The Shinkansen Experience Pt 1

So I managed to find my way to the Shinkansen ticket office. I had to take two other trains to get there, (Osaka is Huge!) and was crammed in the most awkward, contortionistic  positions, all the while trying to hold onto my backpack that could easily have fit a circus of midgets inside of it. I was trying not to breath, as it might be accused I was trying to do mouth-to-mouth rescue on someone! I also struggled to avoid eye contact with the people pressed up to me in the most intimate of ways, even if there face was two inches away from mine and in no way could my eyes fully avert from their own. All to easily someone could have moved there hand, into an area that is at all times reserved, without any difficulty or disturbance to the people wedged in beside you.

There is a phenomenon of groping that is very common on the trains of Japan, to the extent that there are 'Women Only' areas.

My first thought about this was, yes that makes sense, overcrowded trains at night with women not wanting to get followed out by some creep or becoming a victim of pick pocketing. But no, once I spoke to my Japanese friends and noticed the different train line hours for, 'Woman Only' carts, it was because of this phenomenon of men groping at polite Japanese woman (and probably girls) when the most concentrated amount of men would be on the train (after work). It would be improbable, for a Japanese woman to point out her accuser, if she could even find him, and make a scene about the assault. This is quite the contrast from many Western women, where OK there is a small chance that you might be groped in a crowded bar or nightclub (not that it's fine or should be acceptable), but on the train...very very doubtful! I think the more unlikely of a situation a  Western woman would suspect a risk of being groped,the more of a dramatic scene would erupt. Japanese men though, have a much more powerful and dominant place in this culture and subtle, polite changes, that don't necessarily state the behaviour is wrong, are put in place to prevent the frequency of the assaults, but does not attempt to eradicate them  (There will be another blog to follow about the dichotomy of the sexes in Japan).

To be continued...