My well intentioned friend almost arrested for sexual harassment.
This is a story relayed to me by a friend in Tokyo. To set the scene, he is a British guy. He's pretty tall, shaved head. Tough guy looks. He wears a leather jacket reguarly, and he looks like a hardass. But he's also a pretty sensitive guy who looks out for his friends, and is a generally well-intentioned and nice person. This combination is a recipe for disaster in Japan.
He was riding the Yamanote line one day. The Yamanote line is a huge train line that goes in a big loop all around Tokyo. It gets very crowded in the morning, and as such it's prime hunting grounds for the most despised of all commuters - the chikan.
The chikan is a dirty, disgusting creature that is able to prey on women due to a hole in Japanese culture. These filthy creatures get close to a woman on a train, and basically fondle them.
I've spoken to girls who have been victims of these attacks. At first, they think "gee, it's crowded this morning. That guy is getting pretty close". Next, they get 'brushed' with a stray hand or arm. Since the train is often too crowded to move, they don't think too much of this. Then all of a sudden, the Chikan goes for the grope. They dive in with a hand and go for as much as they can. Right here, in a Western country, the female 'victim' would perform a spinning back kick to the perps head and drop him like a bag of potatoes. Then have him arrested for bruising her foot. Then have the police beat him. Unfortunately in Japan, there is a very strong concept of WA - harmony. And it means keeping the peace no matter what happens. So these girls stay there, silently screaming, trying to get out of the way, while the perverted piece of shit goes to town.
*cough*. I feel better now I've gotten that out of my system. Many people I know have fallen victim to these leeches on society. It makes me furious that their upbringing of these girls forces them to keep silent and say nothing, giving the Chikan free license to continue his dirty fetish.
Now, back to my friend's story - he was sitting down on theYamanote, waiting patiently for his stop. He happens to looks up, and he sees a Japanese salaryman standing next to 2 school girls. Normal enough. However his eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he glances down, and he notices this particular salaryman is using his briefcase as a shield, behind which he is vigorously relieving himself, not one step away from these girls.
He looks around frantically. Surely someone else has seen this, surely someone will step up and give this man an angry lecture about spanking in public in breathing distance of schoolgirls.
The train is silent.
Except of course, for the animated conversation of the 2 schoolgirls, blissfully unaware of the danger lurking behind the suspicious salaryman's briefcase. "It's down to me!" He realises. Time to step up and protect the innocence of these 2 schoolgirls. I will protect them, where their Japanese brethren have let them down.
He jumps to his feet and storms over, shielding his eyes from the disgusting waist level display.
"HEY!" He calls out angrily, walking towards the salaryman.
The salaryman jumps, re-"sheaths", and conveniently slides out of the train just before the doors close, making a clean escape.
The schoolgirls look at this tall, bald English guy, who just stormed over, screaming. Their faces are frozen into looks of horror, as they wait to see what this unstable gaijin will do next.
The British guy remembers he doesn't speak Japanese, but nevertheless, he has to explain the situation. One quick look at these girls confirms that they're scared shitless.
An ill-conceived idea pops into his head. He points at the door, through which the Japanese Salaryman had just left. The schoolgirls eyes follow his finger, their faces still frozen. He then moves his hand down to his waist level, and performs an exaggeration of the wrist motion of the Japanese salaryman.
The Japanese school girls stand there, shocked. He performs the gestures again. They become visibly uncomfortable. The rest of the train carriage looks on.
Deflated, he realises this is not working at all. He racks his brain for the Japanese words he knows. Masochistically, his brain gives him the word for dick - "Chin chin".
His face lights up. Armed with this word, I can communicate exactly what happened!, he thinks. The school girls are beginning to edge away. He panics, he is losing his last chance to redeem himself and not look like a depraved pervert weirdo. So he gestures wildly to get their attention, once again gestures at the door, then does the hand motion, then points at the door and says "CHIN CHIN!! SALARYMAN!! CHIN CHIN!!".
