Comments by "Eric Astier" (@ericastier1646) on "Is Japan Really Safe For Foreign Women?" video.

  1. This discussion is going in all directions but there are several good trails. By order of descending importance, this is not Japanese specific, it's coded in our genes to only get involved if it's our inner circle of family and at the most our friends or people we know. When something happens to total strangers in a public place, it's the standard for humans to not get involved, most people will feel shock and fear when they see something really bad unfolding in front of their eyes to people they don't know, but they will do nothing and not feel compassion in the moment. Christians are the only group of people specifically lectured spiritually to act compassionately in such situation (good Samaritan parabola). Asians culture does not have compassion and are not handicapped friendly, they feel it's all fortune good or bad decided by heaven, not their role to intervene. There is also a Chinese trope that many Chinese people will tell you that someone will fake such an accident then accuse whoever helps them to be responsible and seek compensation. I've been told by Chinese to never help people in the street in China no matter what happens. If you go to poor countries sometimes you see Japanese benefactor help non profits groups building a free school or doing something to help the locals. But you will never see Chinese groups doing this. Chinese people do not know any compassion, if they ever help someone it's a Chinese against a foreigner (no matter who is at fault) for xenophobic reasons . Japanese have a different dark side, they despise display of real weakness or of victim suffering. It's taboo and not socially acceptable to look weak in public. It's actually considered appropriate to ignore someone's weakness so as not to embarrass them ! And this can go pretty far ignoring accidents happening to others. Because weakness is considered despicable in Japanese culture and ridicule. For that reason Japanese soldier treated defeated enemy very badly because they could not respect their weakness and thought they should commit suicide to regain their right to respect. Also you won't see many handicaped people in Asia, they get rid of them at birth.
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  2. The first woman being assaulted on the bus by a racist Japanese woman was shocking. It's the same in Korea or in China. If something bad happens nobody wants to get involved especially in China they are afraid of being accused or involed with the crime later.
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