SMART JAPANESE PEOPLE AND NICE FORIGNERS ARE DISGUSTED BY THE ACTIONS OF STUPID FORIGNERS WHO ARE LIVING IN JAPAN.
WE NEED SMART AND GOOD PEOPLE.

IF YOU ARE ONE OF THE STUPID FORIGNERS INVADING JAPAN LIKE THOSE WHO WERE RIDING ON THE YAMANOTE LINE ON HALLOWEEN DAY, YOU MUST KNOW THIS IS NOT YOUR COUNTRY.

GO AWAY FROM JAPAN!!!

I didnt see any vandalism. People turned off the lights by twisting them, then turned them back on the same way.

To answer the questions of the poster above:

Why do here in Japan what you cannot do in your country?
Uhhh…. they do do that in my home country as well

If you can do it in your country, what makes you think you can do it here?
Its a free country just the same.

Do you know the difference between A train and Akihabara?
Yes, there are more molesters on the trains

And did I say that Japan belongs to Japanese?
We pay taxes too (we fund the train system as well).

There was no trouble at this party, because they did not cram the carriage full, they did not get drunk, abuse other passengers or interfere with the operation of the train. The party was reported in local newspapers as an amusing incident not a shocking public disorder.

However London is a less uptight place than Tokyo and there isn’t an obvious ‘gaijin’ aspect to such happenings.

“your ignorance makes the rest of us look bad”

I am an Australian citizen according to my passport, though I’ve never felt particularly Australian, and I won’t accept that the actions of these revellers relate to me in any tangible sense. I really can’t understand all this “gaijin pride” stuff… I think if you look at it objectively, you’re likely to find people that share a very similar view to you, as well as people that hold a polar opposite position, among citizens of both Japan and wherever you hold citizenship.

If this event gave “foreigners” a bad name, then as I see it it just as equally gave young people a bad name, and people that drink alcohol a bad name, and people that dress up on Hallowe’en a bad name.

And frankly, all this respect of culture has to be allowed to bend somewhere. Is it disrespectful toward “Japanese culture” (which is something with a very loose definition anyway, as touched upon in earlier comments regarding cosplay in Akihabara) of the marketing agencies that attempt to import events like Hallowe’en, without really understanding what it is, and whether the event could hold any signifigance for the various demographics it gets targeted at.
And then the cultural stuff gets messy when foreigners, perhaps influenced in part by the familiar iconography, decide to do something in line with their understanding of the holiday (though not quite on the level of how things go down in movies like, say, The Crow), and so some people unfamiliar with this aspect get upset, while others get excited and join in. It could be perhaps countered that “that isn’t how we celebrate Hallowe’en in this country/culture”, but, culturally speaking, what kind of legs does an argument like that stand on?

I’m always surprised when I get on the Yamanote and there isn’t a big gathering!

If you can put up with the sound of a kyuukou flying past your local stop a couple meters away from you, then you don’t really have the right to complain to much about noise levels.

I have just read comments on this page from foreigners from top to here (maybe about half way through) and am glad to know that most of all the comments are against the behaviors of participants of the Yamanote line Party.

The man who posted in Japundit
http://japundit.com/archives/2007/11/01/7315/#comments
never seem to feel bad about their behavior. In his own blog, he justifies their celf-centered attitude.
http://samuraidave.wordpress.com/2007/10/30/the-yamanote-halloween-train-rides-into-a-sea-of-adversity/

After reading the comments on his blog, I was shocked to know that some foreigners there don’t feel sorry for the event. I doubted my eyes. I thought the majority of foreigners think the same way as the blogger, but I’m relieved to know that that’s not the case after reading comments here on this blog.

2channeler’s behaviors here on this blog aren’t justfied even though they misunderstood this blog as if your blog was on the side of the party participants. They tend to think they can do whatever they want under the umbrella of annonymity. I feel sorry for the chaos they made here.

>However, most of the comments left by Japanese said >things like “fuck you gaijin” or with heavy usage >of 毛唐 and 死ね　and other incredibly rude or >racist terms. Worthless shit like that is not >acceptable on sites that encourage actual discussion

Most of Japanese are not good at English but they know some cuss words such as fxxk you and all that. I think that’s one of the reason why they left such comments in English. Still, that can’t justfy their bad behaviors.

decent foreigners go to a country to learn about a culture different from their own, not to make a playground out of a new setting.

respect the culture, respect the customs, and at the very least, you could try and respect the transportation system.

your ignorance makes the rest of us look bad.