Predictably at this point, the girls scream and run away. "Chikan!!" They yell from a safe distance. Suddenly every eye on the entire train is on him. He stands there mortified. He was only trying to help. An elderly Japanese man comes up and snarls something at him. He can only make out the word "chikan". The Japanese grabs his arm. He shuffles free. The train stops, and the door opens. He can feel the tide turning strongly against him, and he decides to jump off at this stop. The man stands at the edge of the train door, and points an accusatory finger directly at the British man. "CHIKAN!!" He screams. People turn and look.
The British man runs up the stairs, exits the ticket gates quickly, and makes his daring escape. If he had bothered to stick around and explain the situation, he would almost certainly have been placed into police custody, and he would have been stamped with the Japanese constitution smashing idea of 'guilty until proven innocent'.
Just goes to show that no good deed goes unpunished. Be careful out there.
For some extra reading - a fantastic reverse view into the Chikan phenomena is available here. A very interesting insight into a drunken Americans battle with the Japanese law is here.
now that's messed up...
Posted by thomas — 14 Mar 2007, 21:35
Bravo to your friend for being a brave samaritan!
Pardon me, but I think there are girls and ladies in the western world who inexorably suffer silently. But that's not my point.
Perhaps it was more helpful if your friend just whip out a phonecam and innocently take a picture while covertly act like he is just one of those message freaks.
That should really help.
Posted by Snappy! — 14 Mar 2007, 21:39
Loud gaijin are far scarier than quiet chikan, and it doesn't help if your friend looks like a tough guy. He should have shut up after the jerkoff ran away.
At least he learned a new word for the next time he sees something going on. But if it comes down to it and police get involved, I don't think a hardass-looking non-Japanese-speaking gaijin is going to prevail against Mr. SalariPerv.
I'm no longer in Japan, but something similar happened to me early on when I lived there, and I even had the advantage of being dressed in a suit, having a full head of hair and speaking Japanese semi-fluently. Likewise, I had to flee the train for fear of being arrested myself.
What I started doing was something like Robert Deniro in Meet the Parents. Move as close as you can, lock the guy's eyes in yours, then slowly point first to your eyes and then to his, as if to say "I'm watching you." Pointing directly at someone, especially at their face, is so intimidating that one guy I did it to looked like he crapped his pants. I hope it was frightening enough to scare him off of groping for life. If other people see you do it, they'll think you're weird, rude and scary, but they're probably not going to grab your arm and shout "Chikan!" If someone bothers you, tell them your eyes were itchy from allergies. Most Japanese will sympathise with allergy sufferers no matter where you come from or what you look like.
Posted by Michael — 14 Mar 2007, 22:40
Excellent story and it goes well with the one I posted earlier and is what I was trying to convey in warning others in Japan today to be careful on a train, especially if you're a foreigner. Good thing he ran as he would almost surely have been arrested and I have to wonder if the police would've believed his story. "Guilty until proven innocent" is the way in Japan.
It seems that these days women are often a little too eager to yell "Chikan" at the slightest hint of someone touching them. In a way it's good as it has really been a problem in the past. However, I hope no one is unfortunate enough to be the target of a "money whore" looking to yell "chikan" in order to extort money from you in lieu of pressing charges. It would sure make your life hell.
What a coincidence that we both should write similar stories on the same day. One might think we were in collusion. ;-)
Posted by Pachipro — 14 Mar 2007, 23:27
your friend must have felt terrible. and think about it, he has a very distinguished shape and he will have to fear that someone from thid misfortunate experience may recognize him. awk. im glad im not in his shoes.
Posted by superhero — 15 Mar 2007, 00:02
Weird to think about how afraid people are in America and quick to jump the gun on the pedophilia / child molester accusations, and then trying to relate to this story.
