So, with the whole *uchi* and *soto* thing, Japanese people tend to keep fairly stoic and quiet outside.
That is, until they don’t.
The other day I was in a Hankyu department store walking around the restaurant floor searching for something not egregiously overpriced when I heard a loud fully-r rolled *korrrrrra omae kuru na!!!* from across the floor. Out of a restaurant storms the spitting image of Date Mikio, clearly pissed off to high hell. A woman, presumably his wife, chases after him with *anata!* repeatedly, which he responds to with another *kuru na!*
I walked over to watch them a bit, but the root of their argument was unclear. While they were having a meltdown in front of the restaurant, staff member after staff member walked out trying to calm them down for some reason beyond my understanding. They just kept coming out one by one, starting with the servers, and then the cooks, and then the chef himself. Eventually they got them separated and sent the man on his way down a separate escalator from his wife.
Thinking the matter was settled, the staff loitered around for a few seconds, clearly exhausted, until another *korrrrrrrrrra!!!* was angrily shouted. You see, the wife had decided that she wanted to say just one more thing to her husband, so she ditched her escalator to rush over to tell him, which threw gasoline on the proverbial fire. The staff all sprinted over in unison shouting *okyakusama okyakusama!!* to try to placate them once again. Eventually the fight was broken up and the wife went down the elevator while her husband took the escalator.
What were they fighting about? I don’t know.
Why did the staff feel the need to intervene? Again, not sure.
What was the epilogue? I couldn’t tell you.
But those 20 minutes were incredibly awkward. It wasn’t the first blowup I’ve seen in Japan (that was the two-timer high school boy getting shrieked at by his scorned lovers), but it was probably the biggest.
I’m curious about any other such incidents the members here have witnessed.
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Few years ago, a couple in the building across the street had a fight. Woman was screaming and had locked the guy out. She threw all of his stuff off the balcony right down onto the top of his BMW.
That was the best entertainment I had had in months.
I haven’t witnessed anything as grand as that but once we were leisurely shopping in a typical quiet muji store when a guy walked up to a girl (his wife or something I guess), right up to her ear, and yelled “時間だ!” in the loudest, most aggressive voice I’ve ever heard. Coming out of nowhere, and the wife not even flinching at it, just continuing walking, left everyone in the store in shock. It was a very weird atmosphere for a few minutes afterwards.
I have witnessed some chinpira fights in Shinjuku when I was working there. Also a few drunk fights, but nothing terrible.
students parents once got in an argument outside my classroom.. wife stormed out of the area…
Recently entered this tiny konbini with a friend, and we suddenly realize there is this man shouting angrily at the top of his lungs in there, with the poor staff trying to keep him under control.
He was alone and it was quite unclear what he was shouting about, possibly his payment being refused, or something.
I guess the worst I saw was an American (or Canadian?) guy go off on his Japanese girlfriend at Tokyo Solamachi. He was stomping like a child and yelling at her about something. When she went to comfort him, he shoved her hard and sprinted down the escalator. Then she chased after him crying.
A few year back an older(probably early 60s I would guess) woman gets on a train and asks a young guy if she can have the priority seat because her knees hurt. The young guy refuses and she starts yelling at him. Eventually someone else gives up their seat but as the old woman leaves the train she just whips a half full plastic tea bottle at the guy’s head. Fortunately for everyone involved it missed hitting anything and it bounced off the wall. First and only confrontation I’ve ever seen where a baachan got violent
Recently saw a man physically forcing a woman into the back seat of his car, she was screaming for help and trying to escape as he repeatedly tried closing the door on her, with her body halfway out the door. I stopped him and called the police. He yelled that she’d cheated, but still, that doesn’t give him the right to physically abuse her in my book.
Public arguments are so rare here that if I see a couple/family yelling at each other, I honestly fear for their safety at home.
“Normal” people don’t shout in public here, so the families who are shouting or arguing must be in a very unhappy, scary and probably dangerous home situation. It might be an overreaction, but that’s my assumption and makes me uneasy 🙁
An old guy shouting at a staff member of a sightseeing tower because he was lost due to “poor signalization”. All this while his wife was by his side, dying of shame, and the staff member with face of “ah, why me?”
If you count “arguments” with inanimate objects and/or people who are not actually present…
On our way to a wedding (me suited up, wife….kimono’d….up?), minding our business on a train out to a beautiful part of northern Osaka. At one of the stops, a guy in maybe his 30’s in a gray suit runs to make it and literally throws himself into the closing door to stop it. Door opens again and the guy goes on inside, then turns around and proceeds to punch, kick, and scream at the door. Then he turns around and punches, kicks, and screams at the door on the opposite side. Then he starts walking down the train car screaming and slamming his briefcase into the various seats, hand-hold bars, etc., and then off into the next car.
