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!!!!
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