Posted by alec — 15 Mar 2007, 00:58
様みやがれ外国人目！
〜痴漢協会〜
seriously, your pal was pretty dumb. The salaryman dude wasnt assailing the girls in any way so what business does he have trying to act like some guardian of public decency? maybe he just wanted to look cool or something, but nosey people like him can be as much or more of a nuisance than look-only chikan pervs.
Posted by noneofurbusiness — 15 Mar 2007, 01:20
While the "chikan" situation is really a bad thing, your friend did not handle this very well. What did he think the reaction of the girls would be when he was standing there doing his mime routine? Seemed like the obvious conclusion on their part.
Posted by roboninja — 15 Mar 2007, 01:27
I don't know about that "their upbringing of these girls forces them to keep silent and say nothing" nonsense .My friend pulled a guy out of the subway by his hand, and her and her friends beat the daylight out of him on the subway platform. This was 10 years ago when they were in highschool.
Posted by kudasai_o_beeru — 15 Mar 2007, 04:32
the "chikan" you describe don't reside solely in japan... here in new york city this is not uncommon. and reactions among women are pretty varied: some freeze up, some scream. the social imperative to "not make a scene" can be pretty compelling, in any culture.
i had a friend who also stood up for a girl in a similar situation, here. she had frozen as a perv kept "accidentally" touching her ass. my friend got up and said "cut that out and don't make me tell you again". at which point the perv flipped out, screamed at him, and then ran off at the next stop. the girl, meanwhile, started bawling as soon as the perv left. my friend wasn't sure if he had done the right thing, either. but, after talking to many women about their situations, they all are thankful for people recognizing what is going on around them, rather than turning a blind eye.
re: noneofurbusiness' comment - that's bullshit. as a dude i don't want to see someone jerking off across the train from me. i have a right to ride the train w/o public masturbation.
Posted by cgs — 15 Mar 2007, 11:30
Your friend is an idiot. Who in their right mind pantomimes masturbation to strangers? And then of course the best follow up to that is to say penis over and over again. Yeah, that's not strange at all.
Posted by Othello — 15 Mar 2007, 12:28
Well, I do think that we should live in a socitoty where us women don't have to worry about thoes kinds of things. Sadly we do. Women are not tools of sexual pleasure they're people. I hope that guy's ass is put in jail.
Posted by Maddy — 15 Mar 2007, 12:46
Coulda shoulda woulda. Your friend is a good guy but he didn't handle that too well. Best way is probably to tap the girls and direct their attention to the salaryman. Keeping two Japanese schoolgirls quiet is about as easy as beating a grandma to an open seat. The girls would have cried out and easily taken care of the rest and your buddy would have done his good deed.
Posted by Niku — 19 Mar 2007, 11:49
Dude! We couldn't care less about your stupid friend. Post part 9 of your saga ASAP! We wait weeks for you to post, and when you finally do it's NOT about the story we're all interested in! Get to work Firefly! Damn!
Posted by George — 22 Mar 2007, 12:31
this blogs dead, folks. i heard that he moved out of japan and is too ashamed to continue posting anything.
Posted by stuart — 22 Mar 2007, 14:13
Booooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!! Booooooooooooo!!!!
Posted by Firefly My Ass — 23 Mar 2007, 02:23
aww, I like the post Firefly made.
This one is crazy!
Posted by RandomClown — 23 Mar 2007, 13:48
You are the New York Hack (http://newyorkhack.blogspot.com/) of Japan.
I understand you may be busy with this newfound fame, but fame is nothing without fans. Please continue the stories...
Posted by Akira — 23 Mar 2007, 23:34
Hey Firefly,
liked the story. Reminded me of a very similar experience I had Kanagawa. I posted something about it before on herroflomjapan's site (http://www.herroflomjapan.com/2006/10/05/this-is-what-a-chican-looks-like/)
Posted by toritaiyo — 24 Mar 2007, 03:55
Aw, your story is bullshit.
Posted by Bonzo — 08 Apr 2007, 21:48