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 (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?

> 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?

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com