No idea what (or who) he was so angry at, but that was one *hell* of a rage.
I heard some angry shouting while we were watching TV and went to check. A guy had his girlfriend (presumably) with one leg over the balcony threatening and screaming to push her off in the apartment building opposite. Wtf…. um, babe!!! So we go running down to the street. It was only the third floor so she *probably* wouldn’t have died? Some other guy had seen and was calling the cops and my husband is standing under her arms wide spread going “oh, this is going to fucking hurt if she falls”. I find a blue tarp in a construction area and we try to hold it like we could possibly break her fall. The cops show up, call a fire-truck and he pulls her back inside. Which was almost worse cause we can hear her crying and screaming “itai, itai” but can’t see what’s happening. The fire-truck comes and they get the ladder out and climb up. The cops are asking us a bunch of questions of course. “Yes, we live in that building. Yes, I saw what was happening from my balcony so came down. No, we don’t have our gaijin cards on us right now…”. They broke concentration when the couple were brought out and we extracted ourselves from the situation.
I never knew what came of it all, but the apartment was empty a week later.
(I worry someone might recognize my u/ as the person who commented on a hero 8 year old who helped out when I saw another couple fighting. I’m not making this shit up. We unfortunately don’t live in the best of neighborhoods, we’ve been here for 20 plus years, we refuse to ignore DV – and I’ve disturbingly got 3 more incidents I haven’t mentioned yet).
> until another korrrrrrrrrra!!!
LOL, I can imagine this so perfectly!
I’ve been witness to a few arguments, even a couple legitimate fights where blows are thrown. Usually very clearly both participants are drunk. And every time, people around them get them apart, and every time, one or the other suddenly decides to escalate the argument again.
It’s like people take such a long time building up to a public fight that once they cross the line, they can’t let it go.
Looking forward to seeing OP on モニタリング in a few weeks
I was at an Izakaya with a couple of friends recently. There was a guy sitting with a woman.
Suddenly there is a woman coming inside with two kids. The kids go like “え お父さん?”.
Funnily enough the guy got busted by his wife having dinner with another woman. A heated discussion began with the mistress just sitting there calmly, quietly. Eventually the restaurant staff offered the couple to go into the back room to discuss things. They were in there for like an hour. What surprised me the mistress just stayed put and didn’t leave. My friends said it’s a Powerplay.
Fast forward at some time the wife comes out and confronts the mistress but they talk calmly. The whole restaurant is quiet and everybody’s watching like wtf is gonna happen. Wife moves back in the back room. Eventually the whole family comes out. The wife also realizes there’s a gift bag for the mistress and she checks what’s inside. The husband touches the mistress by the arm and makes some form of apology to her. That’s when his wife slaps him right across the face. Afterwards all of them left.
My buddy said he hadn’t seen something like this in 10 years living in Tokyo. For me it was also quite bizarre especially bringing a kid into this, but surely that was something we all will never forget. Top notch entertainment.
So, my first time in Japan. About 12 years ago, I was 19 at the time.
I was walking down the stairs to the subway and a guy walked past me, when he got to the top he started screaming.
I must have walked down on the wrong side without realizing it, the side that is actually meant for walking up.
He totally freaked out because I was walking on the wrong side and was yelling at me and saying “wakaru? Nihongo wakaru?”
I didn’t answer anything because I was a bit in shock…
After he finished, he left… but he was extremely aggressive.
Afterwards a nice old lady came to me and asked me if I was okay, she was also shocked by the scenario.
Just to clarify… this was around noon on a normal work day, the staircase was absolutely empty and huge, there was enough space for everyone.
The people with megaphones yelling about how COVID is a hoax, probably.
