The Guy On The Plane

It's been a while. Actually 3 months in England, teaching, acquiring new debts, watching the financial world teeter on the brink of collapse, experiencing the novel concept of the one-day-summer (temperatures suddenly zoom into the thirties for 24 hours then sink into miserable rainy grey the next day.) Anyway.......
I'm back in Mejiro, Tokyo.

The flight was pretty good. That dangerous (anywhere else) trick of sinking a whisky and American, then two large glasses of wine on an empty stomach, then confusing said stomach with a BA meal did it for me. I drifted off into a comfortable daze as 3 episodes of The Simpsons, a kung-fu movie With Jet Li and Jackie Chan, some strange comedy ( Dave????) and a documentary on The Blues flashed by. However............. I was suddenly woken by an extremely loud whisper from the (Japanese) guy sitting next to me) (we were at the front, so just the 2 of us)

' DON"T TOUCH ME!'
"er... what????
'STOP TOUCHING ME. YOU KEEP TOUCHING ME!'
" er.. gomen nasai. But this is a plane. There's not so much room. Anyway you just touched me.
'YOU TOUCH ME 60 TIMES. STOP PLEASE STOP.'
'Er .... sorry but the arm-rest isn't very wide."
'YU STAY YOUR SIDE! OK! I STAY MINE!'
'Er .. OK,OK Let;s do that.'

(5 minutes later)
'YOU TOUCH ME AGAIN! STOP!
'Ok,ok. Maybe I'm gay or something. Jesus!! You never been in a Yakitori bar???? Want me to draw a line down the middle? Just chill out!!!!!!'

End of conversation. We didn't talk for the next 5 hours. Breakfast was a sullen silence. We'll probably never talk again. I sincerely hope so. And I thought Japanese people, given the population density, were used to living in close contact with each other. And that the importance of politeness is to defuse potential conflict in an over-crowded society. (see Steve's forthcoming book ' Yakitori' : 'The Japanese Psyche In Michrochosm: a Socio - Culinary Investigation' )

He was reading something in French as well. Maybe that explains it.