It’s a pity that, “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer” doesn’t translate into anything but gibberish in Japanese. The old fart at the coffee shop is staring at me. Normal people here look away once you bust them ogling you like Steven Gawking, but not these old guys. They’re bored and going to the coffee shop and people watching is their low cost entertainment. My initial reaction is to tell Mr. Miyagi that I don’t want to learn the crane technique and I’m glad his wife died. That is just an evil first thought, so I default to what I usually do in these situations; give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

So what possible reason could Miyagi have for this atrocious behavior? Maybe his wife really did die and his only connection to humanity is these brief moments with strangers. Maybe his eyes are shot and, while I made eye contact, he simply saw a blob of whiteness sitting across from him. Maybe he’s been fucked by a system that promised him respect after decades of busting his ass at work, but, once he retired, they changed the rules and everyone makes jokes at his expense. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t give a shit about the rules.

I just fucking hate being stared at. Let me think about that. Why? Maybe it’s because I’m a middle child with five siblings. In our family it was prison rules; if you’re staring, you wanna fight. Damn. That’s more an indictment of my faulty interpretation of the situation than it is a critique of Miyagi’s lack of social grace. Would I have gleefully accepted the gaze of a geezer 40 years later if I hadn’t been raised with psychos?

To me, the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean giving the other person a generous interpretation of their behavior. It’s about questioning the little story I’ve concocted to justify why I feel the way I do. FFS, I love the look of pretty young things when I’m the object of a crisp glance. If I was having a cup of coffee and a 7 foot 5 inch guy sat across from me, I’d probably stare, too.

I can’t say why they do it, but Japanese people tend to give you the benefit of the doubt through their reactions, if not their thoughts. Maybe they do want to kick your ass when you bump into them on the sidewalk, but a “sumimasen” flies from their lips instead. Different culture and it seems to work because they have much fewer problems in the social sphere than we do.

My brother and I were having a jolly conversation on the train a few years back. We got to his station and he got off so I made some stupid faces at him through the window as the train chugged past him on the platform. This pissed off some tiny old man on the train, and he extended his arm so his palm was an inch from my face and held it there.

Somewhat crowded train, so I couldn’t squeeze out of the way. I told him in polite Japanese to move his hand. Nope. Second warning. Nope. Finally, I snapped, grabbed his wrist and forced his arm down by his side. “Raise it again and I’m going to fucking kill you.” (No, I’m not teaching you how to say that in Japanese). He stood there quaking because my face was filled with rage.

Fuck. What am I doing? “I’m sorry. It’s dangerous to have your hand there. The train sometimes stops suddenly.” That wasn’t enough, evidently, because he was still trembling. “We were drinking and may have been talking too loudly. Sorry about that.” At that he apologized to me. By the time we arrived at my station twenty minutes later, I had seen pictures he pulled from his wallet of his wife and kids. In my hand I had his business card with the location of the izakaya he ran. We shook hands as I got off the train.

When I was walking to the escalator a 20 something kid I tapped me on the forearm. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. Good job.” He’d seen the whole the interaction on the train. I wasn’t proud of yanking the old fart’s wrist and maybe I had been acting obnoxiously on the train earlier. I was proud that I gave the old fart the benefit of the doubt and, at least in this case, that caused him to reciprocate with giving me the benefit of the doubt. I never went to his izakaya, though. He was an asshole, but even assholes deserve the benefit of the doubt from time to time.