the real Japan is not your own life. Eric, you just said it yourself; *you have never seen chikan behaviour*. How much more wide-open do you want my eyes to be here? > Why the clumsy attempt at deflection again? Yes, sexual harassment and > continuing inequality, among many other things, are problems in the US. [snip] > But we were talking about Japan, Japanese politicians, and Japanese > people and their problems, not America. How can I convey the point that *every* country has these problems, and that sexual harassment is no more "the norm" in Japan than anywhere else without making comparisons with other countries? We have someone saying that sexual groping is the norm in Japan. That someone is rude and racist and I'll bet there's a better than 50% chance he's kinpatsu, so he's very likely American (as you point out in another thread, these are apparently characteristics of the culture ;-)), so comparisons with America are surely germane to the discussion. And if anyone wants to start throwing mud at the Brits, or other nationalities, that's fine too. As I said before, no country comes out of this rosy. -- John http://rarebooksinjapan.com