Have you ever seen a Japanese train? If you type in `Japanese train` into google images you`ll probably get some pictures of a sexy looking Shinkansen or a slightly old-fashioned but still very reliable local style train. But behind that shiny, shiny, efficient veneer lies the true heart of the Japanese train; its passengers. Inside, the people sit quietly reading manga, magazines or occasionally, hardcore pornography. Either that or they stand, like quiet sardines staring silently into the middle distance like they were the stars of their own romantic film. So far so boring, but occasionally something happens makes the Japanese train journey quite take a turn for the sinister – Chikan; a.k.a. sexual molestation. In Japan, Chikan is much more common than in the west, whether a result of Japanese sexual culture, over-crowding on trains or whatever. Although it’s victims are usually young women and teenage girls, as I will regale this is not always the case.
The place; Nagoya`s Yamanashi line, eastbound, just before Sakae station. Today had been a good day, the annual Japanese festival of the dead - Obon, had meant that very few teachers had turned up to work, and as such I finished at 10.30. Full of youthful vim and vigour left to explore Nagoya, and as I prepared to disembark at Sakae, I felt it. It was a brief but firm touch of my arse. The sensation was unmistakable, I thank God I was spanked as a child else I may not have recognised it. I was shocked, horrified I immediately turned round to confront my tormentor, my abuser, but instead was confronted by a wall of innocent looking girls, noses naturally buried in manga. So incensed was I, that I was about to unleash my righteous fury, when I remembered that I was British, and the British do not a make a fuss about this sort of thing, we just bite our lips and mumble something under our breath. This was obviously a masterful practitioner of chikan, sly, cunning, she had timed the act just as the train was pulling into the station and was I about to leave. There was nothing I could do, to confront them meant that I would miss my stop, and just like Nick Clegg in the formation of the coalition government`s policy, I had to abandon my principles and retreat.
So let this be a lesson to all you young gentlemen planning on taking a trip to Japan, BEWARE, for young women may touch your arse!
