Hi folks,
I’m relatively new to living in Japan and have only lived here a matter of months. I got on a busy train today and there was a guy got on the train next to me. A girl later got on the train (she looked younger than 18). I was situated behind the guy and could see his phone over his shoulder due to how packed the train was by this point, he was playing some anime game – didn’t put any more thought into it. Then before I knew it, I looked ahead and he was taking multiple photos of this girl while she was looking at her phone.
I waited for a minute to establish if they knew each other. He had earphones in and was intermittently switching between his game and taking photos of this poor unsuspecting girl. Once I established that they didn’t know each other, I (another female) actually called him out on it the next time he went to take another photo of her. I tapped him on the back and shook my head at him, he quickly switched back to his game and didn’t really react, but I could tell he was embarrassed. I took it further and got the girl’s attention and told her in broken Japanese that he was taking photos of her. At least giving her the opportunity to confront him if she wanted to. She understood and turned round to who I can only assume were her parents to tell them. While she was doing that, he opened up his apps and closed his camera app. He was embarrassed by this point because he now had her parents looking at him and he rushed off the train at the next station before anybody could do anything.
The girl smiled and bowed at me and her parents did the same, they bowed at me again some time later when getting off the train. I couldn’t really do much and unfortunately he didn’t delete the pictures of her. I hope he thinks twice next time he starts taking pictures of girls. I feel guilty for intervening but my conscience wouldn’t have forgiven me if I hadn’t at least reacted in some way. Was this the wrong thing to do? Any advice or input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
by Etzinyn