Please allow me to rant this one first and last time.
I HATE riding the train in Tokyo. With a passion. It was cute at first, because for a long time I had the good fortune of never having to commute to work. Since changing jobs last year… man, it just shocks me how cold and uncaring people can be in public in Tokyo. Quite a few times I’ve wanted to rant about the people who thrust their bags into you (and they’re aware of it because they’ve strapped it on their front like a baby), ladies who have purses too big for them to hold when sitting next to you, (so it’s either poking you in your side or arm, or you’re holding its strap in your lap), or people with a total lack of spatial awareness. It’s just been eating at me and I’ve been holding back.
Tonight on the train, I’m sitting down minding my own business listening to a podcast and playing a smartphone game to relax before I get home. I look up for a second and see blond hair, and I’m like “oh a fellow foreigner!” She didn’t look like a tourist, as she was dressed in business casual as if she was on her way to or from work. I go back to playing my game. A few minutes later, I hear “achoo!!!” “achoo!!!” and feel wetness on my arm. “What the…” I say to myself and look at my arm to see 3 or 4 places where I’ve been sneezed on. I look up to see which person I want to let have it, when to my horror it’s the blonde girl, who now has a long, slimy strand of snot coming from her nose. I look up for a second expecting a “sorry” or something… nothing. She’s just looking at her phone with slime hanging of her nose.
Okay… she hasn’t reacted… maybe she can’t speak because she has mucus running down her face and needs a tissue. Well, I’m going to need one too so let me see if I can find one. I get my bag to look inside. Still not a word. I look up while I’m digging in my bag. To my horror again, the snot strand is gone. I don’t know what she did with it. But there she is, not a booger to be found, but still hasn’t said a word about what she did. Just looking at her phone.
That’s when I got really pissed and I was going to tell her about herself. But I stopped, took a deep breath, and continued to find something to wipe my arm with. Finally I found a tissue as i shot daggers at her with my eyes while wiping my arm. If she were Japanese, I’m sure she would have gone to stand in another area, but nope. Still not a word or care from her.
I’m not sure what the correct course of action was in this situation, but with all of the anti-foreigner sentiment, I didn’t want to give those people the pleasure of seeing two foreigners having it out on the train. I was just saddened since I’ve come to expect clueless behavior by Japanese people on the train only to have it surpassed by a foreigner.
TL;DR: I got sneezed on by an unapologetically nasty chick on the train and have been pondering life while I rant.
by rakuan1