Japanese manners on the train
Women take an eye for an eye, especially on moving trains
MSN-Mainichi, September 23, 2006
It was the morning of Monday, August 7, and Kiyohito Kokita, a reporter for Aera (9/25), observed a woman, aged around 30, boarding the Metro subway at the first stop on the line. Once seated, she promptly went to work on her eyelashes using a hinged metal device that resembled a pair of pliers, or perhaps a dentist’s tool used for tooth extractions.
Such a device, which applies pressure to make the lashes curl upward in a graceful curve, is referred to in Japan as a “byuraa.”…This bizarre behavior, writes Kokita, represents nothing less than eyelash paranoia….
Somehow, the author seems to think that the daily shows of Japanese salarymen on the train nose-picking, porn reading, and tooth-sucking are OK compared to a little application of make-up.
Speaking of train manners and bizarre behavior, I have yet to understand why sitting on the floor of the train is terrible but the after 11pm festival of salarymen projectile vomiting is perfectly ok. Actually, I love sitting on the floor of the train in front of the seats reserved for the handicapped.
Sometimes when I’m feeling frisky I ask the seated folks to, “Please hold my crutches so I can hang from the straps with both hands.”
Damn, they ought to know that those are reserved for aliens, hee, hee.
- 
September 23rd, 2006 at 10:45 pm
I feel stupider after having read that Mainichi article. You’re absolutely right in your ranting. It’s a horrible double standard.
I don’t take kindly to the swaying drunk businessmen on a train, but any lady who will apply mascara when the JR train drivers drive like they have been recently, is a hero in my books.
September 23rd, 2006 at 11:31 pm
That Mainichi article is a classic in old-fogyism…and hell, I’m a lot older than the author or the editor.