[/floatr]Popular tarento Yasuko Mitsuura has written about a series of unpleasant experiences she had on a trip to New York. You can read her account in Japanese here.
She writes how she had heard men would flock to help a Japanese girl standing in the city looking confusedly at a map and so set off herself for New York. She says her hopes for the trip were dashed as soon as she arrived at the airport.
She lined up for one hour at immigration but, when she got to the desk, she had made a mistake in one place and was waived away. She admits she was in the wrong but was shocked that she should be chased away like a pesky fly. She tried asking "Pardon?" when she couldn't catch the English spoken at her but received no reply. As it turns out, she made another mistake her second time around and got the same treatment. She notes that she was lining up with a lot of Asians who all seemed to be coughing and sniffing but none were wearing masks which made her feel ill. When she finally got through and lined up for a taxi, she says some Russian-looking family pushed in in front of her.
At the hotel front desk, she couldn't understand the English and got the impression that the staff were fed up with her when they handed over the key. At a nearby convenience store, an old Korean guy seemed to laugh at her which made her feel the world was against her.
The next day, she dressed up smartly and headed to the subway to take a train to MoMA. She stood confused in front of the ticket machines when a man approached her. Would this be her knight in shining armour? No, it was a homeless man asking for money. She went to the museum and spent the whole day without talking to anyone.
On the surface, Matsuura might seem as ill-natured as the behaviour she describes. However, she is a comedienne and may well be writing a humourous account of her woes, contrasting her own disasters with the wonderful time her good-looking friends had when they were in New York. I don't have a good enough ear for the tone of the piece but she might just as easily be making fun of herself and her own feeling of persecution in this fish-out-of water account.
She is also unlikely to be the total rube she makes out, since she attended the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (in one of her routines, she says her parents encouraged her to learn other languages because they thought she was too plain to pick up a Japanese husband and might have more chance with foreigners).
However, a few commenters on 2ch are taking Mitsuura's comments seriously, leading them to either sympathize with her or criticize her for expecting Japanese-style treatment in a foreign country. She plans to continue her story which might make her intentions clearer.
