No, not Ringo Starr. In Japanese, “ringo” means apple and tonight, I randomly received an apple from a drunken man on the train ride home. Let me begin telling this random story...
On Thursdays, I work in a north-western part of the city and it’s quite a trek to get there. I not only have to take the subway, but also the Keihan train line. So, as I was leaving work tonight I was all excited because I had plans with some girls at work. We were going to meet up in Namba area for some drinks and dancing. But for some reason, three of my coworkers and I ended up being stuck on the train for approximately one hour. Unfortunately, we didn’t know what was going on because we couldn’t understand the Japanese announcements, but we figured someone had jumped on the tracks.
You’d think the Japanese (commonly known for being efficient) would have some sort of back-up plan for this type of situation, but it didn’t seem like they did. We were left totally clueless and had no idea what was happening. In addition, we couldn’t ask anyone because they couldn’t communicate in English either. Although it was a weird situation, it was very entertaining and I learned just how hilarious sitting on a train for an hour with a bunch of drunken Japanese businessmen can be.
About fifteen minutes after we were stopped, a drunken older man walked into our car. He kind of glared at us and briskly walked past, stumbling on his way. A few minutes later, he came back in and started mumbling in Japanese and we were all laughing because we noticed he had a piece of rice stuck on his face. The people I was with could speak a bit of Japanese, but couldn’t decipher everything he was saying. They got the gist of it though: he liked American movies, thought we were American, and said something about how we shouldn’t be in Japan because we don’t have black hair (he pointed to my coworker’s blonde hair several times and frowned) .We were kind of getting frustrated because he wouldn’t leave us alone after about five minutes and kept talking while other passengers just laughed at the whole situation. That’s one thing about the Japanese—they are very non-confrontational people and don’t like to cause conflict, so they passively sat and watched. After all...it was entertaining for them while the train was stopped.
One of my coworkers started to get annoyed after he wouldn’t go away and went searching for help from a train employee. The man wandered away shortly after and then came back with a crumpled piece of newspaper. It wasn’t just any newspaper—he had drawn the 007 logo on it and handed it to me. We still didn’t know what he was saying, so I just shoved it in my bag and ignored him. After he left for the second time, we locked the door between the train cars so he couldn’t come in again.
Shortly after, he came back again, unlocked the door, and sauntered towards us. This time, he was carrying an apple (who knows where it came from) and he handed it to me explaining something along the lines of: “Apples are good because they have vitamins. This apple is from Hokkaido and if you eat it you will be healthy.” He was also laughing hysterically. I got pretty freaked out at this point—wondering what he had done to the apple (poisoned it? dropped it on the ground?) and also because he was waving a rolled up newspaper in my face. Enraged at the way he was treating me, one of my coworkers began picking a fight with him and luckily, he was scared away (temporarily).
After two of my coworkers got off the train, he came back again. Thankfully, I was still with one other person and we decided it would be best if we got off the train together and took the subway. As we approached our stop, it finally looked like the man was going to get off the train (he had his bags with him), but as the doors opened, he realized we weren’t getting off and he stayed back. So, we got up and walked as far away from him as we could and ran for the subway, hoping to God we wouldn’t bump into him ever again.
The good news is I made it home safely. As for the mysterious apple—who knows where it is. I just hope some drunken businessman didn’t eat it on the way home.
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