(I assume the article means "archetype" in the first para. "Stereotype"
only barely makes sense)
It's a curious backlash we are seeing (things are a little more laid back
down here in Sunny Fukkers, but I have been told by middle aged female
friends that they ask people not to use keitai on trains) since the
objection is not just to something that is a perceived nuisance (talking
in public) but to something that is only a nuisance if one has fantastical
beliefs about the electromagnetic affects of OTHER people having phones
switched on in one's vicinity (I.e. not actually pressed up against one's
ear/brain/heart). Phones can have an effect on pacemakers - as can lots of
other things - but the last thing I read on that suggested it was only
under the most extreme conditions. Its citation in railway carriages is to
claim what is in practice an imagined harm.
Neither is it really an issue of "what one can or cannot do in a public
space" (as is the case cited with the school girl who shaves her legs or
puts on makeup) as the use of phones in other public spaces is quite
acceptable.
What was lacking in the faxed comments quoted was any rational
articulation of why x was acceptable and y not. The response was simply
"they must be crazy".
I share the horror at people eating a full course lunch on a subway train
and would cheerfully embarrass the hell out of them as my contribution to
Japanese society, but for the same reason would attempt to sufficiently
embarrass, at sufficient length, any individual requesting me not to send
e-mail on a train (unless they were adjacent to me and had a pacemaker)
that they NEVER dared suggest it again... (Not because I am selfish but
because we MAKE a rational society, we don't just find it - and crushing
prejudices based on irrational pseudo scientific beliefs is a social duty.)
nick
Fukuoka, Japan
[ Did you check the archives? http://www.appelsiini.net/keitai-l/ ]
Received on Sat Jun 30 15:16:27 2001