What goes on on tour (you’ve been warned)
Visitors’ rowdy antics have been an eyeopener for the well-behaved Japanese
Warning: If you don’t want to know what really happens on tour, don’t read this. It may offend. We all know now Japan is doing an incredible job hosting this Rugby World Cup, with amazing fan zones and extremely helpful volunteers.
But it turns out that some of the fan behaviour is so foreign that fans may be offending some of the locals.
There have been several stories locally, driven mainly by social media, on the behaviour of fans on trains upsetting the strict rules the Japanese abide by.
For instance, if you smoke on the train, you should not aim your cigarette at others, you mustn’t talk loudly, cross your legs, sit on the floor, or put your feet up anywhere.
You’re also not allowed to walk anywhere except a footpath, and you are definitely not allowed to kick a rugby ball across a busy street at night (as we found out).
But what’s really starting to brass the locals off is behaviour in trains.
There was the human lineout on a train in Tokyo from the French fans after they beat Argentina. The Aussie fans apparently tried to form a human pyramid on the Toho line in the part of another train meant to be for the elderly or pregnant women. And, arguably even worse, a bunch of English fans singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot on a train in Sapporo. What has the world come to? Now, as Kiwis we know that this kind of behaviour is, for the most part, just harmless fun (hell, walk down Auckland’s Queen St on a Friday night and you’ll see what “bad” is) but it seems strictly out of step with how the Japanese like to live.
This is a bit of a contradiction when you see many Japanese businessmen in Tokyo strewn on the ground in the streets after too many sake, unable to make it home until they’ve slept it off. There are also numerous drinkall-you-can packages available which would never be available at home (for $35 you had the choice of beers, highballs and eight bottles of wine that you are free pour yourself).
Not all Kiwis have been behaving well, either . . . Just the other night in Oita, where we are at the moment, some of our crew were sitting in a park next to the hotel when a police car screamed up to the front. The tiny cops got out and were trying to get a rather large, clearly intoxicated Kiwi bloke out of the back.
They couldn’t, so our boys helped out. As soon as they’d got him out, the reception ladies brought out the ever-ready wheelchair to wheel him up to his room, where presumably they dumped him face first.
It’s not only at the watering holes where visitors can land themselves in some, well . . . hot water. Last week I decided to try out an onsen — a Japanese hot spring — only to find that tattoos and bathing suits are banned. Fortunately, I managed to cover up my tattoo with my hair.
For the most part, though, the visitors have been more respectful than I’ve experienced at any other World Cup, and there have been a lot of them — an estimated 400,000 fans from abroad (and a reported 151,000 foreigners in Oita alone).
The Welsh fans have been most noticeable over the past few days, as they prepared for their clash with Fiji last night. And though I can count the Fijian supporters on two hands, I’m really hoping for a major upset.
I’ve seen the way the locals have responded to their team beating more fancied teams, and a Fijian shock over Warren Gatland’s side would see this place erupt.