Japan: So Safe it's Dangerous
One the other hand, ask a Japanese person and they’ll tell you about the time they were “attacked” by a man on a train who actually just coughed on them.
And perhaps a female colleague will tell you about being chased down the road by a man cycling a bike, holding an umbrella and masturbating at the same time. And about how her underpants go missing when she dries them on her first floor balcony.
It may have one of the lowest crime rates in the world, but we all know about Lindsay Hawker and the bathtub full of sand.
If you've never been to Japan before, your media-fed impressions might include whispering notions of tattooed yakuza with concealed weapons, industrious and resourceful stalkers from the pages of The Daily Mail, people leaping to their deaths in front of commuter trains, and perhaps even an unspoken fear of lightening fast martial arts being used to kick your ass up against a wire fence in a narrow Tokyo alley.
I’ve been living in Japan for two years. Not so long in some respects but it feels like quite a long time. I’ll give you some anecdotal evidence, from my own experience and from others, but I’ll try to build the case that Japan is safer than any other country I have been to or lived in because that is my genuine impression of this country.
Where does the idea that Japan is a safe country come from?
Back home, wherever that may be, everyone has had something stolen at some point in their lives. If you aren’t Japanese I’ll bet you have. I’ve met hundreds of Japanese people in my two years of teaching and in the course of creating conversations I’ve talked about crime with most of them – it’s a subject almost guaranteed to get a response.
The vast majority of them have never had anything stolen – except for umbrellas and bicycles which seem to change hands like small change. Almost all of them have never been mugged, never had their possessions stolen from their house, and have never knowingly witnessed a crime.
Tokyoites will claim that the city can be dangerous, and say certain areas are best avoided. Kabuki-cho in ShinjukuOne of Tokyo's 23 wards and home to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and the world's busiest train station. is usually always mentioned as a gang area. I have walked through this area many times at all times of the day and night and I didn’t feel unsafe at all. It seemed to be a little dirtier and there were more young people hanging around but compared to a weekend night in Glasgow for example (the stabbing capital of Europe) it was nothing. Some gang members get shot now and again and their headquarters might be in Kabuki-cho but I think it’s only dangerous if you are actually in a rival gang, or your are seriously determined to get into trouble. It would seem that some Tokyo people are mistaking actual danger with fear.
The anecdotal evidence is abundant and it weighs heavily on the side of Japan being safe.
There are countless instances of my friends falling asleep on trains and waking up with all their possessions. Wallets lost in the street finding their way back to their mailboxes. Bags left on restaurant tables not disappearing when the owner goes to the bathroom. Delivery men leaving boxes in open vans. Cars with handbags, golf bags, wallets visible inside. Drunk people in the street being fifty year old business men and not 15 year olds in enormous gangs. No aggravating eye contact on commuter trains.
Some would consider that, in Japan, manners and the notion of honour are the constraining factors binding potential criminals to honest behaviour. Compared to most of the west, it seems that criminals are dehumanized to a greater extent in Japan. Prisons are not as comfortable as they are in the west (and a couple of my friends can attest to this).
In the course of the conversations I mentioned before many of my students would condone harsh sentences for criminals without really considering mitigating factors – a three year prison sentence for shoplifting for example, without considering what the person stole or why.
But if you look closely at public opinion in the west (and by that I am referring mainly to Britain, as I haven’t lived in the US or Canada or Europe) a large number of people have similar attitudes towards criminals, especially the tabloid reading public. I think the only difference here between Japan and the west is that our actual sentencing seems to be more lenient.
Japan is safe, many of my students tell me honestly, because there are not many foreigners yet. I don’t know if there is any truth to this but people of this opinion point to the correlation between immigration numbers and crime figures. In particular they blame the Chinese and Koreans, and the media certainly likes to report crime perpetrated by foreigners.
I think the safety of Japan is related to this in the respect that Japan does have an extremely strong sense of national identity, which sometimes can appear to border on racism. That feeling of national identity exists in the west, of course, such as post 9/11 USA, but in my experience, unlike Japan it’s not associated with such a strong sense of national responsibility.
Japanese people are more likely to ask “what do people expect me to do?” rather than “what can people do for me?”
All this can lead to the newcomer in Japan feeling like they couldn’t get mugged if they tried. It’s taken two years and a couple of incidents to make me realise that’s not the case.
