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Location: Near Tokyo, Japan, Northeast Asia
It’s always a surreal thing to look around and see absolutely
NO ONE that resembles you. This was my experience as a Westerner
in Japan (after all Japan is full of well, Japanese). So,
it was no wonder that others would take interest in my appearance
by observing me, even going as far as to watch me in my “natural
habitat”.
Our apartment was in a small city outside of Tokyo,
caught between railroad tracks and an overgrown field. We
taught English at universities in the area and because of
the obscene regularity of our schedules, were prime targets
for area Nozoki (Japanese for Peeping Tom).
Late one Sunday night, one of my roommates was ironing her
clothes and talking to another roommate who sat in the living
room. All of a sudden I heard frantic shuffling about and:
“Get out of here!” I thought someone was shooing
away a cat, OH NO, they were shooing away a real-life nozoki.
A Peeping Tom? How retro! It seems the approximately 18-year-old
Japanese boy climbed the fire emergency box outside our front
door and stretched his body a-la Spiderman across the outside
wall to catch a peek of my roommate in the sultry act of ironing
through our small laundry room window. Our neighbor saw him
when she went out for a cigarette. She screamed for her husband
and the peeper simply walked down the apartment complex stairs
quietly muttering “sumimasen” ("excuse me").
The next day, to our astonishment, we found out this nozoki
had been around for the past three years. We were also told
the “cute” ninja turtle sign 10-feet from our apartment
was actually warning of a pervert in the neighborhood. So,
the company armed us with florescent pink and black rape alarms
purchased at the 100 yen ($1) store. We were also given a
script in Japanese providing phrases like: “Help, I’ve
just been peeped on!” for us to use when calling the
police.
Several weeks later my roommate and I were watching 'Mission
Impossible' in the living room. I panned left to watch my
roommate go and get something from her room when I saw something
black at the window, so I asked “Hey, what’s that
black thing?” She whipped around, eyes widened and let
out a blood-curdling scream, which caused me to yelp and bang
my right leg on the floor, over and over again. I was hoping
to ignite a rescue operation from the neighbors. The nozoki
had struck again (same time and same day of the week as before).
Unfortunately no one came to our rescue, partly because our
next door neighbor is slightly deaf in one ear and our downstairs
neighbor was sleeping off a major hangover.
After this episode, we tried to “trap” the peeper,
by leaving the window shades open and looking “peep-able”.
But no luck!
So, to Western girls heading to Asia - expect to be gauked
at and remember: keep the shades drawn!!
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Travel Writers: First Encounter of the Peeping Tom by
Carey Reed
