As the number of foreign tourists to Japan soars to record highs, so to do the number of overseas travelers caught behaving badly during their visits. With higher-than-usual cases being reported, the Japanese media has even coined a term for it, meiwaku gaikokujin, which translates as “nuisance foreigner," and the latest case involves a tourist who was seen doing pull-ups on a torii gate at a Japanese shrine.
The incident was captured on film less than a week ago by the woman doing the pull-ups, who shared the video on social media. According to local news reports, the woman is of Chilean nationality and was visiting Japan for sightseeing with her sister when the two of them stopped by a shrine in Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido. This is where one of the sisters pulled herself up on a torii gate and performed dance movements to a popular TikTok song with her chin raised above the lower bar. The other sister also shared a video of herself at the shrine, and she too caused an uproar with viewers as she performed a handstand at the main torii gate at the entrance to the shrine.
The two sisters have a shared Instagram account with over 130,000 followers, and this is where they posted the videos of their shrine visit. It didn’t take long for their antics to go viral, with media outlets in the sisters’ hometown quickly picking up on the story, with one headline reading: “Anger at a Chilean woman who did pull-ups on a Japanese torii."
▼ This news report shows the videos.
The anger came from both inside and outside of Japan, with foreign tourists in Japan even expressing their disapproval, calling it rude and pointing out that shrines aren’t places for this sort of behaviour. Locals were even more incensed, because although shrines have become popular tourist sites, they are holy grounds where everything is considered sacred, and the gods, who are ever-present, can see everything you do.
Handstands and pull-ups are a sign of disrespect to the gods that no Japanese local would ever think to perform on shrine grounds, so this type of behavior from an overseas visitor has been widely criticized as being impolite to the gods, the shrine itself, and the locals and their culture.
▼ Shrines are sacred places where worshippers should bow before entering the torii gate and then walk along one side of the path, as the middle section is the thoroughfare for the gods.
While there is a code of etiquette for proper behavior at a shrine, there’s also a legal code of conduct that is enforceable by law. According to article 188 of the Penal Code, Desecrating Places of Worship; Interference with Religious Service, the following penalties apply:
“A person who openly desecrates a shrine, temple, cemetery or any other place of worship shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than six months or a fine of not more than 100,000 yen. A person who interferes with a sermon, worship or a funeral service shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 1 year or a fine of not more than 100,000 yen.”
While police aren’t currently investigating the matter, the internet police have been out in full force, with the sister who performed the pull-ups being so harassed by angry messages online that she posted an apology on Instagram yesterday. In her apology video, which was transcribed in Japanese below the video, she says she didn’t mean to be rude and that she did the pull-ups without thinking. She also asked that people stop sending her messages and comments.
The offending video has since been deleted from the sisters’ Instagram account, but the damage remains as yet another instance of a “nuisance foreigner” has made news around Japan. Behavior like this paints all foreign visitors in a bad light, and with real legal ramifications for acts that cross the line, it’s important to resist the urge to get that “only in Japan” shot, especially when it goes against the rules of society.
Source: FNN via Yahoo! News Japan
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- External Link
- https://soranews24.com/2024/10/17/foreign-tourist-angers-locals-for-doing-pull-ups-on-torii-gate-at-shrine-in-japan/
32 Comments
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falseflagsteve
This is what happens with all these influencers you see. It’s only going to worsen I’m afraid.
carpslidy
There should update the immigration form
Have you ever committed a crime?
Yes No
Are you a YouTuber?
Yes No
tamanegi
I've got to start filming the locals behaving badly and start a tik tok channel!
SaikoPhysco
Not good... problem is, with millions of tourists you're gonna get idiots here and there. But a real idiotic thing to do would be to print up thousands of large red and white labels with a human figure doing a pull up with a large X over it and sticking them everywhere.
Some dude
There have always been disrespectful and ignorant idiots. The real damage was done when it became easy to be a disrespectful and ignorant idiot and become celebrated for so doing, by broadcasting one's disrespectful and ignorant idiocy to as many people as possible.
Blame the idiots, for sure, but also blame the social-media-enabled "I'm the centre of the universe and any publicity is good publicity" culture.
