John Yamamoto-Wilson wrote:

> Eric Takabayashi wrote:
>
> > How do you know they are not being manhandled, when it would be usual for
> > chikan to try not to be seen
>
> Put it this way; I've seen more pickpockets

What did you do? I've never witnessed pickpockets or chikan.

> (who are trying even harder not
> to be seen) than chikan. It is almost impossible for a person who is being
> touched up not to react in some way or other, and I've seen it often enough
> but, strange as it may seem, not in trains in Japan. I've seen several
> situations where women were having a heavy trip laid on them by a man who
> was either accompanying them or who had latched on before they came into my
> orbit, and have to say that that is one of the few situations in which, in
> my experience, bystanders have seen fit to intervene.
>
> > So street wise man, did you ever read any surveys on victimization by
> chikan?
>
> Do you have to be street wise to read surveys?

No, but if your eyes and ears were open like you said, you might notice that
the real Japan is not your own life.

> > In one I read in a front page national news story (Yomiuri, perhaps) while
> > still on the JET Program, over three quarters of female respondents down
> to
> > junior high age concentrated in the Tokyo area reported being victimized
> by
> > chikan.
>
> Surveys also show that over half of US women report sexual harassment in the
> workplace, so shall we just amend Ernest Schaal's
>
> > In japan, chikan is the rule for men, not the exception
>
> to
>
> > In japan, as (to only a slightly lesser degree) in the United States,
> chikan is the rule for men, not the exception
>
> and move on?

Why the clumsy attempt at deflection again? Yes, sexual harassment and
continuing inequality, among many other things, are problems in the US. I
gladly tell people about America's problem myself, and I openly criticize
America and Americans myself. Yet look at the difference in the status,
attitudes or achievements of women in the US and Japan if you are ever going to
make an issue of which discrimination or which system or society is worse.

But we were talking about Japan, Japanese politicians, and Japanese people and
their problems, not America.