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Post by Jade on Dec 24, 2013 10:01:01 GMT
Okay, so, for those of us who have been to Japan what interesting/weird experiences have you had?
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Post by Jade on Dec 24, 2013 10:11:35 GMT
So mine is waaaay back in 2011, and when I went to a club called ID in Sakae with a group of friends. We were waiting around outside, and some of the girls were sorting out their identification to get in (many of them were underage and didn't make it inside anyway), so I flicked through some stuff on my phone and didn't pay much attention until someone tapped me on the shoulder.
It was this girl with her friend (I'm pretty sure they were high school students, actually), and she asked me if I could give her my passport because her friend was underage and needed ID. Um, what? I looked nothing like her friend... her obviously not Australian friend. So, I asked her to repeat herself. Same thing. Okay, um, no. This continued for five minutes with me feigning not being able to understand Japanese.
They gave up and walked away. My friends had finished talking by then and we'd started walking into the club. On my way I caught sight of them talking to an older man by a car. They motioned towards me and said I wouldn't give them my passport. Never saw them again, but I didn't leave the club until 1am either so that may have had something to do with it.
Was really weird though D: What the hell did they want my passport for cause it obviously wasn't to get into the club!
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Post by Jembru on Dec 24, 2013 10:28:59 GMT
My weirdest experience(s), aren't family-friendly, so I'll just mention something weird that happened. I once had a hairy homeless guy scream in my face for being a foreigner. I was on my own at the time and just walking through a small shopping center on my way to the train station. It was pretty weird. Mind you, that kind of thing happens here too, but it's usually some chavy kid with his friends trying to look tough. This guy was just a massive racist, and I think mentally ill, if the twitching and chattering to himself, was anything to go by.
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Post by Jade on Dec 24, 2013 10:57:03 GMT
Another one from me, sorry!
So a friend and I were walking back from class one afternoon, and a guy yells out: "Hello!" we respond in kind, and he yells about how happy he is. "That's great." A second later he yells out "MASTURBATION!"
Cue our laughter (and his) as we continue walking back to the dorms.
This guy yelled out random English at us a lot actually, he'd wish me good morning a lot if he caught me on my way to class sometimes. I probably would have actually had a chat with him eventually if I'd had more confidence/was less shy lol
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Post by Jembru on Dec 24, 2013 11:54:31 GMT
Hahaha..
That reminds me of something that used to happen to me. I took up smoking while I was in Japan (I quit over 2 years ago though). I used to sit on my front door step to smoke if there were clothes drying on the balcony. I lived next to an elementary school, and if I was on the step as the kids were leaving school, they would practice their English on me. They'd shout 'Hello' and 'How are you?' and if I was really lucky, they'd start introducing themselves too. It was cute, but I always got the feeling they were laughing at me too. Kids weren't exactly shy to be openly racist to your face in Japan!
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Post by LittleGaijin on Dec 28, 2013 11:29:56 GMT
Well, the only thing that comes to mind right now is unfortunately Kabukichou...
Me and my dad were staying at a hotel in Shinjuku, but we didn't know that it was literally right next to an alleyway that led into Kabukichou... so while leading my dad around one night, we eventually found ourselves in the middle of Kabukicho and people were handing my dad pamphlets with naked women on them. Ugh... I was so embarrassed and my dad started laughing. "Just get me out of here, will ya?"
When we got back to the hotel, my dad asked me "who were all those guys with the goofy hair? Drag queens?"
"... those were hosts..."
"Oh, fuck, well now that's a bit different, isn't it?"
LMAO.
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Post by Bokusenou on Dec 28, 2013 20:22:44 GMT
Great thread idea!
Hmm, the weirdest moment I can think of is something that didn't happen to me directly, but I heard about it while I was there. When I was studying at a language school there, our class organized a day trip to Kyoto. I didn't go on that one, because I ended up going later, but they told those who didn't go all about it.
When they went into a teahouse there, the staff became very nervous, some almost dropped the tea they were carrying. Then one yelled out "ジョニー・デップ！". The person they were referring to, a Mexican friend who, to me, looked nothing like Johnny Depp except for having a similar skin tone, was surprised, but he played along, and "Johnny Depp & his fellow gaijin friends" got treated to free food the whole time they were there. From then on the class called him "Johnny" when they were joking around. I wonder if the "All (non-Asian looking) gaijin look the same" idea I've encountered among some Japanese people had something to do with him being mistaken for a movie star.
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Post by Jembru on Dec 29, 2013 2:32:38 GMT
Not quite as good, but Rin's story reminds me of something that happened to my ex. He had multicoloured wraps in his hair (red and black I think). He once stopped for a cigarette in the square just as you go in the gates of yoyogi park. I didn't smoke at the time, so was in the snoopy store by myself. I went back to meet him, to find a queue of Japanese people wanting their photo taken with him. Lol.. weird, but happened! I always wanted to dress up and hang out in yoyogi park, but gaijin always look so frumpy and out of place there somehow. That said, I have quite a few items in my wardrobe that were bought in harajuku ^^
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