A Creeper

The word that I feel in Japan is safe. It sounds like a magical far-off concept I guess, but Japanese seriously believe in 和 (wa), which sort of means peace/harmony. Don't do anything which disturbs the peace. Obviously this has large repercussions both positive and negative, but one the biggest positives is everyone's sense of civic responsibility. People don't steal. People return things that they find. People wait their turn. People are polite, patient and unintrusive. I generally feel safer in Japan than I do in the states. 

 Today was a reminder that it's not always a utopia. Today I visited Himeji castle alone to do some sight-seeing and a creepy man followed me around, asking me questions, asking to hold my bag for me, trying to talk in barely intelligible English (even though I said 10 times that Japanese is fine.) I was nice at first and then ignored him as much as possible and tried to lose him as I slowed down or sped up my sightseeing pace. But he kept finding me. Finally he asked me something I couldn't understand (due to his English), but it had the word "escort." I said I'm going home after this. He said are you alone? (In Japanese) I said yes. He said do you have a boyfriend? I lied and said yes. As soon as I said yes he quickly booked it out of the area and I didn't see him again. Overall this is one of the weirdest interactions I've had in Japan, and certainly brings up all kinds of frustrating feelings. The fetishization of foreigners. The idea that you're only off-limits once you're "somebody else's" and not because you're not interested. The realization that interactions like this happen every day in every country in the world. Japan is such a safe and easily liveable country, and in general men are polite and unthreatening (which I really appreciate), but misogyny exists here like anywhere else.