American jackass vacationer arrested after carving identify into gate at Tokyo’s Meiji Shrine【Video】

Cops arrest senior citizen who vandalized shrine at some point after arriving in Japan with household.

On Monday, American Steve Hayes arrived in Japan with three of his members of the family for a sightseeing journey. The subsequent day, the household visited Meiji Shrine, downtown Tokyo’s largest Shinto shrine, which is conveniently positioned subsequent to Harajuku Station.

It’s very a lot a normal vacationer place to go to, however there’s nothing incorrect with that. What’s incorrect, although, is to vandalize the place when you’re there, which is what Hayes did when he determined to, utilizing his fingernail, carve his household’s identify right into a picket torii gate on the shrine grounds.

▼ The torii that Hayes carved his household identify into could be seen within the video right here.

The incident brings to thoughts a case from final month when one other American vacationer visiting Japan was arrested on costs of setting a number of fires exterior of houses in Tokyo. However whereas the accused arsonist was a young person, Hayes is much too outdated for his stupidity to be ascribed to youth, as he’s 65-years-old.

It’s unlikely that when the household was placing collectively their Japan journey itinerary they included “Steve reveals up on the information doing a perp stroll on after being arrested,” however hey, it’s usually the least anticipated journey experiences that find yourself being those you most bear in mind.

Oh, and that video of Hayes being taken away? It was recorded at round 4:30 within the morning, displaying that the police felt the offense was critical sufficient to arrest him ASAP. He’s being charged with property injury, and when questioned by police admitted to carving his household identify into the torii.

There are a few cultural issues that this serves as a superb alternative to deal with. When visiting shrines in Japan (and all of this is applicable to Japanese temples too), some overseas vacationers could discover the ambiance much less reverential than what they’re used to at church buildings or different locations of worship of their residence nation or elsewhere on the earth. In day-to-day life, Japanese society is fairly secular, and shrines/temples in downtown areas can generally really feel as very like parks or vacationer points of interest as they do spiritual websites. Streets and pedestrian paths main as much as shrines are sometimes lined with tourism-related amenities corresponding to snack retailers and memento shops, and since such lodging for vacationers (together with Japanese home vacationers) have been the norm in Japan for hundreds of years, one might, probably, come away with the misunderstanding that less-than-respectful remedy of shrine amenities will likely be tolerated.

That, nevertheless, will not be the case in any respect. Even when one needed to make the argument that Japan takes faith much less critically than different international locations, Japan deeply values its historical past and tradition, and it particularly values being courteous and well mannered in public areas. Vandalism, in any type, isn’t one thing that Japan is cool with, and with high-profile circumstances of inbound abroad vacationers indulging in jackassery whereas in Japan occurring with growing frequency, there’s decidedly much less chance of foreigners getting a go for dangerous conduct today.

And eventually, if you will do one thing this silly, not less than man up and write simply your given identify, not your loved ones’s, to keep away from giving the impression that your family are as a giant a ditz as you might be.

Supply: FNN Prime On-line, Teleasa Information
High picture: Wikipedia/Magnus Manske
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