Groping (CHIKAN) in Japan?

 Chikan  is a Japanese term which is frequently used to describe men who take advantage of the crowded conditions on the public transit systems to touch people sexually. Women on crowded trains in Japan are the most frequent targets of chikan. Chikan is very common in Japan and a serious problem.
As part of the effort to combat chikan, some railway companies have designated women-only passenger cars.

It is not something committed by jobless people etc, but mostly by salarymen who commute on the trains everyday. One high-profile instance is that of economist and former professor at the graduate school of Waseda University Kazuhide Uekusa who has a string of arrests for sex-related offences, the most recent of which came when he was arrested for molesting a schoolgirl on a train.

When you look around in the morning trains you can easily see 3-4 instances just around you.
Most of the Japanese woman which has been oppressed by man-dominant society for hundrads of years can not oppose to the crime and just accepts it as a part of the life in Japan.
With a very simple calculation, average ten cars in each train in the mornings, there are more than 100 incidents in each train. This shows a big contradiction with the public behaviour and ideas of Japanese people who look very polite and courteous in personal relations.

Honne and Tatemae (true feelings and public behaviour) are very different in Japanese people. I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world which is comparable to Japan in Honne & Tatemae gap. 

I had a friend who came to Japan from Turkey long time ago with his family.
I helped him to rent the house. It was a station on Saikyo Line. After a few months, he moved somewhere else. He just said his wife did not like the house but I felt very guilty. After a while I learned that the real reason was CHIKAN. It was impossible for a Turkish woman to bear it.

NOTE:  The following link is an english SNS in Japan (Youshare Japan). I am writing articles there on Japan/Japanese Culture/Business in Japan/Education in Japan etc, you can find many other blogs.

http://english.youshare.jp/blogs.php?action=show_member_blog&ownerID=1&blogID=3

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Two faces of a Japanese Person: Honne and Tatemae
• Small local Temples, Shrines etc in Japan
• Religion in Japan
• Headless Central Bank