Moonraker
Is it really desecration though? Wouldn't that include some intent? And who says it is disrespectful to the gods? The gods? I mean, it looks ungainly and out of place compared to usual behaviour but nonconformity is about all we can claim. Nobody was hurt and no damage done over and above usual wear and tear. I'd be interested to know how this could be deemed bad without resorting to "how about cartwheels in a church?" or some such whataboutery.
WoodyLee
NOT JUUST IN JAPAN,
Tourists in general including Japanese behave different while touring, must be the feeling of being in a foreign land or something else !!?
The reason we are reading this is because some of us have nothing else to talk about!???
MilesTeg
Feigning ignorance when she clearly knew better. Over 65% of Chileans are Christians. Does she do exercises and gymnastics in churches? I think not. You have to be some kind of dumb to not make the connection between a temple and a church.
Fighto!
Regardless of the clear disrespect shown in a place of religion, this Chilean woman just sounds like a low-IQ moron.
Who knows how she was able to finance the trip to Japan. Hopefully she never returns.
Jennie
@woodylee
The reason we are reading this is because some of us have nothing else to talk about!??
Actually no, because this website is called Japantoday.
WoodyLee
""There should update the immigration form
Have you ever committed a crime?
Yes No
Are you a YouTuber?
Yes No""
Better yet One More Q?, What's the purpose of your visit? Tourism, Sorry entry rejected.
puregaijin
As a non-Japanese it is always frustrating to see such morons showing up and display their stupidity so proudly. For those who justify saying that locals too behave badly, yes but the vast majority do not and they are not the biggest fans of those locals either. Foreigners displaying such nincompoopery are usually tourists and put the non-Japanese living here under poor light.
Gorramcowboy
Start implementing public lashings or humiliation (rotten tomato throwing) for behaviour like this. Or Tubers and their ilk have their channels deleted instantly on doing anything like this. Most likely the only way they'll learn.
She should be fined and denied any visitation rights for the rest of her life. Don't let the door hit your backside on the way out!
OssanAmerica
Yes it's desecration, which may or may not be intentional.
The Torii in front of a shrine has been around since the 6th century. The earliest known examples are found in ancient texts and historical records from the Nara period (710–794 AD). So it's been disrespectful in Japanese culture for at least 1314 years. People bow before entering and after leaving as a Jinja is where the Kami resides.
If these two dimwits studied a bit about where they were going instead of spending all their brains on coming up with stupid videos for "likes", this problem would not have occured. And yes, it paints a bad image for all foreigners both visiting and living in Japan.
Joker AF
Goog grief, this is not in the slightest bit newsworthy.
It's one young, naive tourist having fun, not realizing how insulting she is being to the locals.
Stand up the first one here who did not do dumb and stupid things in the name of fun as a youth.
Get a grip. There are more important, worthy things to put in the news than this tabloid tripe.
SwissToni
She’s taken the post down now so hopefully she’s got the message. Doesn’t matter whether it’s a religious, historical, or any other site people should use common sense and respect other peoples property. Jungle Jims for climbing on, gates for walking through.
bass4funk
Exactly, another slow news day for the Japanese media. Look, what the girl did was wrong, but to make this a serious news scandal out of this is just over the top, I think what she did was harmless compared to idiots like Johnny Somali who just got paid from seriously agitating people and to the be the absolute worst of the worst. You pull the girl over, explain things to her get all of her info, get her to sign something as an insurance policy and just let her go and we be on our way. We all were stupid, all of us. Simple.
Some dude
Start implementing public lashings or humiliation (rotten tomato throwing) for behaviour like this. Or Tubers and their ilk have their channels deleted instantly on doing anything like this. Most likely the only way they'll learn.
I honestly think that 90 per cent or more of them would, if given the choice of being flogged or losing their channel, take the flogging (as long as someone would record it and upload it to their channel...)
Attention for these people is like air for humans and water for fish.
SwissToni
I really hate predictive text.
リッチ
Likewise I’ve seen an attitude shift from locals who are becoming old and aggressive. It is true the older Japanese get the more bitter they become.
that said. What fools are coming to Japan. I wonder if it was just a tall guy or gal who just was joking around and it was so low he acted like it. Wish he would have fallen on his butt.
Halk
This.
