Yesterday I was on lunch and decided to buy some bento from the local supermarket. After making the purchase (some sort of stuffed potatoes and pizza) I went to the microwave to heat it up. Unfortunately a mother and child arrived first. That's fine, lunch is an hour, you can wait a minute for someone else. But no, not one minute, the women throws her frozen lasagna in for 10 minutes (the box says 5 minutes) then tells the daughter, who is sitting in a hybrid Anpanman car/shopping cart (the back has room for groceries and the front looks like a plastic toy car that kids sit in with an Anpanman theme) that she will be back soon and to not move. She leaves her 3 year old daughter to watch the microwave while she goes and buys cookies! Finally after waiting ten minutes, in disgust over the bad parenting, I heat my food and go to ride the escalator up to the lunch room (my school is inside of a shopping centre). Except I can't walk up the escalators because two old people are standing side by each blocking the walking lane. In the Kanto region it is accepted practice to stand on the left, walk on the right. In the Kansai region it is the opposite. Slow people walking abreast is bad enough but stationary people standing abreast is that much worse!
I hereby declare that the mother is in violation of the social contract. The honour code that exists between individuals that allow us to live in a society without having to yell at each other constantly.
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Yeah. . . that's what we call Child Neglect. With the number of kidnapping reports out there, I'm surprised people still do this.
Crime of that magnitude is extremely rare in Japan so I think parents may become complacent when it comes to watching over their kids.
I suffered with the blocked walkway scenario for four years at college. After two years I learned to yell like Andre the giant and when encountering said Blockaide of gabbing girls, I would simply shout, "EVERYBODY MOVE" and bowl through them. It's sad I know.. but it actually got me a few dates. Try it.. but not with the old people.
I suffered with the blocked walkway scenario for four years at college. After two years I learned to yell like Andre the giant and when encountering said Blockaide of gabbing girls, I would simply shout, "EVERYBODY MOVE" and bowl through them. It's sad I know.. but it actually got me a few dates. Try it.. but not with the old people.
Sorry... too quick to click and caught the anonymous before the publish.. I'm retarded. But creative.
I work in a department store, where people with large purchases, will commonly ask if the person behind them (who has one or two items) would like to go first. The person with only one item is very grateful. What kind of person would want to monopolize someone else’s time by making them wait in a line that could have been avoided by being considerate. The same thing applies when trying to merge on the express. When traffic is going slow, you let cars in and don’t fight to get ahead. It’s rude, and can cause a collision. I mean a microwave oven is less complicated than a traffic jam, but the principal is the same. Be nice.
People can be rude and you just have to blow it off and hope that there is some sort of just deserts later. Karma is everywhere you are going to be.
When I have to fly and I have to transfer from terminal to terminal, and no one is moving on the automated walkway, I just pick up my phone and start talking into it and say, “You’re having the baby now. I love you and I am on my way!” (It worked really well for my brother-in-law when my sister was pregnant with her son so I started to do it) It works really well and people won’t think you’re being a turd. They think that your wife is having a baby.
Well, here in Finland people rarely, if ever, let others go before them in line. Maybe its just that most Finns dont like saying anything to starnges, Im different in that sence. Also in the escalators, the "rule here is to stay on the right side. If anyone is blocking my way, I just raise my voice "Excuse me" and people move. But I do get a lot of angry looks, even though they know they heve done wrong in away..
Have to agree with Austin, be nice and considerate. We do all live in this same planet!
Was this a dream? It sounds like a crazy dream. But as a mother, sometimes you get yourself into situations where you just don't have any choice but to leave a child alone while you try to do something else. I would never do this in a public place though. Too many horrible people out there.
Also I think you might have seized the moment to watch the child instead of walking away. You know? Maybe you didn't have time, but if the safety of the child was truly your concern . . .
With the state of society at this point, it is way too dangerous to leave a child alone in public. I won't even turn my back on my son, let alone leave him by himself anywhere. I don't see any reason why she couldn't have taken the child with her.
I have to agree Austin, As a pedestrian in Japan legally I always have the right away but more often than not I signal cars ahead of me. I mean they either wait 20 seconds for me to cross or I wait 3 seconds for a car to pass. It just makes sense.
I did certainly watch the child while I was waiting in line but unfortunately I am the scary foreigner than I think most parents want to protect their child from.
"The honour code that exists between individuals that allow us to live in a society without having to yell at each other constantly."
I still yell at people, sometime it just makes your day that little bit better.
I would like to yell at people sometimes but I try to show constraint.
here i go again...
1) the social contract is dead
2) austins idea only works when a) you speak the same language, b) people are actually paying attention to you. which might be why the social contract is dead now that i think about it
3) stand right, walk left, push down. these are the simple rules for all pedestrians.
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