I'm a mid-20s American female living in Tokyo at the moment and just had the strangest encounter. At the local market near my apartment, I was doing some quick shopping around 8PM on my way home when I noticed this middle-aged Japanese woman, who had been in the spice aisle with me earlier, had circled back and was just standing next to me in the narrow aisle not making any moves to grab or get a better look at anything, so I quickly grabbed what I needed and left the aisle. As I was turning the corner, I looked back to get a look at her, since she had been weirdly in my space the moment before, and at that moment, I saw that she was giving me the nastiest expression I had ever seen as if I smelled horribly. I just walked away worrying if I had maybe stepped in dog poop or something but kept on with my shopping.
I was looking at cheese when suddenly she appeared next to me again and started talking to me. She asked me if I was in my 20s which threw me off because that felt like a very random question to be asked, so we went back and forth for a moment until I finally understood what she meant. She told me she was 39 and I was like, okay, maybe she wanted to be friends. She kept asking me small things like do I live in the area or if I have a boyfriend, which felt weird considering I kind of felt like I was answering a questionaire and not engaging in small talk. Anyways, from what I could understand she started going off about how other people were saying rude things about me ( I have large tattoos and was wearing short sleeves cuz it was hot) which again felt like such a weird thing to tell a stranger. Furthermore, I hadn't even noticed one person stare at me, and I'm usually very vigilant about that kind of thing, so her saying that gave me a sour taste in my mouth.
Finally, we went separate ways, and I assumed that would be the end of it. When I walked out of the grocery store, she was standing in front of the store, but I didn't think anything of it and just smiled and nodded at her and went on my way home. However, as I was about halfway home, I was thinking more about the whole interaction, and I got the gut feeling to turn around. And guess who was there, the woman from the grocery store. Mind you that at this point I was no longer on the main road but on the side roads near my home. Immediately, I took the next left turn, knowing where it led. The moment I turned and walked a bit faster, I heard running coming up from behind me. At that moment, I called my friend and took the next right turn and when I looked back there she was at the corner of the street staring at me. I stayed on the phone and kept checking back behind me and took random different streets until I was confident she was no longer following me, then finally made it home.
What just happened?? Why did she start following me even to the point of running after me? Has other foreign women living in Japan had this happen to them?
by Guilty-Run-494