Where’s Samurai Jack when you need him?
Last night I was standing outside Nakano Station, having a post-work beverage with some co-workers, when we saw this woman fall down. She was in the crosswalk with one foot practically to the curb, and she just collapsed.
She had a friend with her who was struggling to get her up, to no avail. As we headed over to help her, four gaijin in a massive crowd of commuters doing absolutely nothing except minding their own business, the taxi that the woman collapsed in front of started its engine, gently turned its wheels to avoid running her over and pulled away.
It seemed like she was okay, just too much to drink, but sometimes I really hate this place.
That’s depressing! In my elementary Japanese course, they use picture cards to express common phrases. They showed exactly what you described — a woman falling down — and several concerned patrons rushing to ask “daijoubu” … ?
it’s strange, and it’s not a universal thing. the number of times i’ve seen somebody puking on the train and either being ignored or being shot looks of disgust is approaching two digits in the 10 mos. i’ve been here.
but when i was doing the same into a garbage bin at the station, it took all of two seconds for a japanese good samaritan to ask if i was alright.
maybe it’s a gaijin/nihonjin thing, i dunno…
p.s. nice site. it don’t do much, but i dig the pic.
Just the other day I was jogging down the street and came across a woman who appeard dead. I stopped and tried to wake her up, but couldn’t so called an abulance, and as I was doing this, another foreigner (who was not with me) was also stopping his truck because he has seen her there a couple minutes earlier as he drove by. He turned around to come back and see if she was ok too.
There were a lot of other cars driving by, and folks walking their dogs nearby, and riding by on their bikes.
It amazed me that the only people who stopped were two unrelated gaijin.
I think it’s time for you to go home to your country.
ok, himitsu, whatever you say. i think it’s time you open your eyes.
y’know, criticism does not equal burn-out. there are foreigners walking around japan who bitch and moan about everything that isn’t like their home.
and there are foreigners who think nihon is heaven on earth.
and although it should be obvious to anyone with an IQ in the double-digits, i’ll point it out again: i’m somewhere in the middle. and one of the things that grinds me about japan is that people tend to ignore anything that doesn’t directly affect them until it’s too late. it’s not every person, but it’s been seen and recorded enough, by japanese and foreigner alike, to be blown as isolated incidents.
p.s. himitsu, i have your IP address, so please have the stones to use a legit email addy when posting, m’kay? common courtesy, folks.
In Waikiki I’ve seen drunks passed out on the sidewalks. Easy to tell from their appearance, and usually there are vomit puddles nearby. So, I think onlookers knew that the problem was overdrinking. If it was obvious that a person was seriously ill, I’m pretty sure people would stop to help. It seems to me that overdrinking to the point of passing out is common in Japan, so perhaps it’s not such a big deal anymore. And I think the Japanese can be intolerant about weaknesses in their own people, such as excessive, uncontrollable drinking. As for me, I don’t go near passed out drunks. I feel pity, but I expect they will sleep it off and wake up with nothing more than a raging hangover.
This raises the thorny question of personal bias. Who do you help, when you pass by somebody who’s passed out?
Somebody who is wearing dirty clothes, is tightly gripping a wine bottle and has wet himself?
The sharply dressed man or woman? All of them? None of them?
It’s a judgement call. For me, at any rate, chances are I can’t do anything for the urinating homeless man, short of giving money or time to an aid organization.
But somebody who looks like they haven’t spent the past few years living on the street might appreciate and perhaps even need somebody to check in on them. If the clothing and cleanliness of a person doesn’t indicate a history of sleeping on the sidewalks, then how do you know if they’re drunk or not?
I wouldn’t make too much out of that. Even if KEvin and yourself strike same in a couple of weeks. Peoples r peoples. SomeONE WOULD have helped her if it weren’t for you. You were all gaijin. Shit happens and so do coincidences. I saw a guy sprawled on the floor in Ueno. It was quite shocking, I think that he was dead actually! Sarariman. Couple of coppers covering him over. Come to think of it, you could have a point. He might have lived if people had have helped him sooner!!