"Excuse me, that's not cool. These are Torii Gates and sacred to Japanese people. Please just walk throiugh them peqacfully. Thanks.'
Done. Move on.
No need to generate more anti-foreigner tourist sentiment and xenophobia than there already is in Japan.
bass4funk
Hate to tell you this, but anti-foreigner and xenophobia trust has been and always will be with us in Japan, doesn’t matter what we do and if we speak fluent Japanese, read and write it, it won’t change the “us vs them” mentality. Some Japanese have a more diverse opinion and many are well-traveled so they will be more understanding and accepting. If a foreigner drinks too much and vomits in the sink of a restroom, the headlines would be “foreigner throws up in sink and doesn’t clean it out” you kidding me. We will always be tolerated but never accepted.
wolfshine
I 100% agree with bass4funk.
Churches in the West have literally been desecrated, burned to the ground, and Priests murdered.
Japan does not have a serious problem with foreigners and the only reason netto-uyoku are making a big deal out of it are because they're that sheltered
Moonraker
And, Ossan, the kami don't like displays of vigour or genkiness? I don't buy it. Many shrines, going back centuries, have backed vigorous and boisterous behaviour, from sumo to dancing. Some shrines are portable, designed to be showcased in an energetic and spirited way, to indicate health, fertility and life. Maybe the kami are bored of overly serious and feeble behaviour. How would we know? A history of ritual really tells us nothing about the tenets of the religion or the gods. But can I presume then that, as long as they bowed at the gate before and after, everything would be fixed and forgiven? But is religion to be reduced to mere agreed-on form, without any interrogation of the meaning or its contradictions?
Some dude
I don't buy the "they're just kids" argument.
We met some friends who were visiting Japan a short while back. They had their two kids with them, who were what you would call the young end of the "social media generation".
We took them to various sites, including temples and so on, and the two kids were superbly behaved. At no point at all did it even feel like they were going to do something disrespectful or embarrassing.
If they can do it, then so can other visitors, most of whom are quite a bit older than them. Age is no excuse.
commanteer
Well, yes. And the reason they are sheltered is because there are strict social rules in place that people follow, making this a fairly peaceful, safe and well-ordered country. If you wait until people are burning churches and killing priests before you raise an objection, you have waited too long.
Moonraker
Unrelated, perhaps, but there is a Japanese expression and guide for behaviour, "Tabi no haji wa Kakisute", which means something like 'nobody knows you when you travel so, no matter how embarrassing, it is just temporary.' Obviously, the corollary is, you may do anything when you travel if you don't know anyone (or don't care what they think).
Some dude
Unrelated, perhaps, but there is a Japanese expression and guide for behaviour, "Tabi no haji wa Kakisute", which means something like 'nobody knows you when you travel so, no matter how embarrassing, it is just temporary.' Obviously, the corollary is, you may do anything when you travel if you don't know anyone (or don't care what they think).
Definitely an expression which predates social media and GPS!
Now it's more like 旅の恥は簡単に消せられません or something along those lines.
Or maybe 旅の恥は「いいね」の原因
nero
This is old news. There is another female tourist doing yoga stretch at Sensoji temple gate in Asakusa, with people around her. Westerners feed on attention, and as someone said the reason they do it is because they see Japan and Japanese as Disneyland and clowns.
Moonraker
Maybe, instead of decrying apparently disrespectful behaviour, Japanese could join with these embarrassing others in celebration of something they probably have in common - a sentiment of tabi no haji wa kakisute. It would open up a path for greater mutual understanding rather than mutual distrust and be better for the world. It just involves finding things in common with the other, which is surely what travel is all about.
Albert
In case people want to know who she is.
https://www.instagram.com/mmgymsisters/
Marimar Perez
She apologized and mentioned she didn't think about her action. That is the same level as I don't remember or recall comments of people who are drunk or whatever.
Antiquesaving
It would have been interesting to have had social media and the Japanese press back in the 1980s as the Japanese tourists ran around.
I remember the problems with Japanese not just entering churches but doing so during Mass including walking right up to the alter to take pictures of the priest, this was such a problem places like Notre Dame in Paris and in Montreal had to post signs and higher guards.
The short memory of the Japanese.