Get outside of your perception bubble and maybe you’ll realize what other people think about your actions.

And 99% of the criticisms here or on Japanese forums are overblown. It was mostly quite innocent – a loud congregation, sure, but no riot. Reminded me more of a group of revellers during New Years.

Unfortunately, it matters little what actually happened but only how people who weren’t there perceive it… Which is why this was my first & last Yamanote party. I take no pleasure in helping to generate thousands of ignorant and hateful comments directed at gaijin or anyone else.

But for those of you who are interested in what actually happened:

1) Nothing was broken. The train lights were temporarily disabled by twisting them out of their sockets, and the “out of control” partygoers turned them back on at Shinagawa when the JR staff asked them to.

2) With one exception, there was no nudity. People were wearing costumes, so you had a couple of bare chests, cross-dressing – typical fare for Halloween. The exception was the guy in boxers in the picture on this blog. Someone pulled his boxers partly down and he happily posed for people to take pictures of his backside.

3) Most people I saw were not very drunk. It was early and people might just have been getting warmed up before they went to parties. They certainly weren’t violent or intimidating, especially since almost half were women. I did feel bad though for the people in car # 10 at Shinjuku, whom had to move to other cars to get away from the loud group of revellers.

4) At least a third of participants were Japanese, though of course the majority still were gaijin.

5) Most Japanese people who saw us were smiling and waving, or taking pictures, as you’d expect when there’s a bunch of people wearing funny costumes. The police who showed up at Shinagawa were pretty pissed however, and the Yamanote party got off the train at that point, leaving behind cars that were a little worse for wear (1 or 2 spilt beer bottles, a couple of forgotten umbrellas, cans etc).

All in all, it would be a great memory of a fun party that didn’t inconvenience many people, if it wasn’t for the fact that the train was stopped at Shinagawa for 10 minutes and that people who weren’t there got so worked up about it.

In the end these stories remind me of when I studied in Tokyo and of the self-centered children I was studying with. There are far too many of those kind of individuals in Japan. It is annoying.

Actually I don’t think you would get deported from Japan even for murder, and pretty sure you wouldn’t for manslaughter – deportation is usually used for visa-related crimes. However having read about Japanese jails, I’d definitely prefer being kicked out of the country….

I think I tend to agree about the “Me Generation” though. Too much Barney telling them they’re “special” as kids….

I think I am simply shocked that anyone would act in this manner in a foreign country. I have a feeling that the ‘self-esteem generation’ of Americans and other nations are the primary participants in these kind of situations.

This is a comment that made a judgement on an entire population. The extra part there is worthless really. If I say ‘I am not racist or anything, but black people are garbage’ it doesn’t really change the fact that what I just said is a blanket statement and ridiculous.

As well, the point about how long they have actually been ‘in Japan’ is quite valid. I spent quite a long time out in the so called ‘countryside’ in Saitama and it may simply be the fact that I see these things differently from those who frequent Roppongi and strictly congregate with other foreigners in Japan.

I am more insensed with the individuals who were disabling lights than the others. In my opinion, the idea to simply get on the train to drink and be obnoxious is very ‘un-Japanese’. Sure, it happens from time to time that you see a drunken salaryman or two, but what they are doing is still over the top and is a recipe for trouble. Maybe I am just a square.

Because it is not strictly prohibited as it is in their own countries. If it’s not illegal, it must be legal, is their thinking (and since the ideal of post-Enlightenment European civilisation is that laws prevent you from doing things rather than give you permission – ie that you are free to do anything that is not illegal – this is not such a huge step to take). I am not looking at this from a moral issue as such, just saying that if it were made more clear (as it is apparently in Osaka) that this is Not On, then that might help. Their common sense is based, as far as I can gather, on “hey, we can do this in Japan!” (in similar vein, I ride a bicycle frequently, and never wear a helmet and often ride on the footpaths, both of which are downright illegal where I come from) and so, caught up in the fact that they CAN do it, don’t stop to think about whether they SHOULD do it. And perhaps they genuinely do not realise how they are perceived; that these actions are indeed so heinous. We really need more comments from people who joined this thing as to why they did it, and what they felt the effects would be.

To be more philosophical, perhaps the sheer existence of too many prohibitions has a reverse effect: without the strict guidelines of the law, people do not know how to act, and in a foreign country, the problem is greatly exacerbated. And how long have these people spent in Japan, and I mean “IN Japan” rather than NOVAland and gaijin enclaves. They may think, “Hey, Japanese salarymen like to drink, and like to ride trains, and like a bit of a party – let’s show them a good time!” (I do not think they are deliberately trying to hassle or intimidate people, just being dicks let loose for the first time in their lives).

