Oooookay so I’ve recently taken to sleeping in my car at roadside stations to travel more easily and for the first time I’m staying at a non toll road road side station. There’s a bunch of cars here so seems fine right?
Well, at 2am I’m awoken by engine revving and someone speaking really loudly outside my car. They are saying stuff like “where are they going?” “Always inside” “wallet” “intrusion (邪魔します)” in a kinda loud/scary voice. My windows are blocked but not that well and I saw a shadow but hopefully they weren’t staring directly at me?
Eventually loud scary voice went away and it was just a couple talking normally or running laps around the parking lot on the motorcycle. Now they are chilling next to someone else’s car and there appears to be four of them.
What the heck is going on here? Has this happened to anyone? Is this a bike gang? What do they want with this roadside station? Are they dangerous? I’m in a pretty inaka town so it’s a little unexpected to have delinquents of some sort running around.
7 comments
If they were a biker gang, they probably would not be interested in a parked car.
If the noise is too much or they seem to be acting erratically, call 110 and talk to the police (telephone operators should be able to speak English).
Bozozoku. Inoculous. It’s japan, they’re only dangerous if you think they are.
Bousozoku. Young and stupid and playing the scary gang dudes except you never see them in winter because they are back into their cozy mom’s basement.
I work night shifts in a convenience store and sometimes they come to spend a few hours in our parking lot. They are surprisingly polite. When I warned one about what I thought was a marijuana joint because the cops often check the area at night, he made me sniff a pouch of tobacco and it was smelling like tea because it was tea flavored tobacco. We had a good laugh and he thanked me for having tried to warn him.
In 23 years I never had any problems with them. The only thing that sometimes irritates me is the noise that they make under my windows at 3:00 in the morning.
Fellow car sleeper!
I always check online about a place before I sleep there, make sure it’s not a place frequented by these type of gangs.
> “intrusion (邪魔します)”
Are you sure this wasn’t in the sense of “Excuse me”? I’d like to know the Japanese for the other terms you heard, it’s likely they were just some loud bikers shouting at each other about where to go, not a gang scoping out a target.
Bōsōzoku. Search Wikipedia.
Yup it’s normal, plus it is their country and culture. So you might wanna find a better sleeping spot.