My friend, as a fresh-off-the-plane gaijinJapanese word meaning "outsider" commonly used to describe foreigners. Considered somewhat impolite. , lit up a cigarette on a train platform (since there were no non-smoking signs) and was accosted by a business man who shouted at him, followed him onto the train and continued to verbally abuse him for the entire train journey.
Another friend of mine was attacked in a nightclub. We had just arrived and he was sober and not making a nuisance of himself, but nevertheless someone walked up to him and punched him in the face, threw him to the floor and ripped his shirt, for no other reason than an apparent dislike of his face. My friends and I went to the police station and were told that they basically didn’t care about what happened to us.
There are stories of friends going to RoppongiAn area of Tokyo very famous for its high concentration of nightlife and popularity among the foreign population. for a night out and not showing the kind of caution they would back home, and waking up with no memory and a maxed-out credit card.
Three of my colleagues went out one night and one of them stupidly stole a lipstick from a convenience store. I don’t know his reasons for stealing a woman’s cosmetic product but perhaps in Australia it would only get him a slapped wrist and a fine. For his efforts he and his two friends were put in jail for three days, and the police tried to force confessions from all of them claiming they had video evidence showing that they had all conspired to steal the makeup. No doubt the police were just trying to put the frighteners on them, but bear in mind that if they had wanted the police could legally have held my friends for 23 days without access to a telephone or a lawyer.
The murder of Lindsay Hawker struck a nerve with the British public because of the bizarre circumstances of her death. She was stalked by her student and found dead on his balcony in a bathtub full of sand. The stalker issue is one worth addressing. I have heard a couple of first hand stories of people being followed.
The first thing I notice is that it’s only girls who are stalked. To their consternation and contrary to what many male foreigners living in Japan will try to tell you, male foreigners are almost never followed home by Japanese girls.
A lot of foreign girls attract unwanted attention, although mainly just in the form of wayward glances. I would say that Japan is still safe in this respect but there seems to be anecdotal evidence of a greater tendency towards obsessive behaviour among Japanese men towards young foreign females, particularly those who correspond to common impressions of beautiful western women. I honestly don’t know what the stalking figures are for Japan compared to western countries so I can’t objectively say if it’s more of an issue here. All I can say is if you show the same caution you would at home when walking home alone or dealing with strangers then you almost certainly won’t end up in the newspapers, or in a bathtub full of sand.
Concerning drugs offences: in Britain a small amount of cannabis will get nothing other than a warning and the confiscation of your stash. In Japan you could face a five-year prison sentence. The recent case of Nova teachers caught in Roppongi with a small amount of cocaine and cannabis highlights the Japanese attitude towards drugs offences; whereas in the west it wouldn’t make a local newspaper it gained national coverage in Japan and the fact that the suspects were foreign English teachers certainly had something to do with that.
With the exception of some stalker-related incidents most of these incidents were because people didn’t take the due consideration they would back home. Being punched in the face for no reason in a British nightclub is not outside the realm of possibility. Drugs offences and theft will get you into some form of trouble anywhere, all that differs is the extent of the punishment.
Japan can be an incredible place to live if you follow the lead of those around you and don’t take unnecessary risks. If you show the same responsibility for your well being as you do back home, you can enjoy an even greater degree of safety.
If you start thinking, like a surprising number of people, that you are invincible and that no matter how drunk you get you’ll still wake up with your wallet and all your teeth then there isn’t a country in the world safe enough for you.
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Comments (14)
I once left a $3000 business projector on board a Nozomi headed for Hakata. It took me 9 hours to realize I left it on the train, called JR and not only had it been turned into the train staff, but the JR employee opened the case, found my stash of business cards and shipped the projector back to my office.
Posted by YokohamaGaijin | July 2, 2007 3:16 PM
"All I can say is if you show the same caution you would at home when walking home alone or dealing with strangers then you almost certainly won’t end up in the newspapers, or in a bathtub full of sand."
I find this deeply offensive, for reasons which should be obvious.
I have lived in Japan for 4 years and I am a woman. I agree that Japan has a low rate of property theft crime, but it has its fair share of sex crimes, stalking and bizarre murders (often by and of children)and I certainly don't take my safety for granted. Being a man here is different from being someone vulnerable (a child or a woman). How dare you blame the victim.