I feel some sympathy for those rioters. Because maybe they were LOSER in their country. Like Asperger syndrome, they couldn’t sense an atmosphere and they lost their place, occupation, faith and more.(or actually they might be retarded.)

Finally, they had to leave their country. They moved to Tokyo where they can feel safe and superior to QUIET MONKEYS everywhere.

But their short-sighted project was ruined. Even in their country, they were disliked because of their poor and selfish communication. In Japan, conversation in Japanese, much more poor and selfish.

Pitiful aliens are disliked again by a monkeys in east end. Please imagine their deep sorrow. This riot was the explosion of the sorrow of the weak. I feel sincerely sympathy for those hopeless rioters.

Europe is not Japan. In Japan this behavior is unacceptable. Stop thinking with your cultural identity for a second. Japan shouldn’t have to adapt to you. You should adapt to Japan.

Blame the criminals, not the reporters.

Stealing a can of coke has nothing to do with what these people did. In my opinion, those individuals who were involved in breaking the lightbulb should be deported. Perhaps, your ideas of right and wrong are just a little bit skewed?

People must be held to account for their actions.

So the question remains, why do these individuals believe this is ok behavior for Japan, when it is not acceptable in America, Australia, and elsewhere?

@Garret: I do not assume that rowdy behavior does not occur on public transit in America. I assert that such behavior is not tolerated and is dealt with by authorities. If you were to disable a bus or train in the West you’d be in deep shit.

As far as racism, death threats, etc go. Some here are overestimating the nature of those ‘threats’. 2ch is nothing more than a site for trolls to do what they do best. If everyone took what the chans said seriously we’d be in a permanent state of panick.

In my opinion, the lemming like nature of this particular brand of foreigner in Japan should be something that everyone who gives a damn about the image of foreigners there is concerned about.

Japanese people in Power Ranger and Pikachu suits having fun on Akihabara’s streets=Japanese culture.
Gaijin in the same suits on a train=Fuel up a plane so we can deport their asses and call the UN to see if they can squeeze them in between their other war criminal trials.
When an oba-san gave you an elbow check once again so she can get on the train one second earlier it’s normal.
When some white guy with Halloween makeup gets on the train with you he probably also has a belt with explosives strapped to his chest.

Well, thanks for the entertainment.

And to the people asking what would happen in other countries:
In Europe it happens every single weekend when thousands of football fans travel to their teams game in their respective countries. They drink, are sometimes loud and have a good time. And what do the other people do? They simple move to the next wagon and no one cares. It’s that simple.

Or, they just misunderstood the article and have nothing better to do. It could go both ways.

Is it terrorism or armageddon? Not at all. Does it warrant racism, hatred, and death threats? Of course not. Does it warrant arrests? In most cases, probably not, much less deportation or anything like that.

But is it barbarism in a rather pure sense? Yes, it is.

I love how journalism is the new terrorism. Priceless.

Great question! If this happened in NYC it would not be tolerated at all and it would be promptly stopped and the people would either be arrested or detained.

So then why is it that the Japanese apparantly don’t care and continue to let this happen? Sure they can get online and make death threats and racists comments, but they never actually try to stop this event. The police will do nothing (until someone breaks a light!) and the Japanese people around at the time will either join in with the other people having fun or quietly disapprove.

I’m sorry, but I can’t feel bad for people that let bad things (or things they just don’t like) continue to happen to them.

Thanks for making your position clear.
However, I think that things have changed
if you restated your thoughts on this
with this year’s post as well.

Those spammers from 2ch who posted racist things reminded me of some of the stuff that was written on the Yahoo message boards before they were taken down. It seemed like there were always racist comments in every thread, especially in news comments. And then you had people who bash everyone in a particular religion, and the people who blamed everything on the political party they hate, etc. At least the Yahoo people didn’t spam sites (at least, I’d never heard of them doing stuff like that). This site perfectly illustrates the type of spew that people would say on those boards.

Oh, I know all about e/b/aums.

About the Halloween thing, though…I’ll agree that it’s a nuisance to other passengers who are just trying to go someplace. If people want to throw a Halloween party, do it in some other place…but don’t do it on a public train. It’s rude and doesn’t give a good impression to other passengers.