I was walking home from the train station on Sunday night at around 9:30. I had just gotten back from hanging out in Tokyo w/ Taryn (which I will blog about later). I was along the main drag, in a well-lit area, not too far away from my apartment. Two people on bikes, a man and a woman, who looked to be in their late 30s or early 40s were riding behind me. I stepped to the left, thinking that they would pass me on the right.
The man rode up directly beside me and shouted in a heavily Japanese-accented English: "WHERE ARE YOU GOING?", startling me. Before I could form any type of intelligible retort in Japanese, he and his female accomplice had already passed me. She had said something to him, but inaudible to me, as they continued on their way down a side street.
So... I was freaked out by this incident and took an indirect, alternate route home.
It makes me feel only slightly safer knowing that I live close to a police box. I always have this horrible feeling that the fact that I am a foreign woman will always be used against me if there would ever be any kind of... trouble (but that's just my own personal hangup).
Just because you know HOW to say something in English (or any language for that matter), doesn't mean you should say it all the time, because one of those times may just be extremely inappropriate. You will scare the shit out of a well-meaning foreign woman who is teaching your children English. That is all.
Yikes! I would have been shaken up from that comment, also!
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