Posted by Victoria Wilson | July 3, 2007 10:46 AM
By the way, I lived in London for three years (I am Australian) and although I had some money stolen once, I certainly took a lot of risks with strangers (I was young and stupid) but never once had my naive trust exploited or abused. Which is more important, feeling that my wallet is safe or that I'm not going to get sexually assaulted?
The writer obviously has a deep attachment to his wallet and regards its safety as paramount, but if he were a woman he would have a different perspective. As my Lonely Planet guide says, "Japan is one of the safest countries in which to travel - if you're a man. Japan is not as safe for women travellers. The primary dangers faced by women to travellers to Japan are of a sexual nature: sexual harassment, molestation, attempted rape and rape."
If this seems inconsequential to a man, then think about being raped by another man. Not pretty is it?
Posted by Victoria Wilson | July 3, 2007 10:57 AM
I agree with Victoria. I have been stalked by a Japanese man for over 2 years and in order to save my life I had to leave Japan for 6 months before I felt safe to come back. The police never helped me- they had a policeman on bicycle come by in the first 2 weeks I reported the stalker.This man has broke into my house, has attacked me regularly, has stolen my belongings and yet, the police has done nothing. Japan is not safe. My friend has been stalked by his former girlfriend and accused of assaulting her and the police has arrested him without any evidence and kept him in jail for a month because this girl can't deal with rejection. I don't mean to say Japanese people are racist but the way they treat foreign people is different from the way japanese people are treated.
Posted by Claudia | July 3, 2007 5:40 PM
if you show the same caution you would at home when walking home alone or dealing with strangers then you almost certainly won’t end up in the newspapers, or in a bathtub full of sand.
Are we supposed to take that to mean that the victim is at fault?
Posted by Ken | July 3, 2007 9:20 PM
OK, so maybe if a person passes out for four hours in a public place their personal belongings will remain untouched strewn about them....BUT equally, no-one will stop to see if you are OK or offer help! I think I would rather have my ipod stolen than be that totally invisible. Bystander apathy is a way of life here.
A friend of mine fell down the stairs at a subway station on her way to work (no, she had not been drinking) and broke her arm. She was lying immobile and not one person stopped to help. So they didn't steal her wallet, so what?
Posted by Jane West | July 4, 2007 10:05 AM
How did this article get past quality control? It's irresponsible, ill-advised and uninformed. Maybe Japan used to be safe, or maybe it's safe for foreign men. But to suggest that it's safe for everyone is misleading.
To argue that Lindsay Hawker was murdered because she was careless is disgusting, stupid and makes me sick to my stomach. It's articles like this that make people like her so trusting of Japanese people. Of course she didn't suspect the guy would rape and kill her - Japan is a "safe country".
What happened to that girl is a terrible tragedy and to say that it's her fault is a hideous, revolting, appalling thing to say. Is the writer of this article mentally defective, or just caught up in his own stupid little world of drinking, abusing women and then falling down unconscious in the middle of the street, oblivious to reality?
Why do women get blamed for sex crimes or even their own murders? Male victims don't get blamed. It's a total cop-out on the part of men, that men can't help themselves. Should women stay home 24/7 and wrap ourselves in Muslim clothes to avoid attacks? Sadly, that doesn't make women safe either.
Japan might have low levels of theft, but having lived there for a few years, I know it's not safe for women. I know plenty of women who always wore conservative clothing, did not engage in risky behaviour and in fact did nothing except stand on a train station waiting for a train to take them to their teaching jobs, who were physically attacked by men in Japan. No, they weren't "sneezed on". One woman I know was slammed against a wall by an attacker and almost raped. She was only able to escape because of a well timed knee to the groin. I have heard countless other stories first-hand of women who have been stalked.
By saying that Japan is safe, the writer of the article above is spitting in the face of women. He needs to get his facts straight.
Posted by Zoe C | July 4, 2007 11:10 AM
Ok, the "ending up in a bathtub full of sand" paragraph could have been worded more sensitively, but as a foreign woman in Japan, I know what you mean. You make an important point when you warn that Japan can become dangerous to foreigners who take the country's low crime rates for granted, and people shouldn't ignore this very accurate conclusion because of one insensitive passage.
