If only I could understand a bit of Japanese...

Before I became pregnant, I used to work part-time as an English teacher at a nursery. I had to take a couple of trains to get there from home. 

One day on the way back home, I saw an old man in the train, carrying some kind of a leaflet printed in Japanese. He went from person to person, saying something (again, in Japanese) but everyone seemed to ignore him and even scold him. He came to me as well, but I couldn't understand neither what he said nor what was printed on the leaflet. I told him "Nihongo wakaranai" (I do not understand Japanese) and looked at a lady next to me, as if to ask her what he was asking. 

Instead of explaining his agenda, the lady drove him away. She must have thought that he was being a nuisance to me. 

He went away and sat on one of the seats afterwards. He didn't look at me or anyone either. I thought he was a beggar and wanted to give him some money before getting off the train. Unfortunately, he got off before my destination. 

I felt so sorry about the old me. If only I had undestood what he said...

In Sri Lanka, even though people don't have a lot of money in their pockets, most of them offer at least a one-rupee-coin to the beggars. In Japan, you hardly see a beggar (I'm not even sure if that person was a beggar to begin with), but even when you do, people think of them as a nuisance and try to drive them away without offering any help. And they call Japan a developed country. Such irony!!!!

A bunch of misers!

When I was 6-months pregnant, my husband and I visited Enoshima, an island near Kamakura with some religious significance. It's a small island with many hills, temples and a nice view of the surroundings.

I'm not going to talk about the island but one particular incident that we came across during that trip, which made me feel so bad about the Japanese.

While wandering about the island, we came across a street performer. His antics were amusing though I couldn't make out much of what he said as I was very weak in Japanese. There were lots of people flocked around to see his performance when we got there, so much so that we could not get much closer, hence we stayed a little bit farther away. 

After he concluded that round of the show he asked for donations. My husband went and dropped in a 50 yen coin into his hat, which is of course not much. But most of the audience went away without donating any money. The performer didn't seem amused by that and called out that he can remember the faces of everyone who didn't donate to him - albeit hiding his disappointment with a laughter.

I felt sad about the whole incident. Aren't these Japanese people wealthy enough to donate at least one coin to this poor man? Is it rightful to run away without supporting him after enjoying all of his stunts? I believe that they shouldn't have watched it if they could not donate.

What do you think? Was it wrong for him to kind of threaten the people in that manner? Or was it justifiable?