"John Yamamoto-Wilson" <john@rarebooksinjapan.com> wrote in message news:<bec8eo$39ft6$1@ID-169501.news.dfncis.de>...
> Ernest Schaal wrote:
> 
> > If chikan is not the rule, then why do the commuter trains have
> > special cars for women only and why are there all those posters
> > telling women to  complain if they are molested?
> 
> I think you answered your own question. The reason cars for women are
> *special* is because chikan is *not* the rule. If it *were* the rule then
> cars for women would also be the rule.

Since more than one city have those "special" cars, it sure seems to
imply that there is a serious problem. Otherwise they would not have
made the accomdation. True, not every Japanese male is a chikan (I
have heard rumors of a Japanese male in Nagano prefecture who was not
a chikan, but I have no confirmation of that rumor. B-)), but a
significantly higher number of Japanese men are chikan such that
"special" cars are needed in the larger cities.

> And as for the posters, well, have you noticed, for example, that there are
> also posters telling people to point their umbrella downwards when they're
> in the station? If you watch people, though, you'll see that 99%+ of people
> have their umbrella pointed downwards anyway. Again, you've got it
> arsy-varsy. The rule is to point your umbrella downwards, and the poster is
> there to reinforce that rule. In exactly the same way, the rule is to
> respect the physical person of your fellow passengers and the poster is
> there to reinforce that rule.
> 
> I find it odd that you can't see this.

What I find odd is that you can't see that the presence of the posters
implys that there is a problem those posters are trying to solve. For
instances, years ago, when the British still owned Hong Kong, I was
visiting there and I noticed many signs telling people not to spit on
the sidewalk. Those signs were needed, because at that time many
Chinese were spitting on the sidewalk, so the government went to the
trouble of trying to reeducate the public in order to change habits.

In Japan, the habit that the posters are trying to change is the
shyness of the Japanese women in not standing up to the chikan and
reporting their gross behavior.