I once saw an elderly Western looking gentleman with a cane getting on a subway (Asakusa line in Tokyo). Predictably, the priority seats were all taken. He bonked the head of a salaryman who was dozing off in one of the seats with his cane (from the doors and over another person’s head) and started to insult him in fluent Japanese. The salaryman was so shocked that he left his seat and got off at the next station. I was grinning all the time.
a few years again on the train, this perhaps drunk old man kept bothering this couple in their thirties or so. the couple took every opportunity to walk away from the guy but he kept following them, at one point trying to grab the guy’s arm. as the train stopped at tsunashima station, the couple attempted to get off the train but the old guy kept following, trying to grab the young guy’s arm again. the young guy just lost it, got the old man in a headlock and ran him across the entire platform and ploughed his head into a vending machine. it was a total wwf move. the old guy felt to the floor screaming ありがとうね！ありがとうね！as the doors of the train closed and the couple walked away
Have seen a couple of interesting ones:
On the train a teenaged boy who had obvious mental health issues (talking to himself, grinning at everything) walked up to a mother and her elementary school aged boy. He grinned at the boy a couple of seconds and I thought it was just going to be one of those awkward “let’s all try to ignore the mental guy” train rides, when suddenly out of nowhere he slaps the small boy across the face as hard as he could.
This was the only occasion I actually saw a number of bystanders come out of the bystander effect (I guess because the teenager was quite obvious messed up in the head) and immediately grab the guy and hold him against the wall while someone pressed the emergency call button to talk to the conductor. At the next station cops showed up and talked to the mother, boy, and teenager and eventually hauled him off.
Another time I was coming up the escalator from the Yokosuka line at Tokyo station to transfer to Yamanote right in the middle of the morning rush hour when at the top there were 2 salarymen gripping each other’s collar, face right in each other’s face, growling out various teme’s and similar phrases. Was really wanting to see how turned out, but like everyone else in the station had places to be so ignored it and passed them by.
Then there was the time I was coming back from a customer visit with one of our sales guys, both of us sitting on the train since the customer was way out in Yokosuka or similar. As the train starts getting crowded a chinpira-looking guy comes in and trips over the sales guy’s legs (he’s a tall lanky guy who’s legs just might have been taking up more than the necessary space). Chinpira-looking guy doesn’t take too kindly even when the sales guy apologies, they start mumble arguing back and forth for a station or 2 until the sales guy stands up and suggest they get off at the next stop to talk it out.
Chinpira-guy starts getting pretty agitated, pulls out his phone and starts making calls (not sure if real or just trying to look tough), sales guy (Osaka born and raised) keeps a frustrated but firm stance that he did nothing wrong but if they need to finish it, let’s do it. I’m kinda sitting there in shock wondering what the protocol is, do I get off and help? just act as witness? something else? Sales guy tells me calmly to just go back to the office by myself, he can handle this alone.
They both get off at the next stop, train goes on and the next day sales guy shows up as usual.
No obvious bruises or injury, so I guess they resolved it relatively peacefully. But it was something he refused to give more detail on even over drinks; I think he was concerned about getting in trouble with HR if even a rumor slipped out about the incident.
One time at the supermarket the cashier (an old-ish guy) must’ve made some horrible faux pas because this ancient woman was just LETTING HIM HAVE IT. Insisting he apologise, at full volume, for whatever little mishap he’d made. No other staff could calm her down despite trying for ages. It didn’t seem like he’d short changed her or anything, I don’t know what it was, but it went on and on, and from that day on I never saw that guy again.
I saw a guy walking out of a pachinko place and then get on his knees and scream. Two older salarymen walked out and looked at him then kept walking lol. The dude kept going even after I finished walking by.
Great storytelling, OP — I felt as if I were there!
Hachioji station: homeless guy screaming out of his lungs, hands up wailing and everything, while cop calmly searches his fanny pack for whatever. No one touches anyone, just cops hands frisking homeless guy stuff. Couple minutes later homeless guy is let go. BOOORING!
When I first moved here, I was at the post office getting my bank account set up, and an ojiisan made a big scene yelling at all the staff because he was “in a hurry” and “didn’t have time” to wait in line like everyone else. The line was like 5 people long, and he ended up in there shouting at the poor employees trying to deal with him for like 3 lines’ worth of time while I was in there and was still at it when I left.
My Japanese coworker who was helping me settle in and all was amazed and said that she hadn’t seen someone blow up in public like that in many years, and we were both confused as to why he would cause a scene that ends up making things take many times longer than they would have, when supposedly the reason is that he’s in a hurry. It was probably mental illness, so in hindsight we felt pretty bad for the guy, hopefully he got some help
“Honey, honey!”
“Leave me alone!”
Sometimes the hard thing to know is why things happen, you just have to make sure that no one loses their lease on life if you can help. I’m impressed with the restaurant staff. They were really worried.
I had a Japanese ex when I was younger that would literally stop right there & argue for an hour or two in that spot no matter what. Tried traveling with her but the same thing happened in every city every place no matter what. Example if we went the wrong way because of me it was my fault. If we went the wrong way because of her it was my fault because I didn’t correct her.