Posted by Geisha,Interrupted | July 4, 2007 11:40 AM
I have lived in Aichi for a few years. I would agree with the posters above that foreign women don't necessarily feel like Japan is as safe as jbkelly1981 would like to think.
The foreign women I know here (myself included) don't take unnecessary risks and almost all have come here to get teaching experience or to experience the culture (unlike most foreign men I've met in Japan, who followed a Japanese girl here and teach out of necessity, not love).
All the foreign women I see (except the Russians, who are another story entirely) dress really modestly, even the ones who are really fit and could easily get away with wearing revealing clothes. On the other hand, the majority of young women in the city where I live wear really revealing clothes (micro-miniskirts, tiny hotpants with stilettos, etc), and yet I have heard of various cases of stalking, sexual assault etc on foreign women who are trying not to draw attention to themselves.
In my experience, Japanese men have expected me to "put out" really easily, which is not my style. Is it because they expect us to be easy like Japanese girls and then are angry when we're not? Or are they driven into a frenzy by the endless displays of flesh by J-girls and porn everywhere, and feel like they can vent their frustrations by assaulting foreign women?
I don't know, but I do know Japan has serious problems in its attitudes to women. And so, it seems, does "jbkelly1981". Maybe that's why he's here.
Posted by Sam Harrison | July 4, 2007 12:19 PM
The problem with victim-blaming is that it's a slippery slope to forcing women to not have social lives at all and forcing them to observe archaic practices that render women into property.
Yes, Japan is fairly safe. I, as a young woman, have walked through kabukicho and other entertainment districts and felt perfectly secure. I leave my bag tables to reserve seats, and when I return, my stuff is always there, untouched. I'm not afraid to nod off on the train, and in one situation, took a catnap on (horror of horrors) the ground with my head on my coat while waiting for a building to open up. Nothing happened. I'm still alive. I generally don't worry when I walk home alone or go places in costume.
Generally.
Like many women in this country, I've had my share of bad experiences. While living in very out-of-the-way student housing, I had an old man try to follow me all the way home. He continued for 30 minutes until I raced ahead and, remembering my bicycle was parked at the university still, hid in the parking lot while he looked around for me and RACED home. Thirty minutes--following me off the train (where I saw him staring at me), into a convenience store, out of the convenience store, and following me every time I crossed the street, back and forth.
Another time, I thought I was being paranoid when I caught hints of a man staring at me on the train. (People stare--it's unavoidable for a foreign woman.) I didn't feel so paranoid when he followed me off the train, stopped me, and asked me if this was my stop. I said something to him (can't remember) and he had to rush to get back on the train before the doors closed so he could continue on his way.
In two other mini-events, men came up to me and tried to solicit me as a prostitute. (I'm not a prostitute, for the record.) One of those events was just before the other guy tried to follow me home.
This says nothing of the stalking problems I've had. (It would take so much time to go into all of it.) And what did I do to deserve it? What did I do to "cause" this to happen? How could I have avoided it? When I told friends about these incidents, they assumed I must have been wearing something skimpy or some kind of costume. I wasn't. I was dressed in an ankle-length skirt and very unrevealing top (I have practically no breasts anyway and never wear anything that shows them). So what was my crime? What did I do wrong? Apparently I should have avoided being white and female at the same time while daring to exist inside Japan. In the stalking incidents, my error was simply being nice to people and trying to make it clear that I wasn't interested in a relationship.
How dare I do such things!
When you start blaming women for behaviors that supposedly lead up to "bad" and "unsafe" things happening to them, rather than blaming crazy, sexually maladjusted men, you forget that many women are harassed not because they dared to wear skimpy clothing or dared to wear a push-up bra, but because they are foreign women. And the only ways to remedy these situations are to deny women their independence.
Maybe we should start restricting the lives of the perpetrators rather than the perpetrated. And stop assuming that any woman who was assaulted, harassed, stalked, or raped must have "done something stupid" to lead up to that.
Posted by BeBe | July 5, 2007 1:15 PM
whats wrong with you people and your replies! This guy speaks the truth.
The only error is when he says that glasgow is the stabbing capital of europe. It's actually Edinbugh. I know cuz i'm from there and yea, i've stabbed people!
