There were several occasions when strangers tried to have a conversation with me, recognizing that I was Japanese. And I was very uncomfortable and scared every time.
At first, I wondered if I was afraid of men in general, which I realized immediately is not true because I have no problem with male professors at Smith. In fact, most of my professors happen to be men. My favorite professors happen to be men.
So I though a little bit more. I think it is the lack of context that scares me. If I’m being served by a male waiter in a cafe, I know the kinds of behavior expected of each other and we know how to behave. But when a male stranger comes over to me, there is no context to define our relationship between us other than strangers. And that scares me. Even if he says he likes to meet Japanese, I have a good reason to doubt that he might be saying this to rape Japanese girls. If I tell the man, “You’re a stranger, no better than somebody who hates Japanese,” and he laughs and says, “I don’t believe in strangers,” that’s even worse! A stranger not believing in the concept of strangers is the most dangerous stranger to me given that I have no means of verifying who he says he is. Besides, unless I’m in need of help, the most polite thing that a stranger can do to me is to stay out of my life.
That pretty much says why I had a bad experience at Tel-Aviv.
–Asako