earning your cue?

[mullyman]

Japan is not as safe as it used to be.

Please, I've been here for 20 years. It's just as safe as the day I stepped off the plane.
MULLY

 

[mullyman]

The same thing could have easily happened over much of the Southwest USA, not with the bowing but with great manners being shown. I found it very funny to go into a convenience store in what had become some very rough looking neighborhoods and have the teens or young men dressed like gang members jump to get a door and be very polite when thanked. When I caught a door for one of them they without fail thanked me, again very politely. After a three or four week vacation there I was a bit embarrassed about how much manners in the Deep South had slipped, not that we don't see them often here but the excellent manners were shown without fail everywhere I went in the Southwest even well off of the beaten path.

Hu

Sure, Hu, there are still spots in America where people still have values but let's face it, it's slipped a lot since we were kids. I'm guessing that you and I are close in age, I'm 42. I remember when I was a teenager in the 80's people my age were going off their nut on how ill mannered we were. I bet my left nut they'd give anything to have my generation back again.
MULLY

 

[mullyman]

On the subject of Japan and low crime rates, my navy buddy is stationed there and he dug the cue story. He told me that one day he parked in kind of a seedy neighborhood and locked the steering of his motorcycle. As he's walking away the keys fall out of his pocket unnoticed. Some 'sketchy looking' dude followed him for like 2½ blocks, finally caught up with him and tapped his shoulder, bowed 'like a thousand times' and handed him his keys.

Too cool.

Ah, yeah, I could rattle off stories like that left and right. The thing is that sure, there are stories of things getting stolen, but the "Things being stolen" stories are the exception and far from the norm. Japanese people have their quirks, I won't deny that, but when it comes to manners they can't be beat.

I bought a ticket at the train station one day and only had a 10,000 yen bill, that's about a hundred bucks. The ticket was about 4 dollars. I put the bill in the machine, grabbed my ticket and walked away forgetting to grab my change. I was on the escalator going up to the train tracks and this guy taps me on the shoulder. I look back and he's holding my change in his hand and told me that I left it in the machine. He said he would have gotten to me sooner but there were 2 people in front of him in line. 2 people passed that money right up. I'm guessing the first one was afraid to talk to me because I'm a big foreigner so just let it go. I really don't know. Still, they could have made off with that money and I never would have known. It just doesn't work that way here.
MULLY
I bought him a coffee out of the vending machine up on the platform:grin-square:

 

[victorl]

That's so true. I've become spoiled playing pool here. It's a nice feeling to just relax focus on shooting pool without having to worry that someone bum is waiting for you to turn your back so they can grab your stuff, or that some loser is gonna try to get the nuts so they can hustle you out of your cash. Although, I do long for the danger and the seediness that attracted me to pool in the first place.

I mean, the guys I play with are so nice and polite that I feel bad winning money off them. That is, until I remember that their joint protectors alone are probably worth three times as much as my cue.