Posted by whatever | August 4, 2007 11:13 PM
I think that the writer speaks a basic truth about Japan, to maybe people visiting here.
Obviously it is a different story for men then women.
I think the main problem in Japan is the police. They don't care about foreigners nearly as much as the Japanese people living there. Personally I think the police are very incompetent when it comes to helping out a foreigner in a serious situation like "Foreign women getting stalked in Japan".
For men, our only fears are maybe losing our wallets or getting hurt/killed. When we are in Japan, those 2 problems are not a concern for us, we don't have to worry about things like Stalkers or Rape.
Japan is a great country and I love living here, but I think people coming here and throwing their caution to the wind just because they read it online "that Japan is a safe place" is something that makes me embarrassed to be a gaijin at times.
Posted by Sam | August 11, 2007 12:49 PM
Ladies, I understand your frustration about this article, but I believe your missing the point that he is trying to make. Yes, Japan is in fact a safe country, but no country is completely, 100% safe. I can atest to this. I've traveled to several different countries and have in fact lived in Japan for the last 3 years.
"if you show the same caution you would at home when walking home alone or dealing with strangers then you almost certainly won’t end up in the newspapers, or in a bathtub full of sand."
I dont agree with this reference to Lindsay Hawker. I think it is inappropriate. If you let yout personal feelings get the best of you, then you fail to see what he's trying to say. I don't feel like he's saying that victim is at fault. He is merely giving his own advice to the public to keep themselves safe. Be mindful always, and make yourself the least vunerable as you can be. Anyone can be vunerable, women, children, and men too.
As for the tone of his article, of course he will be writing about things a guy worries about. He is after all a.....guy! You may think that his article was sexist and perhaps narrow-minded. Maybe it is, but if you can't allow yourself to see his real meaning, then maybe you are as narrow-minded as he. Just take the time to find the meaning in other people's words, and stop letting yourself get distracted by all the petty little details. Focus on the big picture.
Posted by Lobb_san | September 9, 2007 4:31 PM
Ok, I'm a foreign female in Japan, have been here for a year and a half, and my husband is Japanese. Yeah, I get stared at a lot but that doesn't really bother me anymore. I knew when I moved here that foreigners are still a relative novelty, especially in the country or areas like Tohoku where there are little to no foreigners. I've never been assaulted and I've never been followed home to my knowledge. I used to live in Montreal and close to Toronto, and all of those things and worse have happened to me there. I never see strung out crackheads on the streets in Japan like I do in Montreal, no one has ever asked me if I want to buy drugs like in Montreal, and I have no fears about walking around alone at night as I do in Montreal. The few times I've been to bars that are advertised as "foreign friendly" in Osaka I've been felt up, etc. by strange men....all of whom have been foreigners. I left the West to escape the macho and aggressive male behaviour and have, for the most part, been treated with respect by the Japanese people that I meet. Everyone's life experiences will of course differ, regardless of where in the world you live. "Safety" is sometimes due to luck, sometimes it's due to common sense. My husband is the nicest person I've ever met, and I thanks whatever gods there are in the universe that I was able to come to Japan to be able to meet him. I feel badly for foreigners who have bad experiences here, but on the other hand they should ask themselves what they were expecting in the first place and perhaps not believe everything they read. Perhaps foreigners would do well to drop the attitude that they should be treated as special or like celebrities, or that Japanese people should be grateful that they deigned to visit their country for financial gain or whatever other motivation (re: foreign guys trying to bag Japanese girls in the hopes of gaining a submissive and exotic wife to brag about in their home country). The writer of the article failed to mention whether it was a foreigner or a Japanese national who punched his friend in the face. I've never, ever seen Japanese nationals being violent in public or in bars, and I've been to many bars and clubs in Osaka and Tokyo. I don't expect to never have any problems in the future, and I sometimes worry about the kind of problems any potential children I may have will face, but these are issues I would still have in Canada being in a mixed race marriage. Racism is still alive and well in the West as well as the East. All in all, the world is a violent and strange place regardless of where you are and that is something that will never change unless we, as a global human race, strive for positive change. Until then I will continue to be as cautious as I would be in my hometown regarless of how "safe" things may seem and pray that I be allowed to live a relatively peaceful and drama-free life.
Posted by Sandy | September 19, 2007 4:22 PM