Eric Takabayashi wrote in detail on pickpockets and chikan [snip contents]

On pickpockets: Of course you are going to read about pickpockets operating
alone or in larger groups, because they are far more likely to get caught
(if they are alone) or noticed (if they are in larger groups). Individuals
*can* be successful (if they are skilled enough), and larger groups can also
be successful (usually by "bundling" people - i.e., by surrounding them and
rifling their pockets, which is more like a mugging than a simple
pickpocketing operation), but I stick to what I said before. The most
successful (or, if you prefer, the most professional) pickpockets work in
pairs.

On chikan: If you are right I'm probably going to have to leave Japan.
There's no way I'm going to expose my wife and daughter to the kinds of
things you're talking about.

I'm still perplexed, though. You are asking me to revise my world view to a
huge extent. If things are as bad as you say, most of the women I know have
been abused and (presumably) most of the men I know are guilty of inflicting
such abuse. And it's all happening on trains I travel on every day and yet I
don't even see it.

I have had many soul-baring discussions with many Japanese people - men and
women - over the last ten years, and this issue certainly does come up, but
not to anything like the extent that you and Ernest are insisting on. Do I
discount this kind of evidence and simply say, yes, this society is deeply
tainted? Or do I throw what you say in the scales along with the rest of
what I've seen and heard and try to see where, along the spectrum from total
denial to total insistence, the truth actually lies?

Right now, I'm still working through the latter option. If I come to the
conclusion that you and Ernest are perfectly right, though, could I ask you
where you would recommend I take myself and my family for a more healthy and
balanced life? Would the US be guaranteeably any better? Which country would
be better?

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com